We made it to Florida! We arrived at the Spirit of Suwannee Music Park and Campground with about an hour to set up before sunset. Yes, it is of that Suwannee River music fame (“Way down upon the Suwannee River, Far, far away”). The campground is the largest we have been to thus far, with 900 sites; and it was packed with campers ready for a New Year’s Eve celebration.
The campground is famous for its Christmas lights display; a 3-mile ride through some extraordinary Christmas decorations. It also has a smaller walk-through Christmas lights display, which we took advantage of on the Friday night we arrived. We walked around some of the other areas of the campground on the first night, including an outdoor arcade and activity area with entertainment; and we visited the Country Store that is located on the premises.
The second day we were at the campground was New Year’s Eve. We completed our “re-engineering” of our new gas grill to connect it directly to the RV and used our new grill for the first time to grill steaks (our New Year’s Eve tradition). We also sat outside and watched football on our outdoor TV for the first time!
But the New Year’s Eve celebration at the campground was the reason we had chosen this place. There are various musical venues located throughout the campground, with lots of live performances. On New Year’s Eve, the live performance was in the Music Hall by a band called Big Engine. The $75 per couple ticket included the music, as well as a buffet. The band was very good, playing a variety of musical genres. The lead singer also got his two children involved by having them play the trumpet and saxophone for a few songs. We sat at a table with two other couples, who got more animated as the evening went on; partially because we ended up buying shots for all six of us, they eventually bought a round of shots for the table, and a good time was had by all! There was dancing and singing, groups of interestingly dressed women nearby, and some really drunk folks (it was New Year’s Eve after all).
We had our midnight countdown in the Music Hall, then proceeded outdoors for the fireworks display, which did not disappoint. It was a huge and long-lasting fireworks display; and the crowd really enjoyed it.
We spent our third and final day at the campground doing some laundry, eating leftovers, and looking forward to our next adventure.
Review of Spirit of Suwannee Music Park and Campground
With 900 sites, this campground is humongous! The downside to that is the campground squeezes the RVs very close to each other; we did not have much privacy. Because of the size, the campground also rents golf carts to campers to get around and lots of people own their own. With many of the campsites being families, unfortunately there were teens riding around on golf carts at crazy speeds. Whether it was crazy golf carts or New Year revelers, the campground stayed pretty rowdy throughout the days and late into the evenings.
In addition to the Country Store (which was large and carried most of the items you might need to get), the campground has a museum, bird sanctuary, bat house, arcade game room, hiking, horse trails, café (which was closed during our stay), and pool (which was also closed). In addition to renting golf carts, you can rent bicycles, canoes, and fishing gear. We also took advantage of the laundry room while we were there.
We have two small recycle containers, one for cans and one for plastic. We have never seen a SINGLE recycling receptacle in ANY of the campgrounds that we have stayed at in “all of our extensive” RV park travels. We were really surprised that this is the one to treat us!!
We enjoyed our stay and would have taken advantage of some of these other amenities if we were here for a longer stay. We loved that the campground had so many music venues, and it seems to have bands booked to perform many weekends.
We would definitely come again for New Year’s Eve and maybe even just to visit in quieter times.
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