Hi there!
Manatees are wild and do what they want!
There are never any guarantees to see manatees!
That said…
I saw lots of manatees in Florida at Blue Spring State Park!
Yay!
You can see manatees in the winter at Blue Spring State Park!
The best place to see manatees near Orlando is Blue Spring State Park in the winter.
Blue Spring State Park is the best natural springs near Orlando with manatees.
On some winter days, there are over 500 manatees!
There are a couple of manatee overlooks that are the best spots to see manatees.
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I also went to the boat pier and got a closer look at a manatee too!
Originally I had gone on the side of the Blue Spring Trail, and didn’t see any manatees!
👆 There are no manatees! Where are the manatees?!?! (I asked a volunteer and problem solved!) Well, manatees are wild and do what they want so it’s possible you could look in these same spots and see manatees swimming!
👆 At the end of the Blue Spring Trail is a bubbling spring! But, there were no manatees when I went!
👆 Today’s manatee count was over 300, but I did not see any manatees! So yes, I did ask a friendly volunteer! I was not looking in the right spot!
So while you may see manatees along the Blue Spring Trail, the better side to see manatees is by following the signs to the parking lot that guide you to wildlife viewing, boat tours, and kayak rentals.
The other parking lot is for the spring, and you can park there too. You will just be a bit further away from the best manatee overlooks, but it’s still very reasonable to walk to them.
So basically, as long as you’re interested in a nice leisurely walk in Blue Spring State Park, it doesn’t matter which parking lot you go to!
👆 Manatee research crew in Blue Spring State Park.
Where to see manatees near Orlando in the winter: Blue Spring State Park!
Orlando to Blue Spring State Park is around a 50 minute drive. (map)
Disney World to Blue Spring State Park is around a 1 hour 15 minute drive. (map)
So Blue Spring State Park can be a perfect morning trip to make from Orlando and Disney World!
According to Florida state parks:
Blue Spring State Park is home to a first-magnitude spring that is one of the largest winter gathering sites for manatees in Florida.
Visitors can see hundreds of manatees enjoying the constant 72-degree spring water in the colder winter months.
So the people of Florida state parks say that there are over 1,000 springs in Florida!
And as it goes in Florida, the water temperature of springs throughout Florida remain a constant temperature. (72 degrees is the often quoted water temperature.)
In the winter, it gets cold out in the ocean (or Gulf of Mexico) which means that rivers that are connected to the ocean get cold too.
These are river that manatees swim in.
Well, manatees don’t like such cold, so they escape that cold by swimming inland towards the springs!
And, there are some Florida springs that manatees like to swim to.
And yes, tons of manatees like to find warmth at Blue Spring in Blue Spring State Park and the river that connects to Blue Spring!
Which means that Blue Spring State Park can be one of the absolute best places in Florida to see manatees in the winter!
Since it’s cold overnight, there tend to be more manatees at Blue Spring in the morning.
Then, as the day warms up, more of the manatees will start swimming out to the river.
So, your best chance to see a lot more manatees is in the morning after there have been several days of cooler temperatures.
So if you’re disappointed by how COLD the Florida weather is when you’re there in the winter (because Florida is warm year-round, right?! 😜), well, you can actually be happy about it because it probably means you’ve got a better chance to see more manatees!
And, you can actually know how many manatees are in Blue Spring State Park in the days leading up to your visit, because it’s posted on facebook!
So be sure to check out the Blue Spring State Park facebook page. In the winter they will do a daily manatee count.
If you’re wondering how many manatees there were last year at the time you’ll be there, you can also go back and check. (Yes it will require a lot of scrolling.)
On January 17, 2023, there was a record high number of manatees in Blue Spring State Park! The manatee count was 729!
According to Blue Spring State Park, on January 17, 2023:
Blue Spring State Park reached our highest manatee count ever, reaching an extraordinary 729 manatees in the Blue Spring run, manatees are taking warmth in the 72° waters.
This breaks the last record of 721 manatees last year on January 29th, 2022!
And just as the weather can change quickly from week to week, so can the manatee count!
On February 2, 2023, the manatee count was 2! (!!!)
What?!?!?!
In just over 2 weeks, the manatee count went from over 700 to just TWO manatees! How crazy!
And then just a few days later, on February 6, 2023, the manatee count was back up again to nearly 100.
So it can really depend on the weather!
So if you see overnight cold temperatures coming up in the weather forecast, that can be good if you want to see manatees! (Check the facebook page!)
