The Everglades area covers around 9,000 square miles (the national park itself is 2,000sqm), and Everglades Holiday Park can be reached in under an hour from Fort Lauderdale or Miami.
At Everglades Holiday Park, airboats glide through the canals where guests can spot alligators – 200,000 of them reside in the Everglades (Florida has nearly 1.5 million in total, second only to Louisiana). Birdlife includes North America’s largest wading bird – the four-foot-tall great blue heron with its six-foot wingspan.
After the boat ride, an alligator show is performed by the Gator Boys Alligator Rescue. Guests see a demonstration of the traditional Seminole Native American technique of capturing alligators which were then tethered for meat.
Captive alligators at the holiday park are rescued ‘nuisance’ animals who have been removed from peoples’ yards and other spaces. (Florida state law protects alligators more than four feet long.)Nuisance alligators are either sold to processing plants for their meat and skin or relocated to wildlife sanctuaries.
Everglades Holiday Park offers hotel pick-ups from the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area (minimum of two to four people depending on location) with its VIP package, as do local tour operators.
