Florida Flyers IR training review

[maximus610]

Hi all,
got my IR in April this year at Florida Flyers in St Augustine, US. I've already been a FAA PPL holder and also decided to do an FAA IR.
One of my friends recommended me this school and after some research and preparing I stepped up.
It took me 3 weeks to complete my training (from which one week was only in simulator due to airplane maintenance).
I was lucky to get a good and involved instructor who just pushed me to work hard and tried to be as fast as possible teaching me thoroughly all the stuff required for a successful check-ride.

Good things:

-friendly staff: always answered my e-mails before my arrival, bilingual front-desk (German/English), always helpful to point you accordingly to your needs;
-friendly and helpful instructors always keen to answer your questions;
-the quite busy airport with 3 runways, a lot to learn, though;
-many training flights done in actual IMC;
-brand new facilities: study room with notebooks connected to internet, cosy and modern lounge;
-in house test-center for written tests and free online test-preparation on each school's computer/notebook;
-approved simulator, which saves some money overall for the IR training;
-pay as you go facility and no credit card fees;
-various airplanes (for all kind of budget);
-good maintenance: their staff are doing great job keeping some old planes in excellent flyable condition;
-for those with tiny budget: cheap hostel and possibility to buy a cheap bicycle;

Bad things:

-fuel surcharges: it cost me approx $10 more for each hour I've flown in the plane the school advertised (total approx $400);
-pre and post flight time of 0.3h for each airplane flight, no matter received you a proper (de)briefing or not;
-the shelf with pilot supplies (charts, books, plotters etc) had never a price on it, being required always asking the price at the front desk for each item;
-the school is comprised mostly of German speaking students (most of them for PPL and BFR) and Egypt/middle east students (Airline Career Program).The latter barely said "Hi" to the former and were always noisy in the study room despite the rules;
-sometimes the maintenance may take longer than usual and if you don't want to fly other airplanes (price or type reason), you can be stuck for a while (in my case I used one week of simulator towards my training);

So, I would recommend this school for all who wants to get their IR in 2-3 weeks.
Don't forget, the key of success is studying hard (the practical exam, incl. oral part, was not easy at all) and try to be prepared for training before your arrival to the school (lot of free study material on faa site and free online question bank).

Greetings,

Maximus