More below about my trip to Blue Spring State Park in winter!
🌴
Here is basically my 1.5 hours in Blue Spring State Park in winter
Your experience may vary depending on how cold it is on the days leading up to your visit to Blue Spring State Park in the winter!
When I went on January 19, 2023, the manatee count was 399.
Your experience may vary!
1. Arrive at Blue Spring State Park
Before I went, I had read a google review that had basically said:
- Don’t arrive at 8am when the park opens because there will be a long line of cars. (Because if you read things online, people will say get there early to avoid the crowds.)
- Don’t arrive late morning because there will be a long line of cars. (Which is why people say get there early.)
Instead, the reviews said get there in the 9:00 hour or 10:00 hour (I don’t remember which), because then you’ll avoid the traffic and lines!
Well, I didn’t actually know if this was true, but this seemed like good logic to me! 😆
And so, while I was thinking about getting there for park opening, I decided avoiding waiting in line sounded good, and I arrived at Blue Spring State Park around 9:30am. There were just a few cars ahead of me. (One was a garbage truck, lol.)
👆 Arriving to Blue Spring State Park around 9:30am on a weekday, there was not too much traffic.
And the parking lot was pretty empty.
By the time I left a couple hours later at around 11am, there was a long line of cars outside the park! The parking lot was also full when I left.
So it did seem to be good to get there by 10am.
👆 Arriving to Blue Spring State Park around 11am on a weekday, the line of cars to get in extended well onto the main road!
You DO want to be there in the morning though, because the manatees will start to swim away as time goes on once it starts warming up!
And so, now I am actually thinking that line you may encounter when the park opens may be worth it for a better chance of seeing them before they swim away, especially if you’re going on a lower manatee count day!
At the entry station, there’s a sign with the manatee count.
Cost to see Blue Spring State Park manatees
Since there is a Blue Spring State Park entry fee, that is your cost to see the manatees!
So it is $6 per car to see manatees in Blue Spring State Park. See current fees.
If you are going to make this a year of going to tons of Florida state parks, there’s also the annual Florida state park pass.
2. Follow the signs
So, once you’ve made it through the state park entry station, you are basically just following the signs to get to the river and spring.
If you are truly only interested in manatees, following the sign for the boat tour will get you quicker to the manatees with less walking.
But well, I thought the manatees were at the… spring… so I followed signs for the spring!
It turned out to be no big deal, as it included a nice scenic walk along the boardwalk to a bubbling spring.
When I did the Blue Spring Trail, there were no manatees over here, though! (More on this trail in a bit.)
👆 Follow the signs for the wildlife viewing for the parking lot closest to the manatee overlooks! (Well, that seems obvious now…)
3. Parking at Blue Spring State Park!
So I went to the parking lot for the spring. This is the best parking in the summer for swimming at the spring.
This is the best parking in the winter if you want to do the Blue Spring Trail… which is not the trail with the best manatee overlooks.
Still, it really does not matter where you park, because there’s a nice boardwalk that connects the 2 areas for a scenic walk!
4. Blue Spring Trail
As I now know, this area has few manatees! (And by few, I mean I saw no manatees. 😆 It’s possible there were a few there hiding underwater, though! Also, it’s possible my manatee spotting skills may not be great.)
It seems the manatees do come over this way, but then as the morning (day) goes on, they swim out towards the river.
(That’s the St Johns River, which is the longest river in Florida. It’s the same river that you can take a car ferry across further up north as you are driving the A1A! See about the slow scenic route and take the St Johns River ferry if you are driving from Orlando to Amelia Island for example!)
So there are less and less of the manatees along this side of the spring.
So there’s probably a better chance of seeing them along this trail the earlier in the morning it is. (And of course, the colder it is!)
By the time I did this trail, there was not a single manatee to be seen.
But it’s a nice trail to do, so you can do it too. Just don’t expect much.
Except a bubbling spring. You might want to see that!
The Blue Spring Trail starts next to the gift shop.
👆 In the summer, this is a Blue Spring State Park swimming area. In the winter, this is an area that manatees might be swimming… although I did not see any!
👆 At the end of the Blue Spring Trail is a bubbling spring.
Not knowing there was another area to see manatees, I was disappointed when I didn’t see any manatees along the Blue Spring Trail!
But, luckily I talked to a volunteer who guided me towards the manatees!
