For years, infact ever since we have owned our villa, we said that we would go to visit Gatorland, mainly because our youngest wanted to, and then he didn’t, and then he did, anyway, this time we didn’t give him the choice, we told him, and his big brother, and his big brothers girlfriend, that, this is where we are going today.
Got to Gatorland and there was a small queue to get in but not a real problem and immediately we are surrounded by pools with Gators of all sizes in them from tiny babies, to huge man eaters and quite a lot of the viewing areas under shaded walkways with lots of photo opportunities.
A quick spin round to see what was available to view and what shows where happening and our lads wanted to feed the Gators, so we enrolled them for that, but in the meantime there was a Gator wrestling show to watch, in this one of the staff pulls a gator from an enclosed pool and performs various tricks like showing the lack of power in a Gators jaw when opening it, the amount of power in their jaws when closing it’s mouth and the state of stupor that the gator goes into when turned on it’s back, then showing how easy it is to wake them back up.
We then had time to fit in a walk around the swamp area before the lads had to be at the feeding experience rendezvous point. I didn’t think that a swamp could be so interesting but take my word for it, it was with huge frogs, various snakes and of course the flora and fauna, including the huge but hurricane affected trees. At various points around the ground there were Macaws, Budgies, snake and Gator interaction points and ample photographic opportunities.
The lads went and did their Gator feeding experience which consisted of them getting meat from a bin and throwing it at a Gator of their choice from about twenty assembled animals, and of course another photo opportunity. Then it was time for the Gator jumping show, this was most entertaining where a couple of handlers pretend to be rednecks on a trial for a job as a Gator wrestler at Gatorland, making the Gators jump as high as they can and the audience shouts its support for who they think did the best job who is them employed as a Gator wrestler.
Known as the best half day out in orlando, it's a great experience for all the family.