Any recommendations for Everglades Boat Tours?

Helenk

Sun, Feb 04 2024, 10:45 am

Hi, all. Planning a trip to the Boca area. Anyone have any personal experience with any boat tours? We’d like an immersive experience, natural habitat, not a contrived, ‘zoo-like’ setting. Want to see gators, birds, other wildlife in their natural settings. Prepared to travel around an hour. Anyone have recommendations?

amother

Heather

Sun, Feb 04 2024, 11:31 am

I did two different ones I can’t remember the names. One was an enclosed airboat one was an open airboat. Liked the open one much more. That’s the extent of the guidance I can give

amother

Chocolate

Sun, Feb 04 2024, 11:45 am

Look into loop road. It’s a long road the goes through the Everglades that you drive in your car. So it’s free and you get to see a lot of wildlife. There were alligators just sitting on the road.

miami85

Sun, Feb 04 2024, 2:18 pm

We did this one https://www.evergladesholidayp.....D_BwE

It was an hour+ airboat ride on the water. They do caution that because it is a "natural environment" there's no guarantee what if any animals you will see during the tour, so I don't know if it was the season or the timing--we went early in the morning in July, we didn't see SO many animals, but we saw a few interesting birds. My son insists he saw an alligator in the water--but there's no way to prove him right. There was small petting zoo at the end where you can hold a gator and get a picture and a gator show included in the price so I feel like we got our money's worth. It was my son's birthday trip and he was happy.

Helenk

Sun, Feb 04 2024, 2:49 pm

miami85 wrote:

Thanks so much for your feedback. We actually tried this one a few years ago and were quite disappointed. Almost no gators. I’ve heard that this is not the best area to see them in their natural habitat. The show was nice and the animal encounter fun, but we wanted to see tons of alligators.

shanie5

Mon, Feb 05 2024, 10:22 pm

Gators are night creatures. So the likelihood of seeing "tons of gators" during the day is unrealistic.
We did Sawgrass airboat tour 2x. First one we did see an aligator. Second one we weren't so lucky. But the ride was enjoyable.

daffys

Mon, Feb 05 2024, 11:46 pm

shanie5 wrote:

We also did the Sawgrass tour and got to see an alligator. They have a small exhibit right next to the dock and they let us hold a baby gator.