(Note – this post first appeared on my old blog, Straight On Till Morning, on January 23, 2014.)

I had so many photos from my stay at the St. Francis Inn in St. Augustine that I decided to do a separate post about the room I stayed in! If you missed it, you can read about my general experience there by clicking here!

I’ve definitely had experiences where I book a room that looks awesome online, and then nothing like the photos in person. (Who remembers my experience in Niagara Falls? Yikes!) I was so happy to open the door to the Garden Hideaway and find that it looked just how I expected! Seriously… here’s the image from the inn’s website:

Got that mental image? Keep it in mind as I show you my photos of the room!

My main reasons for picking this room out of all of the choices at this bed and breakfast were that I like the color scheme (it’s bright and airy and just a little bit beachy), and that the Hideaway is in a separate building from the rest of the inn, so it’s nice and quiet, and a bit more private. (Hermits unite!)

This is the main room of the suite. The bathroom is behind me here, and the room with the big garden tub is through that archway. You can just barely see the door that leads to the stairway outside to the right of the arch. It’s not a huge room, but it’s definitely a comfortable size for two people. And if you scroll back up a bit, you can see that it looks exactly like the photo on their website! (The bedspread is much prettier than it looks in my photo.)

The bed was soft and comfy with tons of pillows – you could practically build a fort out of them! All of the electronics were up to date (So many remote controls! One for the TV, one for the radio, one for the AC/heater in the bedroom, another remote for the climate control in the tub room…) The white thing you see below the TV is a mini fridge (where we sadly left behind our delicious leftovers from dinner when we left. Oops!).

Wondering what that is that you see sitting on the bedside table?

Oh, you know, just a delicious bottle of cream sherry that comes in every room. I don’t think I’d ever actually tried sherry before (I tend to just think of cooking sherry, which isn’t that appealing), but I had to sample it in the spirit (pardon the pun) of free booze, and was surprised that I really liked it!

I wanted to include at least one pic of some of the cute details in the room. The flowers are simple, but they’re fresh, which is such a nice touch! And I love the little Santa statue. If you pay attention to the room photos, you’ll spot little dashes of Christmas cheer here and there. I thought that the holiday decorations were perfect in terms of amount – there were just enough to make it feel festive, not so many that it felt overdone. Plus, they fit the color scheme and feel of the room. Love it!

I didn’t take any photos of the bathroom, but I have to tell you guys that I was totally obsessed with one of the soaps in there! I almost never use hotel soaps since they tend to be pretty blah, but this one is awesome! It has an amazing scent, and can also be used as a shampoo. (Yep, I tried it, and yes, it was great!) There’s also a bottle of shampoo/conditioner combo in the room, but I didn’t get around to trying that one. I believe that their soaps are available in the lobby gift shop – I should have picked some up! The shower had one of those spectacular giant rainfall shower heads, and there was a handy hairdryer under the sink.

Oh, you guys, this room! This is the first thing you see when you walk in the door to the Hideaway. I can’t tell you how awesome it was after a long day of walking around St. Augustine to slip out of one of the inn’s comfy robes and into this giant jetted tub! And as if the big, bubbly tub wasn’t enough on its own…

You can watch TV or turn on the fireplace while in the bath! The electric fireplace was so amusing (to me) – There’s a remote control that you can use to turn on and off the flame effects, and set the level of heat it puts out. Awesome to have on when you get out of the tub and want to be warm while you wrap back up in your robe! (I’m not a TV person, but I still think it’s cool to have the option!)

Had to include these two pics – I love the tile signs outside of each room! Rooms with names are just so much more fun than room numbers.

And finally, this is what’s directly below the room. It’s a totally separate courtyard area from the one near the lobby, which I didn’t realize at first. You can also borrow one of these bikes to explore St. Augustine! If you scroll back up to the official photos, you can see the stairs that are out of frame to the left of this photo; those lead up to the room. (Just a note – there are no elevators here because hello, it was built in the 1700s, but there are a few ground floor rooms in the main building, so be sure to book one of those if you can’t do stairs.)

If you want to check out rates and details, the official page for this room is found here.

I’d love to stay in this room again if I return! I loved that they managed to find a way of decorating that felt clean and well-maintained without taking away from the historic feeling of the inn. (For example, the furniture isn’t modern, but it’s also not worn down). It felt a lot like staying in a guest room at a friend’s house instead of the generic feel of a regular hotel room.

I’ll throw this photo in here since I forgot it in my first post, but this is taken in hallway on the 3rd floor of the main building. I wish I’d had the time to see if I could peek into some of these rooms! That room at the end of the hall on the right is supposedly haunted by the ghost of a servant girl who lived there ages ago!

If you have any questions about the room or the inn in general, feel free to hit me up in the comments or email!

There were some great comments that I didn’t want to lose on the original post on my old blog, so I’ve brought them over here via screenshot!