Visiting Jacksonville this weekend rant

[jaxjaguar]

I came back to Jacksonville for the game tomorrow night, but need to rant a little. I'm staying in a hotel downtown and have some friends with me. We got here about 3pm and went to Sweet Pete's, then I tried taking them to the Cummer museum, but it's closed. I started looking online to see what we could do downtown and aside from Christmas plays there's literally nothing open that's touristy... What can we do?? Why is everything closed at 4pm on a Saturday before a game? /rant

[jake_jax]

MOCA is open until 5pm, there is the Landing. Take a Water Taxi ride, walk the new Riverwalk. Have drinks at River City Brewing or check out the Volstead or Dos Gatos

[tufsu1]

let's see...show at the TUPAC, entertainment at the Landing...live music at multiple bars....seems like there's stuff to see and do downtown tonight.

[Overstreet]

 I never would have guessed a Jaguar fan here for the game would be upset because the Cummer wasn't open.

[BridgeTroll]

Need to rethink that stereotype?

[marty904]

I came back to Jacksonville for the game tomorrow night, but need to rant a little. I'm staying in a hotel downtown and have some friends with me. We got here about 3pm and went to Sweet Pete's, then I tried taking them to the Cummer museum, but it's closed. I started looking online to see what we could do downtown and aside from Christmas plays there's literally nothing open that's touristy... What can we do?? Why is everything closed at 4pm on a Saturday before a game? /rant

Taking the original post/poster seriously... I +1000 this rant!
I've been here for 2 years now; own a business downtown; live downtown; and just this weekend I was talking about the very same thing... Every weekend, I am trying to get out of Jacksonville and go somewhere else because there is absolutely nothing to do here!  You can only go to RAM and the Jax Beach bandshell so many times before it gets boring.

[Adam White]

I came back to Jacksonville for the game tomorrow night, but need to rant a little. I'm staying in a hotel downtown and have some friends with me. We got here about 3pm and went to Sweet Pete's, then I tried taking them to the Cummer museum, but it's closed. I started looking online to see what we could do downtown and aside from Christmas plays there's literally nothing open that's touristy... What can we do?? Why is everything closed at 4pm on a Saturday before a game? /rant

Taking the original post/poster seriously... I +1000 this rant!
I've been here for 2 years now; own a business downtown; live downtown; and just this weekend I was talking about the very same thing... Every weekend, I am trying to get out of Jacksonville and go somewhere else because there is absolutely nothing to do here!  You can only go to RAM and the Jax Beach bandshell so many times before it gets boring.

Downtown is way better than it used to be. But there are only so many options if you don't want to go to a bar. And yeah, there might be live music, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's to your taste.

[Noone]

I came back to Jacksonville for the game tomorrow night, but need to rant a little. I'm staying in a hotel downtown and have some friends with me. We got here about 3pm and went to Sweet Pete's, then I tried taking them to the Cummer museum, but it's closed. I started looking online to see what we could do downtown and aside from Christmas plays there's literally nothing open that's touristy... What can we do?? Why is everything closed at 4pm on a Saturday before a game? /rant

....What can we do?? Give me a call 904-434-0839 and I will show and tell you about Downtown District RICO loop in a kayak that you won't FIND in any list that is supposed to be promoting our St. Johns River our American Heritage River a FEDERAL Initiative in our new 2014-560 zone. A bucket list activity that creates a memory that will last a lifetime.

Visit Jacksonville!

[thelakelander]

I came back to Jacksonville for the game tomorrow night, but need to rant a little. I'm staying in a hotel downtown and have some friends with me. We got here about 3pm and went to Sweet Pete's, then I tried taking them to the Cummer museum, but it's closed. I started looking online to see what we could do downtown and aside from Christmas plays there's literally nothing open that's touristy... What can we do?? Why is everything closed at 4pm on a Saturday before a game? /rant

Taking the original post/poster seriously... I +1000 this rant!
I've been here for 2 years now; own a business downtown; live downtown; and just this weekend I was talking about the very same thing... Every weekend, I am trying to get out of Jacksonville and go somewhere else because there is absolutely nothing to do here!  You can only go to RAM and the Jax Beach bandshell so many times before it gets boring.

Depends on what you want to do and get in to. Maybe these old articles will help fill extra time in the future:

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2014-jan-10-free-things-to-do-in-jacksonville

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2014-nov-10-more-free-things-to-do-in-jacksonville

[jaxjaguar]

I appreciate your post Lake, sadly as a former downtown resident and frequent reader of this forum, I actually checked those pages out after we checked in to our hotel. Unfortunately the earliest you can check into the hotels downtown is 4pm. So after we had lunch at the beaches, bought some "beachy" presents, went to Sweet Pete's and checked into our hotel everything near us was closed.

We wandered around for about 2 hours hoping to find something open along the way, before heading back to the hotel to watch tv since there wasn't anything close by to do. We tried to skyway across the river [closed], walked under/over the Main St/past fountain to the Landing [dead/mostly closed], headed up Laura to MoCA [closed], down to the Elbow [dead/closed], over to the the Fire Museum [closed], back towards the hotel to see if MoSH was open [closed]... By that point we gave up and decided eating and drinking were the only things to do downtown after 4pm. My friends originally wanted to stay a while after the game on Sunday, but after that experience they just wanted to leave rather than walk around for 2 more hours only to see everything was closed still.

As a former resident I really want downtown to be successful and a destination. As of right now there's little to no reason to make a weekend trip for an event, as by the time you arrive you may be able to do one thing if you arrive early.

[Tacachale]

I feel you. Whenever I bring people Downtown I make sure to have a plan first, as it's too slow to be able to count on. The museums in and near downtown are good, but yeah, they close at 5 or 6 (though that's pretty typical anywhere). But you weren't far from 5 points, King Street and San Marco Square, where there would have been more to do both Saturday and Sunday.

[thelakelander]

DT Jax isn't a 24/7 type of place at this point in time. I think most places on the linked lists are outside of the actual central business district.  Yet, there's plenty of stuff you can get into when combined with the neighborhoods surround it.  It really depends on what a specific group is interested in.

[fieldafm]

Mayor Browns approach of getting out of the way of events organizers should be continued.

Except that in reality... this never started to begin with. It was FAR more difficult when Special Events and Risk Management changed leadership from the Peyton to Brown administration.

[thelakelander]

Downtown died years ago. Even with special events, it will be a while before it becomes a 24/7 type of scene.....if ever.

[Tacachale]

Downtown died years ago. Even with special events, it will be a while before it becomes a 24/7 type of scene.....if ever.

Yeah, and I don't think special events are something we're lacking now anyway. Events seem to have no trouble drawing a crowd when they're well run, and Downtown tends to come alive when they happen. It's the days that there are no events that it's dead, which is most of the time.