Wild Florida: Airboat, Gator & Drive-Thru Safari Park Adventure

Written By: Gail Clifford | Published By: Weekend Notes | February 2, 2023

The Wild Florida attraction in Kenansville, Florida is worthy of the hour’s drive southeast of Orlando to experience an Airboat ride, explore alligators in their natural habitats, and drive through their animal-packed safari.

For best time management, you’re going to want to go early and get on the first AirBoat ride you can. The roads to Wild Florida go down to two lanes and many parts are under construction so be sure to leave yourself adequate time to get there.

Choose between the 30 and 60 minute Airboat. Both have advantages. I don’t know that you can ever be out on the water for “too” long and the boats during our visit went in two different directions. If you’re not a fan of “bumpy” water or of noise (despite headphones), take the shorter trip.

Airboat Tours
Wild Florida’s primary attraction must be these delicious Airboat Tours. They offer airboat rides, day and night, that offer a true view of untouched wild Florida. It could be 1923 or 1823, it is that protected an area around Lake Cypress.

Captain Mark knows this area well and is great at spotting the local wildlife. He found us a nest of baby alligators almost immediately and taught us that the baby gators may stay in the nest for up to 3 years as mama protects it from predators like the blue heron, bass, and even other alligators. At 3, they’re more likely to eat their new siblings, so mama will push them from the nest and if they refuse? She may eat them herself to protect the babies.

The blue heron is beautiful, the bald eagle majestic, and the nest of alligators hard to see and endlessly fascinating. It’s a not-to-be-missed adventure.

But what do you not expect to see on an airboat ride on the southern lakes in Florida? Cattle.

That’s right, cattle.

This whole area once belonged to the ranchers and cowboys. In order to confirm that this waterfront property could never be sold to become lakefront homes, the state of Florida bought the land with the ranchers receiving the right of passage to let their cattle graze along this area. Two caveats. One, to round them up, it had to be on horseback “the old-fashioned way, never with a motorized vehicle” and two, if the ranch land ever sold, the boundary became a “hard” one with no continuation of the access to future non-ranch owners. There will never be a beachside resort with the current restrictions in place.

The vegetation lush, the trees scraggly, the airboat fast and bumpy and loud, it ended all too quickly with a return to the dock and backing in.

Captain Mark did a great job from the safety explanation drill to the steering of ship to setting our expectations to spotting the animals.

Animal encounters
Inside their “Gator Park,” Wild Florida offers a variety of unique animal encounters. This wildlife area is like a fun, exotic zoo focused on alligators. Walking along the dirt path, it was important to stop at each hut to see what was contained there. I’m glad I asked about how to best see the shows.

From the 10 am Airboat ride, the 30-minute one, you can exit the gift shop and head into the Gator Park and find the 11am show to the left, an 1130 show further down to the left to feed the gators (one staff member’s top pick) then right for the exotic pets and Fluffy the alligator.

Pro Tip: Keep your phone set to video after the show where you’ll meet Fluffy. I really wish I’d videoed the “See you later, alligator” the animal handler did to end the show. It’d be a cute meme. (and if you catch it, please send it to me!)

When you watch them feed the alligators, you’ll see how alligators are blind to things in front of them with an eye located on either side of their head so they use the senses of sound and touch from the snout to leap for the food hovering above them.

The alligators, from Fluffy to the albino alligator to all of those involved in chasing the chicken during the feeding show, were majestic and the species older than dinosaurs. I’m glad the instructors and guides teach people avoidance. Know that alligators are afraid of humans, too. As long as you don’t approach or provoke them, there’s no reason for them to come after you.

Away from the shows, they’ve created enclosures that mimic the animal’s natural environment and developed activities that keep their minds stimulated. You may be amused by or even envious of the creatures chilling out in their hammocks.