Fudpucker's and Gator Beach

Okay, I wrote earlier about visiting Gator Beach. It sounded great, the website looked professional and the whole concept sounded quite educational. It was stated that it was located in front of a local restaurant, Fudpucker's.

Well, we had a gift certificate from Wyndham to eat dinner at Fudpucker's. We decided to eat there tonight (our last night) so we wouldn't have dishes, leftovers, etc. to worry about. We had also procrastinated on actually visiting Gator Beach, so decided we would check it out at dinner and plan our visit for the next morning on the way out of town.

What we found at Gator Beach was quite disappointing! It's main purpose appears to be as a draw to the restaurant itself. It is part of the structure of the restaurant--you actually wander through several levels of observation decks with your "pager" (there is always a wait to be seated in the restaurant) in hand.

It costs about $4 to feed the alligators. You can have your picture taken with an alligator, but it appears that you can only use their photographer and must pay them for the picture. You are also limited to when their photography "studio" is open for this perk. They did have a gentleman holding a little alligator tonight while we were there. The kids did get to pet it. I DIDN'T whip out my camera while they were petting it! I figured we'd be back in the morning! But the kids discussed it and had no desire to come back--even to see it in daylight.

Our recommendation for the restaurant is DON'T! It's overhyped, overpriced and really not that special. Zac's meal was sent back and eventually just refused. He picked Nacho Nachos. He got tortilla chips with a little monterey jack melted on it with a dozen jalapeno slices. That was it. I gave him half of my bacon cheeseburger. We glanced through the menu (in newspaper format) and limited the kids to page 7--sandwiches! No burger was under $9 and actual dinner entrees started at over $18. Maybe we've been sheltered by chain restaurant prices but, $23 for a 6 oz. steak didn't make sense to us. The burgers were very good and oversized, but cole slaw came in a thimble (actually a ramiken the size that dressing is usually served in) and fries were limited to about 13. And the very obvious price markup was revealed in the beverage department. We like a good cold beer once in awhile. One bottle of beer was $3.75! A little margarita was $9. I was wondering how the Spring Breaker's drinking it up and living it up in the bar were managing! Oh! That was another little surprise...just how much state laws vary. We waited in the bar because there is no age limit to be IN the bar. The kids got to witness live entertainment, a little dance floor action and many 20 somethings that had already been served a few too many.
Essentially, this place tried waaaaay too hard to be cool. Beside the fact that everything had FUD or PUCK or PUCKER in the title....EVERYTHING is covered with graffitti. The tablecloth, seats, walls, even the vent cover! The lampshades were metal buckets and they were covered with names and dates. Since it was all done in Sharpie markers--we can assume that Fudpucker's provided them. Even the plexiglass protecting a predictable beer can collection was signed. It might be perfect for a college kid hangout--except for the prices! But our almost college kid didn't like it at all and couldn't wait to get out of there. Too crowded, too loud and no good dinner for him!