Gatorland | Snapshot Chronicles Roadtrip

We spent April school vacation in Orlando Florida. Does that make us a family of masochists, or is my husband simply a sadist who likes crowded theme parks? Who knows, and by the way, the crowds weren’t that bad this year. But I digress.

We flew in Friday night, and as I mentioned in a previous post, stayed at the airport Hyatt the first night. An excellent choice for getting the vacation off on a good foot.

We got a slow start the next day. Since we also were trying to connect with my husband’s sister and her family who were joining us on the vacation and didn’t want to waste an admission at a pricey theme park on a half day, we decided to do something simpler. Something quintessentially Florida.

Gatorland.

Florida Rattler

While it’s not cheap. it’s not $50 per day either. A main focus at Gatorland is feeding the hundreds of alligators basking in the park. And the shows. As we walked into the park, one of the shows, Upclose Encounters, was about to start. So we hustled on over to the stage to watch.

The talent is really quite entertaining. As they remind you at all the shows (and we caught them all), it’s amazing what one will do in Florida for minimum wage. 🙂

In Upclose Encounters, they terrified a poor woman in the audience with a scorpion. Then they showed us a native Florida rattler. No audience participation required.

For the final encounter in the 20-minute show, they solicited audience volunteers. When they turned to our side of the stage, they were asking for women “volunteers.” I heard the words: “Well it looks like her family is giving up the lady in the green shirt,” and turned around to see my son pointing at me with both hands, laughing his fool head off. Et tu, Brutus.

Never one to step away from a challenge, I gamely handed my camera over to my husband and presented myself for duty.

Now, if you’ve ever been a “volunteer” in one of these shows, you know they milk the situation like crazy. We were instructed to NOT turn our heads, under any circumstances, while they brought the critter out, but of course we could see the reaction on the faces of the audience.

img 4056 300x238 How my family sacrificed me at Gatorland

Waiting for ??

img 4057 300x189 How my family sacrificed me at Gatorland

Surprise!

img 4058 300x197 How my family sacrificed me at Gatorland

Python!

It was actually a lot of fun, and on the bright side, I got my picture with a python without having to spend an extra $6.00 at the photo booth. 🙂 You can see more pictures of our day at Gatorland on Flickr, including a sequence of me feeding a carrot to some rather large tortoises.

Gatorland, Orlando, Florida
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gatorlandpython 300x206 Destination Orlando (April 2009)

Susan and the Gatorland Python

This year, we decided to spend April school vacation at our timeshare in Orlando, Florida, and invited Dave’s sister and her family to join us. We figured we could handle the confusion of the adults basically sharing two names among us — his sister is Suzanne, I’m Susan and both men are Davids — in exchange for the kids, our son and their two daughters, being able to spend a week together.

I’ll have all sorts of stories to share, including how I ended up at the tail end of the python at Gatorland, but for now I want to share two tips.

First, if you are flying Southwest, and plan to check-in online, be sure you do it EXACTLY at the 24-hour mark when the window opens. We forgot, didn’t try until 10 pm, about 22 hours before the flight. and couldn’t check-in because the airline had already used up its quota of online check-ins. As friends on Twitter last Thursday night already know, I was pretty irritated, mostly because I was worried that Douglas might have to sit by himself.

The happy ending to our story is that the Southwest employees on the ground at Manchester Airport were very accommodating and let us board at family boarding. Lesson learned though. Southwest has online check-in for a brief window 24 hours prior to the flight time. After that, you have to check-in at the airport; we got there four hours before the flight and were in the top of the C group. I’m almost certain we would have been split up.

I’m a Southwest shareholder, and it kills me to say this, but: if you are flying with kids between four and 10 years old, who really should not sit alone, and you can’t make that 24-hour check-in window, you might be better off paying more to one of the other airlines with assigned seating and baggage fees.

Tip number two is Orlando specific. If your flight arrives late in the evening, consider staying at the Hyatt in the airport your first night. It is literally right in the airport between the two terminals. Our flight arrived at 10pm, we got our luggage and rolled it over to the hotel and by 11pm we were having a snack in the hotel restaurant. The next morning we had a quick swim in the pool and watched the planes before rolling our bags over to the car rental counter.

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Travel Tips in this post:

Don’t miss the brief window for online check-in for Southwest. Twenty-four hours before the flight EXACTLY or plan on a middle seat.
Arriving in Orlando on a late flight? Consider the Hyatt for your first night.