Jungle Adventures

While vacationing down in Florida, we usually schedule a few days to just hang out at the resort, swim, and recoup from our days at the parks. Since it was so cold this year, Chris and I decided to plan an excursion for our boys for one of those recoup days since swimming didn't go over so well with our boys earlier in the week. We decided on Jungle Adventures Nature Park and Zoo, in Christmas, Florida. Let me first interject that yes, the people of Christmas, FL are really trying to live up to the name of their town. Their streets have names like Cupid, Blitzen, and Antler and they have several Christmas craft stores just in the near vicinity of Jungle Adventures. I got a kick out of it and after I started calling off the names of the streets we were passing, Colin started singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. As for Jungle Adventures, it is a swampy nature park filled with alligators, crocidiles, snakes, turtles, tarantulas, birds, monkeys, wolves, foxes, lemurs, deer, panthers, and skunks, among other creatures. We got to walk around the park and check out the animals - it was kind of neat because even though there were fences between us and the animals, the park was built on a swamp so the animals were mostly living in their natural habitat (or as natural as you can get while still behind bars). I thought the alligators were super creepy, lining the river and hiding in the muck. It was pretty cold that day so they weren't very active, but it was still neat to get up close and personal to something so prehistoric. We also had a guide that presented a few of the animals to us and we got to hold a baby alligator, 2 snakes, and a tarantula. Colin was horrified and didn't even want to pet any of the animals, let alone hold them, but Eli was happy to grab them. I can't really fault Colin, I was pretty horrified myself, but I wanted to put on a brave face for the kids. We also got to walk through an "Indian Village" and listened to a presentation about the Floridian Native American culture and history. The presentation went over the kids' heads, but Colin really enjoyed the camp fire and they were both fairly quiet during the presentation. The park also offers a swamp boat tour, but we skipped that because the boys were starting to reach their limit and we wanted to get back to the resort for Eli's nap. Another fun aspect of the nature park was you have the opportunity to feed all the animals. We chose not to, but the animals are very used to humans and came right up to the fence, so we got a lot of up close encounters. It was fun and I think it will be even more fun to take the boys back when they're a little older and maybe a little more brave. :)

You can't miss this place.

Waiting for the first presentation.

Creepy gators

Baby gators

Todd tried really hard to get Colin to at least pet the animals.

Eli didn't mind them.

The tarantula used Chris' hand as a toilet - glad he held it first!

Posing with the gators.

Crocodile

Here kitty kitty!