Photograph: Alligator at Gatorland -Orlando -Florida-8Sept2008.jpg by Jamie Sanford · CC BY 2.0 · Restored from the credited Wikimedia Commons file, normalized to the consistent attraction-card frame and converted to WebP by 1stFlorida.com. Portrait originals retain their complete composition over a softly blurred extension of the same photograph.

Orange County attraction

Gatorland

Orange County · Central Florida

A 110-acre alligator park south of Orlando, family owned since 1949 and older than every theme park in the county.

ABOUT THIS PLACE

Owen Godwin opened Gatorland in 1949 on former cattle land along South Orange Blossom Trail, and the same family still runs it. It predates Walt Disney World by twenty-two years and feels it, in a way that is the point rather than a failing. The 110 acres hold thousands of alligators and crocodiles, including rare leucistic white alligators kept in the White Gator Swamp. The breeding marsh is the part worth the walk, a boardwalk and observation tower over open water where hundreds of wild-behaving alligators lie in the sun. Gatorland also takes in nuisance alligators from state trappers that would otherwise be destroyed. The Screamin Gator Zip Line, added in 2011, runs 1,200 feet over the marsh. A narrow-gauge railroad, the Gatorland Express, has circled the grounds since 1961. Feeding and wrestling shows run through the day, and there is an aviary and a petting zoo. Part of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was shot here in 1984. A fire destroyed the gift shop in 2006 and the park reopened within three weeks

GETTING THERE

Get Directions ↗Official place website ↗

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