5. Walk towards the REAL manatee overlook!
Coming from the spring parking lot, it’s another nice boardwalk with amazing views.
I saw an alligator from this boardwalk, too! You needed to really look for it, though!
So you can be on the look out for alligators too!
You can be on the lookout for manatees as you walk this boardwalk trail.
You might start to see some manatees.
6. Blue Spring State Park manatee overlook: MANATEES!!
Note that there is not actually anything officially called the “manatee overlook”… but they are overlooks where you can see lots of manatees in Blue Spring State Park!
👆 Spot the manatees!
👆 Spot the manatees!
👆 Spot the manatees!
There are several manatee overlooks so you can check them all out!
Facing the water, from the far left of the manatee overlooks you can see where the water opens up to the St Johns River.
This is towards the boat tours and kayak rentals. (And where the manatees go swimming away too as the morning and day goes on!)
So as I learned, there’s a parking lot over here directly near these manatee overlooks. You get to this parking lot by following the signs for the boat tour!
And then the paved trail with the manatee overlooks will basically be right there in front of the parking lot.
Parking at the other parking lot, the manatee sightings became more and more dramatic over time!
7. Blue Spring State Park boat pier
I continued walking towards the boat tours and kayak rentals.
You can walk out onto the pier even if you’re doing neither.
And, the walk out to the St Johns River boat pier was the closest I saw a manatee!
There was one swimming right around the pier!
So, come on out here too to see if you see any manatees!
👆 Spot the manatee! This one is swimming towards Blue Spring!
Yes, you can rent kayaks in Blue Spring State Park.
👆 Blue Spring State Park rentals: You can rent single kayaks, tandem kayaks, canoes, and paddle boards. Price subject to change! See current prices.
Yes, there are St Johns River boat tours at Blue Spring State Park! It’s best to make reservations for the St Johns River cruise in advance.
👆 Blue Spring State Park boat tours: You can do a St Johns River cruise from Blue Spring State Park. Price subject to change! See current prices.
So basically…
If you want to see manatees with minimal walking, once you enter Blue Spring State Park, follow the signs for “wildlife viewing”, the boat tour, and kayak rentals. That will lead you to the parking lot that’s closest to the manatee overlooks.
If you follow the sign to the spring, then you’ll be on the side of the Blue Spring Trail, and you’ll just walk a little further to get to the manatee overlook.
It’s still a nice walk, so you really can’t go wrong with either parking lot!
Can you swim with manatees in Blue Spring State Park?
No, you cannot swim with manatees in Blue Spring State Park.
When there are tons of manatees, the swimming area of Blue Spring State Park is closed.
This means that Blue Spring State Park is generally closed to swimming in the winter.
In 2022, the Blue Spring State Park swimming area was closed on November 15.
Message from Florida state parks:
Effective November 15, 2022: To protect migratory manatees, the spring run at Blue Spring State Park is closed to all water activities.
👆 The State of Florida takes protecting manatees seriously! You might also see manatee research canoes out on the water in Blue Spring State Park!
In the summer, you can go swimming at Blue Spring State Park, and maybe you’ll end up swimming with a stray manatee.
And that’s a bit about one spot to see manatees in Florida in the winter!
Blue Spring State Park is one of the Florida state parks with cabins.
Good luck getting a reservation, though! You can check on the official Florida state parks camping reservation website. I was obsessively checking for cancellations in the weeks leading up to my January visit and it just didn’t happen. 😜 Obsessively checking HAS paid off for me for other popular booked up cabins and campgrounds in state parks, including the nearly always booked up Florida state park campgrounds in the Florida Keys!
More state park cabins in Central Florida: Lake Louisa State Park cabins
More Florida state parks with springs:
- Wekiwa Springs State Park
- Gilchrist Blue Springs State Park
- Florida Caverns State Park springs
- Fanning Springs State Park
More Florida springs you must see: Ocala National Forest springs (Central Florida)
More Florida state parks with wildlife viewing:
- The Silver Springs State Park boat tours
- Wakulla Springs State Park alligators (boat tour)
- Lake Louisa State Park alligators
- Fakahatchee Strand State Park alligators
- The Highlands Hammock State Park tram tours
More places in Florida with wildlife viewing:
- Everglades National Park alligators
- Everglades National Park crocodiles
- Big Cypress National Preserve alligators
- Florida Keys snorkeling
HAPPY SEEING MANATEES IN THE WINTER AT BLUE SPRING STATE PARK!
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