Spirit of the Swamp Airboat Tours

We’re getting Trip Advisor Reviews so fast, I hardly have time to post them for you before another one is posted… and that’s a good thing!  So here’s a new Trip Advisor Review:

Three of us took this tour in the middle of October and thoroughly enjoyed it; it was one of our favourite parts of the trip. I have been on a few of these types of tours but enjoyed this one because unlike some others there is a very natural and ‘unstaged’ approach to which is really what we wanted.

We wanted to see the Alligators and other wildlife in their natural habitat and wanted to get a more personal approach than to be just part of a large tour group, and this tour gave us exactly that. The Airboat was in very good condition and headphones and microphones were provided so we could all communicate to each other.

Our pilot was Captain Harold who was very pleasant and amiable and very easy to get along with. He was very knowledgeable about all the life (animal, bird and plant) within the swamp and although we were not able to take all of the tour we expected due to the weather, he still endeavored to take us out for as long as possible to all the areas that were still accessible. We got to see several Alligators (including a female of some 9ft guarding her babies), Bald Eagles, Vultures, many wading and marsh birds, and different plant life too. All in all a great trip that I would definitely recommend to anyone thinking about an Airboat tour in Florida.  Cayman Islands

When we planned our vacation to Florida, my son said he wanted to see a swamp. So I looked around online for an airboat tour in the Orlando area. Based on many positive reviews on Trip Advisor for Spirit of the Swamp Airboat Tours, I decided to give this company a chance.

We sure were not disappointed. I booked a one hour trip for October 1st. We arrived a little late, but that was no problem. Captain Harold gave us a great tour and it seemed that time was his least concern. He pointed out various species of birds and plants and was happy to answer questions from both the adults as well as from our 5 year old son and daughter.

He stopped to grab a couple of large snail shells for them as a souvenir and went out of his way to make sure we would have a memorable trip. We saw a few 4 to 5 foot alligators (one of which posed patiently for us) and a group of four deer wading through the swamp. And even when we were well past the one hour mark, Captain Harold brought us to a place where he knew a nest of gators and indeed, there were a few baby gators (about 10 inches long) swimming around. All in all our tour lasted more than one hour and 20 minutes.

We found the headsets to be a great feature on this boat. Our daughter is normally somewhat sensitive to loud noise, but noise was not an issue on this trip. The headsets worked well to block the noise and to allow all of us to communicate throughout the ride without having to stop. We would not hesitate to recommend this tour to other people interested in exploring Florida wildlife.

See this 5-star review and others on Trip Advisor:

Here’s a recent comment from a family from the UK who took an airboat ride on Spirit of the Swamp… it’s nice to know that they noticed and appreciated our new, state-of-the-art airboat!

Both my kids and my wife said this was the best part of our vacation, and we “did” all the theme parks, Kennedy, and some pistol shooting too.  I found Spirit of the Swamp on the web and was attracted by the fact that they are a small family run operation.  I wasn’t keen on being on a 15 seat airboat barge that the big guys use. We were not disappointed – Captain Harold was great, Harold knows his stuff, and we never felt rushed, in fact our 90 minute tour was over too soon!

Their airboat is a work of art, it’s new and clean, and wasn’t as noisy as I had thought, they provide not only ear defenders, but full 2-way intercoms built in. My nervous younger son, who I had thought would freak when Harold opened up the engine, was fine too, so don’t worry if you have young kids, they’ll love it.

We do this again in a heartbeat.  Terry Rush and Family, UK