Guided Kayaking Manatee Tour near Orlando

Aaron was an amazing guide and took my friend and I exactly where manatees were hanging out. Aaron was very knowledgeable of the land, biology, and just a cool guy to hang out with. Highly recommended for anyone wanting an immersive tour and I can't wait to bring my family from out of state to do this again!

Fun informative trip with a knowledgeable guide. Saw manatees and gators! Recommend!

If you want to experience something fun in the Orlando area that's not a theme park, you've gotta try this! I was in Orlando helping my son settle into his apartment for the Disney College Program, and since program participants receive free tickets to visit the parks, he and his friends decided last minute to visit Epcot. That left me with time to myself to have a solo excursion for the day. I found AWA tours on TripAdvisor and booked a manatee kayak tour near Blue Springs State Park for the next morning at 10 am. I received a confirmation text from the tour operator, Aaron, pretty quickly regarding details is what to bring, how to get there and where the closest restrooms were before arriving to the meeting spot. I gave myself 1.5 hours to get to the meeting point but due to morning work traffic, my ETA kept getting pushed back, but I luckily arrived just a few minutes after 10 am. Turns out I was the only one on the tour so I got a personal guide! I appreciated that it wasn't cancelled on me since no one else booked a tour that time. I figured that we probably would not see any manatees because it wasn't high manatee season, but Aaron assured me that we would see some that day. We paddled out around the water and saw a bald eagle as well as many other kinds of birds. I heard crocs croaking at each other. And finally when we reached the other side of the water, we saw manatees! I told Aaron multiple times that he is a manatee whisperer as they would come to his paddle board and play with him. It was so cute to watch their interaction. As we made our way close to the springs, you could see the change in the color of water to a clear green shade. That's where we were able to see a mama manatee and her baby and a few other male manatees. This was definitely a highlight of my FL trip. I loved the serenity of being in the water and surrounded by nature, and especially watching the manatees in their natural habitat. I highly recommend AWA kayak tours if you want to do someone unique in central FL!