This is our third holiday to Orlando, so I wanted the kids to experience something different. I don’t want it to be just about the theme parks every time, I love adding some variety. So, I decided to book a trip through Orlando Attractions to Wild Florida and paid to include the hour airboat ride. It set us back £188.48 for the four of us. But it also included the transport with Gray Line, entrance into Wild Florida, some gator food along with the hour air boat ride. In terms of tips Gray Line recommend 2 dollars per person for the driver and the same if you have a guide on the trip too.

It’s quite a short trip, you leave at 8:30am, we were picked up from Pointe Orlando. We then left the attraction at 1pm. I was worried we wouldn’t have enough time to see everything. But it turned out to be plenty of time to take in the attraction and have ice creams! The ice cream was good. We chose the English toffee flavour which was delicious. Plus, they were HUGE! They cost 6 dollars each, but for the size it seemed reasonable.

Airboat Ride

The air boat ride was the highlight for the boys it goes quite fast and we got to see a gator in the wild and an eagle trying to keep hold of his fish from a tag team of two Caracara. An opportunist vulture arrived but he was just hopeful of leftovers he didn’t add to the drama of the scene!!! Whereas the Caracara were determined to try and steal the fish. They are much smaller birds but very aggressive.  Fortunately, the eagle managed to hang on to his dinner.

We did tip the air boat driver but not many other people seemed too. It’s hard keeping track of who you should and shouldn’t tip when in the US, as the last thing we want to do is cause offense.

Feeding The Animals

We bought three seed popsicles for 5 dollars for the aviary. We had really enjoyed this experience in Gatorland back in 2018. But I prefer the set up in Wild Florida, less birds to feed (although more variety) however they have somewhere safe to get away from people.

The gator food that came with the trip would have cost 5 dollars. You could buy more if you enjoyed feeding the gators. Or you can spend 10 dollars and do fishing with the gators (food on a line to see them jump for it!).

You can also feed the farm animals, but we didn’t bother as that is something we have done countless times at home. I really liked the variety of animals in Wild Florida we were introduced to some we had never seen before. Each of the enclosures seemed to have lots of toys to enrich the animal’s lives which was nice to see.

The boys liked holding a baby gator.  Meet Fluffy.

It was nice to have a half day trip after two busier days at Busch Gardens and Aquatica. It’s good to plan slower days in your itinerary, as you can soon get worn out if you don’t!