Gatorland Zoo

Gatorland Zoo

Orlando, Florida

Alligator Capital of the World!

Date of Visit: Saturday, June 26, 2011

For times and ticket information, Check out their site!

So its been awhile since a real review post! My bad-- have a lot going on with Noland on the job search and I am possibly starting grad school! But about a month a go, we went to Gatorland! I loved it! I've never seen so many gators and I got some GREAT pictures! Noland got bored after a while because he said, "its just gators, when you've seen one, you've seen them all." But, I was just amazed at the huge ones. So on that note, here are the Highlights!

Highlights: When you first walk in they have an area full of baby-ish (probably 2 or 3 year old) gators! There are tons of them! That was really cool! We immediately went to the Gator-wrestlin' show! The guys who put on the show were really funny and I almost feel like I could wrestle a gator after watching them -- they made it look a lot easier than it probably is. After the show, we headed towards the trail which took you to all the crocs! I never knew the difference between crocs vs gators but now I do... the snout/nose is a lot skinnier on crocodiles! The Nile crocodiles were huge and fascinating, I could watch those things sit still all day, they were soo big! They had huge tortoises too, they were neat to look at! I really liked the gator feeding area but was a little afraid for my life there because you are able to get so close to the gators. And finally the white alligators were really cool too.

Pictures:

gator wrestlin show

gator feeding! 

This was something you don't see often-- crocodie and a gator hanging out. Who knew they were friends?

This gator was so big and fat -- the picture doesn't do him justice 

One of the white alligators. It was not albino but some other rare type of alligator which is white with blue eyes.

baby gators 

This is "Chester" the Big Dog Eater! He loved eating dogs in Tampa, FL. At 13 1/2 feet long and 1,000 lbs he could put away some "hounds". Gatorland saved him from the trappers who wanted to make a suitcase out of him. He doesn't get a long with other gators, so he gets his own cool bachelor pad with a private pool. 

The Nile Crocs! They were massive! You can only tell that one of them is massive here but all of them were HUGE. 

Another Croc-- kept staring at me. 

giant tortoise!

parrots.

Gatorland also had a petting zoo area with goats etc for kids and this cool area with parrots. All in all, it was a great half day experience.

Disappointments: Well this would be obvious. There is NOT a lot of *variety* of animals at Gatorland. Its pretty much gators -- but then again, what do you expect? It is called "Gator"land. Its really affordable and a fun day for kids who have never/rarely seen an alligator. I loved it because even though, I'm from Florida, there were great picture opportunities and the gators were so close, you could almost touch them, but you couldn't. The variety was really the only disappointment. All of the cages were well maintained and I felt very safe. Just after about an hour or so, you are kinda like, "oh, theres another gator" haha. but it was a great time and I will probably plan on going back there with my future children!

We gave this place a 3 out of 5 elephants!!

It was a great day! You should check it out!

Signing off ♥jen