In case anyone was wondering...I DID the airboat ride and survived!
Sunday March 10, 2019
As planned we got up early this morning. Well some of us did...and some of us forgot about the time change and...didn't. My dad decided not to join us so it was my mom, DD (age 13) and myself, set out around 9am this morning to head over to Everglades Holiday Park, which is about an hour or so from my parents' place in Deerfield Beach/Boca. I attempted to navigate using Waze while my mom drove. There were a few near misses with the exits from one freeway to the next but we made it! When we arrived I saw a huge line and feared we had missed rope drop...er...park opening! No one but you DIS folks understand the importance of this I don't think. It applies to pretty much any tourist attraction anywhere, and especially during prime spring break season. ANYWAY...we saw a line...
We went in the office where you buy the tickets. Even though the website said you could make reservations and buy tickets online, when we called the girl on the phone sounded pretty flaky and said it was not necessary. I was very skeptical, but since we weren't really sure what time we'd (I) would be able to drag everyone out of bed, we didn't really want to commit to a time in advance anyway. We asked at the office about the animal encounters and they said "perfect, you can go in 5 mins" uh ok, great!! So off we went.
We had our own little private animal show!! This was seriously cool! And it was not even crazy expensive - $25 each...I thought that was pretty reasonable for the chance to get up close with a few creatures and learn a few things. We got to hold and take photos with a big snake, a baby gator (with its mouth taped shut - which they assured us was not actually stuck to its snout, like a sock really) and a brown skunk!! We also got to see a tortoise and a possum. Not only did we get free prints of the photos, the digital downloads were only an extra $10 which I also thought compared to some places was very reasonable. The possum was my favourite - he was cross eyed and had the funniest expression! Unfortunately they wouldn't let us take pictures of that one...not sure why...maybe he was shy.
Next my mom twisted my arm to get tickets and just suck it up and do the airboat. I was pretty nervous but decided to give it a shot. When the driver first started to giv'er I was hanging on for dear life, and man those things are loud. But after I got used to the feeling it was actually pretty cool. Really smooth. He only gunned it for about a minute and then slowed down so we could look around and he pointed out plants and wildlife. Of course everyone was most interested in getting up close to gators so that's what he focussed on most. We saw two huge ones very close to the boat and the driver circled a few times so everyone could see them. We also saw some cool birds and really pretty trees and plants.
Soon we were back on dry land and it was time for the Gator Boys show. Basically one crazy guy who held a gator different ways...with his chin...with his hands...held him up and down and explained how most of the gators at this park were rescues because they were what Floridians apparently call "nuissance gators" whereby they had been found in actual residential neighbourhoods or eatings pets and stuff...and would otherwise be euthanized if they weren't trapped and brought to the Everglades for shows. Also apparently Gators if they have been fed by idiots (humans) they will roam back to wherever they were last fed even if they are driven miles and miles away...hence...they become a bigger nuissance. Anyway...the show was informative and pretty cool.
We really enjoyed this place. It was a low key activity for us and something I wish we would have discovered before what might be our last time in this area for a while. Oh well, better late than never! It was lunch time, so we decided since we were already fairly far South, we'd go check out another new to us place, Coral Gables in Miami. We had heard it was a cute little area with great restaurants and such. We headed for the centre of it and parked, and came across a little cafe called Threefold which ended up being really great. Although we were all pretty hangry by this point so any food would have been good I think!!
After getting caught in some Miami traffic we headed back North and are now hanging for a bit before trying to figure out dinner!!