We are a couple weeks into 2021 and I just realized that I completely forgot to write about my visit to Gatorland’s Holiday Ho Ho Ho-Down event.  Hopefully you won’t mind a quick trip back to the Holiday season for this post.

Only in Florida can you celebrate the Holiday season at a theme park filled with Alligators.  This is definitely a unique experience, but I had a whole lot of fun here.

When Gatorland first reopens after being closed due to the 2020 Florida Covid quarantine, they introduced a their Social Distancing Skunk Ape who immediately became a guest favorite.  For this even Skunk Ape is back and helping to spread cheer throughout the park by singing (in his own way) classic Holiday songs.

Another special visitor to the park for the Holidays was Gator Claus with his custom Airboat sled pulled by a mystical rein-gator.

Both were available for socially distanced pictures that would make for a unique Christmas card.

In the middle of one of the gator lagoons was a nicely decorated Christmas tree, but I wouldn’t get too close with those gators keeping an eye on it.

Even if you weren’t interested in the holiday festivities there were still plenty of other things to do, and more gators than you probably want near you.

This is one of the gutsiest birds I have ever seen, just tagging along for a slow ride along the water.  But the gators don’t seem to mind as lease while I was watching.

Some of these gators are just enormous.  Look at this one above, the picture just doesn’t do it justice but wow some of them are pretty intimidating.

On my very first visit to Gatorland a few years ago I wrote about the three pressed penny machines available and you can read all about it here.  These machines don’t change too often, so I was surprised to see a new machine on this visit.

The cabinet on this machine is the standard acrylic design, but the wrap and art work all around are great and obviously fit into theme of the park.  I really liked the top marquee of the machine with the gator eyes just watching you as you press your pennies.

This new set of penny designs are also fantastic.  The original machine that was here had some plain gator designs, but they have really stepped up the details and thought behind these new designs.  I love the first one which is the large gator mouth original entrance to the park.  Plus the gator wrester which is a must watch when visiting, the tortoise design is okay, and then the last design of the zip-line over the gator breeding marsh is great although a bit misleading as you don’t actually get that close to the gators.  But still a really nice set of pressed pennies.

Gatorland is a fun place to visit and I find myself there more often that I would have initially thought.  They are always changing things up and with new characters like Skunk Ape and Gator Claus I was just laughing at their antics which was amazing.  I can’t wait to see what they come up with for the new year, and will be keeping an eye on their pressed penny machines in hopes that we get even more new designs.  Be sure to stay out of those Florida Lakes and Keep on Pressing!