RCCL Cruise in April- Fort Lauderdale info

[nikkistevej]

Ok, so I need some advice on quite a few things for our cruise in April 2016. Some background, DH and I are doing a RCCL cruise from Fort Lauderdale for our 20th wedding anniversary. We have 2 other couples going with us as well. We will fly in the day before, looks like the flight we will take arrives from Baltimore around 1:55pm. We want to stay at a hotel nearby, go on an airboat ride in the Everglades and go have a pretty good dinner. Not fancy, just good food, and not far away. Next morning, we will go on the cruise. So here are the questions:
1. Should we rent a car(it was a car- now a van-because the other couple are joining us-so that's more expensive) We would split the price though. Or just take cabs and shuttles?
2. Any recommendations for a great airboat tour company?
3. Any recommendations for a good restaurant, we are leaning towards Bahia Mar possibly, if we don't rent a car, we will walk or take a shuttle?

Thanks for any help!!

 

[bumbershoot]

I would normally just recommend a cab, but I don't know anything about airboats or where you would need to meet them, etc. So you might have to have a car for that.

Is Bahia Mar a restaurant as well as a hotel? I only saw it as a hotel. All the hotels right along the beach there are close together, FWIW. Somehow they all looked much further apart on the map vs reality. (and the beach is all soooo different than it was in '88 when I went there from college LOL) Even the trip to the beach from places like Embassy Suites on 17th is super-close.

But that airboat thing is the outlier. I would strongly recommend checking out the ports/departure ports areas on cruisecritic's message boards for more people with info.

 

[nikkistevej]

I would normally just recommend a cab, but I don't know anything about airboats or where you would need to meet them, etc. So you might have to have a car for that.

Is Bahia Mar a restaurant as well as a hotel? I only saw it as a hotel. All the hotels right along the beach there are close together, FWIW. Somehow they all looked much further apart on the map vs reality. (and the beach is all soooo different than it was in '88 when I went there from college LOL) Even the trip to the beach from places like Embassy Suites on 17th is super-close.

But that airboat thing is the outlier. I would strongly recommend checking out the ports/departure ports areas on cruisecritic's message boards for more people with info.

Yeah, we did decide to take an earlier flight now, which will help with the airboat issue. The group(and myself) really want to do this, so gonna do some more research. I have posted this on cruise critic also, to try and get as much indfo as I can. Thanks for the input!!