If there is one thing Florida is famous for, or infamous in some cases, it is alligators. I’ve been here a little over four years and I’ve only seen a handful in the wild, but I have always said the day I see one while I’m out running will be the day I run my fastest mile. Surprisingly, a lot of people come here wanting to see a real, live Florida Gator and there’s one place for that that is better than anywhere else: Gatorland. Opened in 1949, Gatorland is actually the first “theme park” in Orlando. Take that Smiley and Ginger! (Those are the crocodiles on the World Famous Jungle Cruise.)
Gatorland has three different shows a day. Gator Wrestling, the Gator “Jumparoo,” and Animal Encounters. Animal Encounters is where you can get up close and personal with small gators and all sorts of other critters. I don’t really do creepy crawlies, and I’m terrified of frogs, so we skipped that one.
The wrestling show was our first stop of the day, we were a little late so I missed the part where they pulled the kid out of the audience. There’s this little island surrounded by a moat filled with smallish gators. By smallish, I mean like three and a half to five feet and still in Chelsea’s category of “I am not going anywhere near that thing.” So the kid picks a gator and one of the two guys proceeds to haul it out of the water by the tail and then sit on it. He’s got his hands wrapped around its snout, and they do all sorts of tricks with it where he holds it closed with just one arm, just his chin, etc. It was very impressive. What I was not impressed with was his sense of humor. Sexist jokes abound. The one I remember most clearly was, “We know it can’t be a female because we’d never get it to keep its mouth shut this long!” However, it made the jokes about how he can’t get a girlfriend seem much more likely to be true.
From the wrestling show, we headed to the swamp walk which is a long sort of wooden boardwalk through the actual swampland. It was actually a little creepy because you could barely hear the car noise from the road nearby, but nothing else. Right outside the entrance is Bonecrusher II, the son of the largest crocodile ever found in captivity. At fifteen feet long, I’m pretty sure he could crush Smiley and Ginger, and maybe even a boat. That’s ten and a half Duffys long! As you make your way around the park, there’s all sorts of exhibits. We found emus, deer, cows, raccoons, panthers, and bobcats to name a few. There’s several different alligator pools and crocodile pools. I had no idea there were so many different species. There are pools with Cuban, Saltwater and Nile Crocodiles. There is one pool that has forty something gators in it and a female Cuban Crocodile that apparently didn’t get along with the others of her kind. Then there is the alligator breeding marsh which had more than I could count. It’s a lake with a wooden bridge going over it so you can see them right underneath you.
Next on our list was the Gator “Jumparoo” Show. I knew it involved gators jumping out of the water after food. I didn’t realize it involved more redneck humor. Gatorland has got a real deep South, redneck sort of vibe. It would fit right in in East Tennessee right next to the Hillbilly Mini Golf. I don’t see why that theming is necessary, but I’m also not brave enough to hand feed something that could bite my whole hand off at once. Humor aside, the show is a lot of fun, and after seeing just how high those massive gators can jump, these were all six feet plus, I will not be running anywhere near the lake ever again.
One of the leucistic gators.
Our last stops were the big gators housed in the front of the park next to Jumparoo area. They have leucistic gators there, which are different from albino in that they have blue eyes instead of red. So giant white alligators! They looked like something out of a science fiction movie.. Our very last gator was Chester, the “dog eating” gator. Apparently he used to live in Tampa and had a nasty habit of eating people’s pets… So my cat is never going outside again.
Chester The “Dog Eating” Gator
Cost: Gate price is $ 26.99. Online price is $23.99. Florida Residents receive 50% off making it $13.50 per person.
Duration: 4+ hours.
Value: Awesome. I would love to go back. Debating the annual pass.
Add Ons: There’s a ton of them. The most enticing of which is the zip line tour over the pools of gators. Fun fact: Gatorland has one of the only disability accessible zip lines in the country!
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