Everglades Wonder Gardens

I visited Everglades Wonder Gardens in 2015 and again this year. It is under new management and they are updating the exhibits and making improvements for the animals and guests. I actually saw the manager walking around with different people explaining what some of the changes will be to the animal exhibits. I will visit again to see the changes and because it’s a great place to take pictures. It’s not very big but I stayed over 3 hours each time. It’s easy to make your way back to your car when the afternoon rain begins and then you can spend the rest of the rainy afternoon processing your photos. Once you get inside there is a small gift shop one side and a classroom space on the other. You will often find a staff member here with one of their rescue birds talking to visitors. There is also a small Florida Natural History Museum with the showcase exhibit of their most famous former resident, Big Joe. He was an American Crocodile that was caught off the coast of Key Largo and lived to 75 years of age and grew to 15. 5 feet in length. When you’ve explored the museum, you head outside to a 3 and half acre botanical garden with a koi pool, Butterfly Garden, rescued birds in cages, animals exhibits, and lots and lots of alligators. Like all animal attractions in Florida there are as many wild visitors of interest as there are residents. You will find food dispensers through the grounds and the cashier is happy to change dollars for quarters. It took me awhile to figure out that you have to insert two quarters in order to get the feed. Both times I asked a parent with children if I could give them the pellets to throw into the turtles, fish or alligators so that I could concentrate on taking pictures. An arrangement that made everyone happy. You can read a blog post about it at Sabrina Raymond Rambles.