The Hendo's Dream Florida Holiday... Take Two - Day 4... Wild Florida, sloth selphys & Giordanos

[sophsters]

Up early, we grabbed some cereal and decided we needed to be at Wild Florida for 10am to give us time before our airboat tour. We left at 8.30 to give us plenty of time. The sat nav said an hours drive (down the turnpike) so i felt we were organised. Once we were nearly there we approached our turning and the panic set in that it was a sunpass only, and we had to make a quick decision on what to do. We kept going and both watched in horror as the sat nav added another hour on to our journey meaning we would be late for our air boat trip. I was distraught... but noticed a service station coming up and pulled in. I managed to spot a state trooper and asked him if he might help with directions and he pointed us the opposite direction saying we were very close but may not make it in time. So we went for it... hubby jumping into the driving seat while i called ahead to let them know we were coming but would be pushing it. And push it we did but we made it with 1 minute to spare and the boat had waited for us! I was soooo relieved.

The airboat tour was excellent, we saw a few live wild gators, and lots of birds including egrets and a blue heron, and we returned back to find out we could go for our sloth encounter early, freeing up the afternoon for lunch and looking at the animals.

There is a gator in this pic honest!

The sloth encounter.. what can i say. Guy was amazing! So cute. He was in his pot, and only came out for the sweetcorn before diving back in but we all had a stroke and a photo with him. I love sloths, they are so creepy but in a mega cute way.

We had lunch at the chomp house grill, and sampled gator which is obviously just like chicken ha ha! and looked round all the other animals. I really enjoyed the park, the animals and enclosures are all clean and tidy, but i didnt like the gator show as the guy was slapping the one big gator, i secretly wished it might take a chomp out of him but thats not very nice is it

The drive home was not really any better, as we drove through another sunpass only toll. I wish we managed to figure out how to avoid tolls ages ago... i searched when we got home about what charge i would get etc, and the trusty Dibb came up with some poor others who had done the exact same as us (i think in the exact same place too!)

We chilled at home for a short while, then went out to Giordanos for some pizza. I wasnt that impressed this time, although they say if you order the pizza pie you need to allow 45 minutes, we were there and hour and a half before we finaly got our food, we were falling asleep at the table. It wasnt even all that busy. We did get some amazing balloon animals in the process though.. my youngest asked for a lobster.. god knows why... and i asked for a sloth! They were so good! Tipped him well for this The pizza arrived and it was ok. Sad to say i dont think id go back next time.

After dinner we popped in past fun spot to play a few arcade games, but i wished i had gone home to bed as i was just done in!

[Smithy78]

Fab balloons, the lobster is awesome.

I really really want to meet a sloth so will have to put wild Florida on next years agenda as it just Disney this year.

[scottishnellie]

Great day. Pity about those tolls

Looking forward to more!

Thanks

[Jaynew]

Wild Florida sounds fab. It wasn't on our to do list this time but we will have to put it on the itinerary for the next trip.

We tried to order takeout from Giordano's but it gave us a time of more than two hours later that it would be ready so we popped to pizza hut across the road from our hotel instead!