Everglades

Today we get off the ship and return home. Our flight was later in the afternoon, so we booked an Everglades airboat tour that dropped us off at the airport. Airboats are not allowed in Everglades National Park, so this tour is in an area outside the National Park, but is very similar to the park.

We got off the ship around 8:00am and then cleared customs and got on the bus for our tour around 9:00am. There were rain showers in the area, but not raining on us. It did rain while the bus was driving.

When we got to the tour site, it was raining lightly, but the gator show portion of the tour had covered seats. There was a show on TV for a few years about alligator wrestlers. The star of that show was our presenter. He had about ten alligators in the enclosure with him, and he could call them by name and they would come. One alligator, Goliath, understood he was supposed to come up, but was training the trainer to give some meat before he performed rather than after, so he didn’t come until our presenter went and got some meat.

After the show and exit through a little zoo, there was an option to hold a small alligator and get your photo taken.

It had stopped raining, and we did the airboat tour next. The boat held a tour bus of people and was covered. It uses two 1976 vintage 500 cubic inch Cadillac engines to power the props. Halfway through our tour one engine wouldn’t give full power, so our tour lasted a bit longer as we couldn’t go as fast. It was very loud, not much of a muffler on these engines, and then a thin tin roof over us that vibrated loudly.

We did see some wildlife on the tour.

We flew home from Ft. Lauderdale airport, which is close to the cruise terminal. I was able to take a photo of the Volendam as we took off.