Arg Matey! Pirate Treasure and Ghostly Tales at the St. Augustine Pirate Museum!

Arg Matey! Today we ventured to the St. Augustine Pirate and Treasure Museum in America’s oldest city and old-time pirate haven, St. Augustine, Florida. Voted the best local attraction in 2011, we had to check this one off our Jacksonville must-see list. We were amazed with the collection. If you love pillage, plunder, chaos, and conquest, this is a museum for you!

The self-led tour was exciting and full of interesting things to see and do. Welcome back in time to the Golden Age of Piracy! The museum is build to look like the inside of a ship. Fire a cannon or flintlock pistol, watch interactive presentations about St. Augustine’s pirate history, and learn about pirate rules. Gaze upon one of two remaining pirate flags and the only known pirate treasure chest still in existence today. Check out lots of real pirate treasure and try your hand at tying nautical knots. There is a scavenger hunt for kids throughout the museum too. The kids loved looking for the skull and cross-bone knobs, which led to secret exhibits. How cool is that!

I loved seeing the actual props from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and Hubby loved the plethora of top-notch antique guns. Alex loved the treasure hunt. Ethan enjoyed firing the cannon. Derek was a bit scared and clung to the stroller. The decapitated talking head was a bit much for him and I kept him out of the Black Beard show. He says he prefers Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Bella was irritated that she couldn’t get out of the stroller.

I learned so much I didn’t know. I never realized that so many pirates frequented St. Augustine, or that Black Beard had 14 wives! 14! How did the man have the time to terrorize the Eastern Seaboard and tend to 14 wives? Hmmm. We went through the museum twice because it was so cool. If you’re a military family, you can pick your tickets up for less at the MWR, which we did before leaving base. It quickly adds up and is a bit steep for a small museum, but you’ll see things here you literally can’t see anywhere else in the world.

The Treasure Shoppe was very cool too and we found several must-have keepsakes. They also sell antique pirate coins and guns (VERY expensive but very nice).

I’m so glad we made it down to the St. Augustine Pirate and Treasure Museum. It was awesome! Visitors of all ages are sure to learn something new. The only downside was that they didn’t allow any photography inside the museum. That’s hard for a shutterbug like me! There were so many moments I would have loved to have captured! Oh well. We have some awesome memories that are sure to stick around for years to come. Arg!

Here’s the museum’s website: http://piratesoul.com/