Catboat Ride with Catboat Escapes: One of the Best Things to Do in Orlando!

On a previous flight into Orlando International Airport, I noticed this interesting looking little boat. We had never seen anything quite like it before and we were determined to take one for a spin. So as soon as we decided that we were going back to Florida, we gave Nate from Cat Boat Escapes a call. Not only is he hilarious, but the booking process is super easy and soon enough we had a date set to go for a ride. Our adventure begins at the Cypress Cove Marina and Resort. Once you enter the park, you're going to stay straight and head all the way down to the marina. Keep your speed down because there are some absolutely massive speed bumps here. As V and I crossed over the bridge, we got our first look at the little line of cat boats. We got there a little bit early because we wanted to have some time to take pictures of the boats and familiarize ourselves with them. These cool little boats are just under 11 and a half feet long by 5 and a half feet wide. When you mix that with the 30 horsepower engine, you have yourself a fun and agile little boat. One thing that I thought would take a second to get used to is the steering. Rather than a steering wheel, you steer with the stick that you push forward to go right and pull backwards to go left. It seemed kind of confusing at first, but Nate explained it in a way that totally made sense. Speaking of Nate, here comes the man, the myth, and the legend now. One cool thing about Nate is that he is a professional stuntman, so he takes safety very seriously. These boats are all really stable and easy to drive, but we were still given life jackets to wear on the tour. We also had two walkie-talkies. V held on to one and then there was one placed on the boat right in between us. We had a good-sized group this day and we were using every boat that Nate had. A couple more features that these boats have is a nice little compartment that fit our dry bags perfectly and a wrist lanyard that if for some reason I fell out of the boat would turn the engine off. As soon as everyone was loaded in and ready to go, it was time to begin the adventure. These boats do have reverse on them, but we didn't end up needing to use it because Nate was nice enough to give us a push out. And with that we were underway and heading straight towards As we headed towards the end of the cove, our walkie-talkie started to come alive with Nate giving us instructions. One thing that really impressed us about the tour is how Nate let us drive the cat boats. Whenever we got out on a lake, he gave us the opportunity to spread out into a V formation and put the hammer down. We weren't really expecting to see what these boats were fully capable of this day, but that's pretty much what he let us do. Even though these boats only have a top speed of right around 30 miles an hour, it feels like you're ripping along pretty good when you're riding in them. Cat boat escapes really could not have picked a better location to run their tours out of. Cypress Cove where your tour begins is surrounded by a chain of lakes, so just know that you might not always run the same exact route that you see in this video. Eventually we came to the Platlacaha River, which meant that it was time to slow down the speeds and get back into a straight line. There is a good chance that you will encounter kayaks and other boat traffic here, so please be respectful of the locals. One thing that we thought was really interesting is that I'm sure you may have noticed the brownish tint to the water. Most people would see the color of the water and just assume that it is dirty, but that couldn't be further from the truth. The water here gets its color from the breakdown of organic materials like leaves, tree bark, and roots. As these materials break down, they release tannins into the water and it gives it a color kind of like when you make a cup of tea. And here we are at the second lake of our tour. This is a much smaller body of water, but it's known as Lake Susan. We crossed it really quickly, but don't worry you'll get to see more of Lake Susan later. This part of the tour was my favorite. It's known as the Crooked River and it has definitely earned that title. At this point in the tour you will have already had the chance to test the speed of the catboats, but this section will let you test the maneuverability. The trees on the side of and sometimes even in the river were all covered in Spanish moss. This gave them all an almost eerie kind of beauty. Also on this section of the tour, Nate came back onto the walkie-talkies to give us tons of facts about the area and we even played a couple rounds of alligator trivia. Also if you're a huge movie buff, you might recognize this spot as the home of Mama's House from The Waterboy. We have now reached Lake Louisa, which is the furthest lake that we will be visiting on this tour. So it was time to get back on the gas, but this time we would be heading straight to the middle of the lake for a little bit more history. It turns out that this beautiful lake was the site of a very unfortunate plane crash back in 1944 that claimed the life of First Lieutenant Dean Gilmore when he lost control of his P-51 Mustang. The remains of his plane weren't found until 2001 when the lake level dropped. After taking a short pause to learn about First Lieutenant Gilmore, we headed to the furthest point of the tour. We ended up at a beautiful Cove that also happened to have its own spring. This Cove is located right on the edge of the Green Swamp. While we were there, we sampled water that came from Florida Springs and learned more about the area. The Green Swamp is a very large conservation area that stretches about 560,000 acres and goes all the way from Orlando to Tampa. After a nice break with some fascinating facts, it was time to throttle down and get back on our way. We would be heading back the same way that we came, but Nate still have one surprise in store for us. As we snaked our way one more time through the Crooked River, Nate had even more fun facts to share. Like how bird watching is a multi-billion dollar industry in Florida. And yes, you heard that right, that was billion with a B. I don't want to give away all of Nate's facts that we learned that day, and besides, it's a little bit more fun to learn them while you're out on the water. After taking this neat little shortcut, we were just about back to Lake Susan, and that was when Nate revealed his last little surprise. He was going to give us a couple of minutes on Lake Susan to explore on our own. Some members of our group decided to take a nice leisurely cruise around the edge of the lake, but if you know anything about us, you know that we're gonna send it. We were having so much fun with the catboat that we even had the conversation of if we should sell our WaveRunner and buy one of these. On one hand, they only go about half the top speed of a WaveRunner, but they're so fun to drive and they're way more comfortable. Having the shade to keep us out of the sun was also really nice. Eventually, free time came to an end and we were right back at the Plotlakaha River. The scenery that you will get to experience over the course of the tour is absolutely surreal. There were so many times where we felt like we were on our own little personal jungle cruise. In the past, we've enjoyed fun Florida activities like airboats. In no disrespect to them at all, they are very fun, but there's just something so awesome about being able to drive the boat yourself. It made for such a unique adventure and we can easily say hands down that this was the highlight of the trip. After a nice slow cruise through a cypress grove, it was time to pin the throttle one last time to get us back to Cypress Cove. It was kind of sad to see our tour come to an end because it seemed like everyone, including Nate, was having so much fun. You can definitely tell that Nate enjoys his job and the energy and humor that he brings to the tour really takes an awesome experience and elevates it to the next level. We'd like to send a massive thank you out to Nate from Cat Boat Escapes for taking us on this awesome adventure. If you're planning a trip to Florida soon, this should definitely be on your to-do list and I know that we will definitely be back on our next visit. If you do book a tour with Cat Boat Escapes, be sure to let them know that you saw them on That Adventure Life. If you enjoy our adventures, please be sure to like, comment, and subscribe because those are the best things that you can do to support this channel. Check us out on Instagram at thatadventurelife underscore official and for all the information about Cat Boat Escapes, as well as other awesome things to do in Florida, head on over to thatadventurelife.com