Gatorland

Gatorland, Orlando, FL

N 28 21.341 W 81 24.245

After a week in Orlando, Florida, you get a bit jaded.  We had done the standard Disney World/Universal tour.  We’d had breakfast with Mickey and Minnie, said hello to ‘Pirates’, dropped by the ‘Tower of Terror’, screamed at ‘Jaws’ , ‘Tour’ed the ‘Star’s, and had ridden the monorail dozens of times going to and from our swanky faux turn-of-the-century hotel.  With our reptilian brains autonomically adapting to the idea that everything is fake, we found ourselves with a morning left before our flight back to California.  “I know”, I said derisively, “Let’s go to Gatorland!”  

Gatorland is a 110 acre old-style theme park located halfway between Orlando and Kissimmee.  It was founded Owen Godwin in 1949 and is still owned by his family.  Gatorland is home to thousands of alligators, crocodiles, birds, snakes, and farm animals.  Attractions include a waterpark, a petting zoo, a swamp walk, and several shows.  The original entrance that housed the gift shop burned down in 2006.  It’s been replaced by a new admissions pavilion and gift shop.  Visitors are still greeted by the world-famous Crocodile Mouth entrance that has ‘eaten’ the guests for six decades.

We posed at the entrance mouth, reveling in the corniness of the whole thing.  First, we went to the Gator Jumparoo show to see the gators leap out of the water to grab dead chickens from the hands of an employee.  We watched rattlesnakes pop a red balloon.  We walked out the swamp walk viewing what seemed to be hundreds of alligators.  Then it dawned on me - these suckers are real!  Seven days of Disneyfication fell away!  We went to the Gator wrestling show.  Again, it was pretty corny but good cracker fun (their word, not mine).  For some reason, we stuck around after the crowd left and were lucky enough to see the ‘new guy’ give a try.  This guy hadn’t been doing it long and he was sweating bullets.  At one point he was lying on a gator with his hands tightly clamping the jaws shut, breathing heavily.  “Now what do I do?” he asked.  Priceless.

As we walked back to our rental car, the derisive commentary had ceased.  We were all genuinely impressed with this old-fashion, low-tech, and – dare I say it – real theme park.

Question of the Day: What's the name of the Gatorland water park?