Spirit of the Swamp Airboat Tours

Yes, we sure do love the DIBB – and the Dibbers as they are known.  What is a DIBB you ask?  The DIBB stands for the Disney Information Bulletin Board – Disney with a British Accent.  The Dibbers are passionate about their Florida holidays… They have tickers counting down the days until they arrive in Florida.  And they start planning their next holiday the minute they arrive back in the UK.

Yes siree, these folks are fanatical about their Florida holidays!! And yes, we find the Dibbers irresistible (and incredibly smart) they’re some of our best supporters!

Here’s what Chloe had to say about Spirit of the Swamp on The DIBB earlier this week:

 Hi all,

Just a little note about this air boat ride. We had an hour trip this morning and it was a fab experience. Capt Harold was really friendly and it was great to have a boat to ourselves with headsets so that we could hear his commentary and ask him questions. We got up really close to a gator that just lay there showing off to us. We also saw a few others and a couple of snakes.

Highly recommended, Chloe

and…

Hi, This is Chloe’s Dad,

I was a bit nervous and i’m 42!! For the first few minutes i thought a gator might come out of the water and bite off my leg but these people know what they’re doing. Harold spent most of the trip standing up with eyes peeled looking for anything. Most of the Gator’s aren’t that big and we were never in any danger!! This was so much more personal that the more commercial operators

and this…

I went with Spirit of the Swamp over XXXX because it was more personal. I’m sure XXXX  is very nice, but the idea of an 18-man airboat put me off to be honest.

I had to edit the name of the other airboat company (their lawyer doesn’t like my blog’s honesty too much, and I have the letters to prove it!)

Not that these friends are “old” in age of course… but they’ve been fans/passengers/friends/fishing buddies of Spirit of the Swamp for the past three years – and this week they took their FOURTH, yes I said FOURTH airboat ride with us.

John and Donna are from Scotland – and we’ve stayed in touch with them through the years, in fact Captain Harold makes it a point to take the day off and go fishing with John when he’s here on holiday every year! 

Here are some photos of John and Donna’s airboat ride this week:

John and Donna

And Captain Harold and John on the fishing outing:

So cool…he’s wearing a Spirit of the Swamp hat!!

It’s been awhile since I’ve shared some new Trip Advisor reviews with you… so here you go!

It’s a fantastic feeling having the breeze blow over you while being able to watch everything pass by. We were all mesmerised by everything that we seen.

Our youngest child became quite restless at the points the boat had came to a complete halt, our captain was aware of this so kept the stops/explanations brief so that our youngest wasn’t about to go man overboard.

This really is a must do experience, I have done it before in a larger boat however this was not a patch on the smaller spirit of the swamp airboat which is also private. Would definately use this company again when we visit Florida in the future.

Today is a random thoughts day.  The little things that make owning an airboat company so (pick one)  Enjoyable.  Crazy.  Fun.  So here you go, in no particular order…

1.     Please, please wait longer than 5 minutes before you decide that your trip is going to be rained out.  Florida weather is quirky and sometimes the sun will be shining in a few minutes.

2.     On the flip side – sometimes those drizzly and misty days are GREAT airboat days in the summertime.  We have a canopy top, and we wouldn’t want you to take your trip in a downpour and get wet, but a little drizzle is nice on a steamy summer day!

3.     It’s nice to see people (who shall remain nameless!) get paid back for the nasty things they do.  Things have a way of turning around in ways you’d least expect.

4.     It’s also nice to see the underdog win once in awhile.

5.     I, on the other hand, am still waiting for my “win”. 

6.     When I advise against an evening ride due to insects, this doesn’t mean that bug spray will take care of the problem.  It does mean you will have insects smacking you in the face like you won’t believe.  Trust me on this one.

7.     It’s so strange that we’ll get two or three passengers with the same first name on the same day.  Or all Scottish passengers on the same day – what are the odds of that happening?

8.     I didn’t win the Firecracker Millionaire Raffle last night.  Bummer.