We arrived at the Fort Lauderdale airport just before 9 AM after an American Airlines non-stop red-eye flight from Los Angeles. I had 2 AVIS Free-rental-day paper certificates and only after arrival at the airport did I realize that I had left them at home. Bummer !! I knew that the rental rates were pretty expensive here, but remembered seeing better rates at carrentalsavers.com compared to Kayak/Southwest/Hotwire and all the individual car rental sites. So using the phone, I booked a 2 day rental with Budget through that website. After arrival at the Budget Fastbreak counter, we got a complimentary upgrade from compact to midsize SUV (the new Ford Escape). The agent at the counter was really friendly and very helpful. She advised us on the best place to see the fireworks as well as other places to see.
We were staying very close to the airport at the Fairfield Inn & Suites Airport for the first night. Since the weather advisory indicated it was going to be a rainy weekend, we wanted to do our Airboat ride while the weather was still good.
The Everglades Holiday Park is about 30 minutes away from the FLL airport. We had booked the tickets online ($47 for 2) and saved about $9. After checking in, we were told to wait for our boat and meanwhile it started pouring. But luckily, it all cleared up within 15 minutes.
Our captain Bob was really cheerful, funny and very knowledgeable. Sometimes the enjoyment of these tours are overwhelmingly dependent on quality of the tour guide and we had no complaints. Pretty soon we were on our way through the Everglades.
Man these boats do ride fast (up to 50 mph according to Bob) !!
Captain Bob was always on the lookout for the alligators and he wasn’t disappointed.
Karen was at the edge of the boat and she got a great shot of this one.
Our ride was for 1 hour and before we knew, it was over. However, we did see about 5 different alligators in different areas of the tour. It was really exciting to see the alligators in their own environment. I would recommend this operator and this tour without any hesitation.
After getting off the boat, we went to see the “Gator show”. They talked about how the “Gator Boys” show has been shot at this location before. The show was a little cheesy but the crowd enjoyed it (although it lasted only 10 minutes).
After the show, it was time for some alligator meat. Yeah !! The prices were very reasonable as you can see.
The seasoning along with the deep frying of the alligator tail meat made it taste very much like chicken. We did not try the frog legs (some other time maybe!!).
We came back to our hotel for some rest. We didn’t sleep too well during the 5 hour flight in coach, a couple hours sleep was exactly what we needed.
In the evening, we decided to check out the 4th of July fireworks at the beach. Our rental car agent (as well as the front desk clerk at the hotel) had told us that basically any beach would give us a great view of the fireworks.
As we drove about 4-5 miles along the beach, we found out that every single beach-side as well as street-side parking lots were already closed or taken. We drove for about 30 minutes in bumper to bumper traffic but then decided that the fireworks were going to start so turned around. For the next 25 minutes we got the enjoy the fireworks from our car as we slowly crept along with everyone else.
Just 10 minutes after the fireworks ended, it started to pour real heavy and we stopped by a drive-thru to pick up our dinner and went back to the hotel.