St Augustine Alligator Farm

If you love alligators, you’ll want to visit the Alligator Farm in St. Augustine. The park consists of an easy to navigate paved winding path through several different themed areas, with a boardwalk over the alligator swamp. In addition to lots of alligators, the park has crocodiles, various reptiles, a variety of birds, and even a few mammals like Lemurs.

The Land of Crocodiles has 24 species of crocodiles, the most variety of species in one place anywhere in the world. And you’ll want to see Maximo, a 15 ft 9in crocodile, the largest animal at the park. Maximo can be viewed both from above and thru glass underwater. It is worth going below to see him up close when he swims by.

In the native swamp, you walk across the swamp on an elevated boardwalk. You can see alligators everywhere. There are about 150 gators in the swamp enclosure. We were lucky enough to be able to hear them “growl”. It was a little unsettling to be surrounded by this sound.

There are several other areas including a reptile house, birds of Africa, and lemurs of Madagascar. Watching the lemurs was fun, especially when one decided to take a free ride on the tortoise that was in the same enclosure.

Throughout the day there is a variety of shows. Most of the shows are chances to learn about the many inhabitants of the park. There are also some “shows” that are the feeding times. We went to see the feeding of the alligators in the swamp. Clearly the gators know when feeding time is as many were waiting by the dock well before feeding time. The worker gave some information about the gators as she fed them. Mostly they were fed some food pellets (gator chow), but the keeper did feed a few rats hanging from sticks. That is fun to watch as an alligator comes up out of the water to grab the food.

There are also a few extras you can purchase. They offer a sloth encounter which sells out quickly and zip lining across the crocodile land. This adventure can be purchased at a separate entranced next to the gift shop and main entrance.

We spent about 2 hours enjoying the park. We could have spent longer if we had attended a few more shows. If you have little ones, you may wish to be there longer as there is a kid zone and outpost area that we did not go to. Also, if you decide to spend more time, there is a cafe to get lunch, snacks, and drinks.