sunrise at sea
Cruise ships often offer a disembarkation excursion for people who want to kill some time before a late flight. As our flight from Miami wasn’t until 5:30pm, we decided to give one a try when we disembarked from Royal Caribbean Symphony of the Seas. One of the offerings was for an airboat ride in the Everglades, which sounded like fun so we signed up for that.
wild alligator in the Everglades
At about day 2 of the cruise they sent out an exit survey wanting to know what people’s plans were for getting off the boat. I suppose they just want to have time to get everything prepared, but getting that notice so soon after boarding always seems like they are trying to kick you off the boat when the cruise has barely started. On Symphony of the Seas they wanted it done in the app. The questionnaire was short, but did not offer the right answer to the main question. There were options for self-assist (take out your own luggage) and a variety of departure times where you leave your luggage outside the room and then pick it up in the port. There was not anything for people who were on one of their departure tours. On an app the option to write in your own answer isn’t there like you can do on a paper form even if it doesn’t actually give you that choice.
wild bird at the Everglades park
I asked guest services who said to just ignore the survey and they’d send out the info on the last full day of the cruise. It would be nice if they either just included that answer or didn’t give the survey notice to people who would just confuse things if they filled it out. I also asked if we would have access to the bags at all before they went to the airport and they said we pick them up in the port and wheel them out to the bus so at least we knew we could add a few last-minute things if necessary.
airboat dock
We normally prefer self-assist, partly so we have all our things until we actually leave, and partly because you have more freedom of when to depart. The time for the excursion was of course pre-set, but we still would have preferred taking out our own luggage to have last night and morning access to our things. The instructions however were to tag the bags and leave them out for collection by 11pm so we did what they said. Next morning when we went to the meeting place at the skating rink we did see a few bags people had brought down themselves lined up behind the check-in desk, but most people had checked them as directed. There wouldn’t have been room for everyone’s bags there.
bus bay at Miami cruise port
Someone from the crew led the group partway out, but for collecting the bags, going through customs, and finding the correct location for our bus we were on our own. Luckily there were people out in the bus area who knew what came in where and were able to direct passengers to the correct bus bay. There was a bus parked in the one we were sent to, but it departed empty. After waiting for some time, someone who obviously worked there showed up in that area and soon started texting wildly and making frantic phone calls. With that finished he said the bus would arrive in 12 minutes. After loading all the luggage and people headed to Miami airport after the excursion, they added in another group headed to Fort Lauderdale. The bus driver later said he was only supposed to take the Fort Lauderdale group, but the other bus never showed up so he took everyone. Luckily the one bus had enough room.
each airboat has a different name
The driver said it was about a 40-minute drive to the park in the Everglades where we were going assuming we didn’t hit congested traffic. I didn’t time it, but the traffic didn’t seem bad. The bus eventually turned off the freeway at an exit marked as Alligator Alley. The park had a fleet of airboats, each with a different name. Since the only one I can remember is Hog Wild that was apparently the most memorable name, at least for me.
the airboat glides right over the grass
We started out down at the zoo for a bit, but shortly someone said the wind had died down enough to go out in the boats so everyone went back up to the dock. It took several of the boats to hold everybody. There are some channels through the grass, but the boats also skim easily over top of it since they have no propellers or anything in the water to tangle in the plants.
alligator in the Everglades
Our boat driver found an alligator and stopped near it so everyone could see it. He said there are some alligators they see often enough to have named them and this was one of them. It was not afraid of the boat at all, instead it swam up closer to people watch. I guess that alligator liked watching people as much as the people liked watching it.
big airboat
We took a fast ride through a small channel and then pulled into a large channel which the boat driver said had been dug by the army corps of engineers after World War 2 with intentions of draining the Everglades to make more land for farming. Luckily they weren’t entirely successful. Though it doesn’t cover the area it once did at least there is still some of that unique habitat remaining.
small airboat
The boat ride started out cloudy, then the sun came out. The ride didn’t last nearly as long as we had expected it to. Back at the dock we had lots of time left and options of the zoo, food trucks, or a gift shop to spend it in. The food trucks had normal things like tacos or pulled pork sandwiches, but also alligator cooked in various ways. We did not buy anything there, but a lot of people did. The gift shop had a shirt with a cat outline shaped much like Hello Kitty next to an alligator that said “Goodbye Kitty.” There was another one with alligators looking at the back window of a car that had decals portraying a family with a bunch of children. One of the alligators on that shirt had a speech bubble saying “Look, a menu!” They were cute shirts, but we didn’t buy them.
zoo gator
Several signs said that many of the animals in the zoo were rescues or abandoned pets. Natives who came injured would be nursed back to health and released if possible while exotics would stay there. The alligators, turtles, crocodiles, and tortoise had pens with room for plants and grass, but there were snakes in small cages. There were also some voluntary animals. We saw a bright blue bird with yellow feet first outside of the pens and later in a pen with turtles, and a wild baby alligator in a small stream between pens. Also lots of black and brown birds hanging out in the food area begging for handouts.
unhappy alligator
While there was an employee attending it people could hold or take photos with a baby alligator with its mouth taped shut, and they had a presentation about a big one named Cannibal who came to them with rumors that he had eaten all his mates, but they had a female living with him whom they said had been his girlfriend for 7 years and that they had had babies together and he didn’t eat her or them.
airboat driver
Afterwords the bus first dropped off the Fort Lauderdale people since that airport was closest to the park and on the way back to Miami, then went on to Miami for the rest of us. There are set spots at the airports where busses can let people off and it’s not at the front door so there were a couple people complaining loudly about the drop-off point as if they could talk the driver into taking them right up to the front door where they check in even though busses aren’t allowed to go there.
wild baby alligator hiding between pens at the zoo
Overall the excursion wasn’t what was expected since we thought the boat ride would be longer and knew nothing of the zoo, but it was definitely more entertaining than hanging out at the airport for hours on end.
airboats at the dock
Cruise Stories 