We recently took an airboat ride out of Christmas, Florida from Airboat rides at Midway. We have taken other airboat rides out of Christmas but this one was our favorite by far.
We were pleasantly surprised when we arrived to find they had some reptiles for viewing, beautiful birds where we could hold and interact with them. The birds actually reached out as they wanted to be held and seemed to really like the attention. We also got to hold a baby alligator and felt that these animals were all very well cared for.
The Captain was great, he took the time to allow us to get close to nature for some great photo opportunities, he was extremely knowledgeable of the area and its history, and the environment that we were experiencing.
We rode out on the St. Johns River where we stopped at the Paw Paw Indian Mound dating back over 600 years. It is believed that the Tocobaga Native Americans built the mounds in Florida and there are still discarded shells, bones, pottery and a couple of fossils there. Quite an interesting piece of history.
We also were taken up close and personal to some of the biggest alligators I’ve seen since living here in Florida. These guys were monsters, between twelve and fifteen feet in length, and we even got to see one walking along the bank for a short spell and one of them hissed at us. Very exciting.
We sped across the waters until we reached an old growth cypress tree forest. What a beautiful sight as moss hung from the hundreds of years old tree’s where we saw several baby alligators, a lot of birds such as Great Egret, Great Blue Heron, White ibis, Snowy Egret and we also seen Pink Spoonbill. After we left the marshy forest, we came across a beautiful bald eagle sitting high in the trees looking absolutely majestic. He stayed and posed for us. Thank you Mr. Eagle.
Our guide was Knowledgeable and funny, he had a great sense of humor. the headsets made for comfortable listening as he explained what we were seeing around us.
We went in February, the weather was cool and cloudy and a little breezy that day, we were pleasantly surprised that we got to see the alligator as I know Spring is a better time for alligator viewing. We even got to see some big turtles sitting on some fallen trees.
There are many airboat rides to choose from, we’ve had a mix of experiences in the past, some really good and some not so good, Airboat rides at Midway were very good and we highly recommend them. We are not affiliated in any way but felt like we wanted to include them in our travel recommendations. I’m including a link for easy booking, and I do recommend booking ahead. If you are in the greater Orlando/Daytona Beach area and decide to take an airboat adventure we would love to hear about your experience, leave a comment and let us know.
https://www.airboatridesatmidway.com/
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