Holiday Park, Everglades, Fort Lauderdale Florida

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There’s nothing like getting back on land after a sea voyage..don’t believe me? just ask the passengers on the Carnival ship Triumph. Sorry I couldn’t resist throwing that in. If we’d gone to Cozumel out of Texas instead of Miami we could have been on board that ship.

But now our cruise was over, Joe was on his way back to Orlando and I was on my way to find the Ramada Inn in Fort Lauderdale. Road construction is the bane of GPS navigation. That “oh so proper ” british voice saying turn right or turn left  where instead of a road you find a Jersey Barrier! I am expecting a bill from the Florida Turnpike any day. I can’t tell you how many times following the “Keep Left” or Keep right” instruction put me in the “Easy Pass lane” with no place to pay the toll and no place to turn around! In spite of the mishaps I eventually found my way to the correct Ramada Inn where I was sent packing…in the nicest, politest way. Check-in wasn’t until 3pm. I’m so sorry but there’s no available room yet.

That’s ok it was almost lunch time and oh happy days…there’s a Golden Corral nearby. Weekday lunches must not be too busy as there was no line and lots of tables. Even at an all your can eat buffet eventually you need to leave and it still wasn’t 3pm.

At that point I did what any self-respecting TV fan would do. I went looking for Holiday Park in the Everglades.

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Holiday Park is “Home of the Gator Boys” but if you have followed that reality show you know that at the end of last season the park was taken over by the county and the Gator Boys took their show to Mississippi.

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Well I’ve hung in there through this season but I don’t like the Mississippi episodes as much as Florida so I wanted to see if anyone knew if they were going to be coming back to Holiday Park.

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I found Holiday Park with less trouble than I had finding the hotel and began exploring. There isn’t a lot to see, the airboats, a souvenir shop, a little store that sells snacks and a fence with a sign advertising gator wrestling.

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When you take a ride on an airboat the cost of the gator wrestling show is included in the ticket price. As I stood in line to buy my ticket I thought I recognized one of the other people in line to check out. But why would one of the Gator Boy characters (are the people in reality shows actors?) be in line to pay for snacks? I decided I must be wrong , took my ticket and wandered down to the airboat dock snapping pictures as I went and enjoying the fact that I was really at Holiday Park.

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It was a beautiful afternoon for an airboat ride, not too hot, sunny…just perfect. I found I was really looking forward to getting out on the sea of grass again. I’d been on an airboat ride about 10 years ago and again about 3 years ago.  One Floridian said “why?” you’ve seen it once. But each ride is different. A lot depends on your guide and there’s so much to see in the Everglades.

End of the Line

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After viewing the gorgeous sunrise

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as we pulled into Miami we headed into the Horizon Bar and Grill for our last breakfast while the ship docked and prepared for our disembarkation.

dawn 002 copy We’d tagged our bags and left them in the hall outside our cabin the night before. The tags had been left by the staff and each bag had a number. Ours was 23. That would determine when we could leave the ship.

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Everyone congregated on the Lido deck by the pool to wait for their number to be called. It seemed to take forever to get to 23 but once it was called we were processed off the ship pretty quickly. We were disappointed that at no time did we collect a stamp in our passport. The passport was essential but I guess traveling by cruise ship accords some  shortcuts and one of them is by passing the custom stamp.

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One glitch. We left our cell phones in the car because I had heard that even if the phones were off if a call or text came through to voice mail that we could still be charged for international calling (roaming). Not wanting any surprises on our bills we left the phone behind. Now we were standing in front of the terminal with no way to call for the shuttle to the Park & Cruise. There were no old-fashioned pay phones anywhere and no courtesy phones either. Tensions started to rise when I had an inspiration. I approached one of the security personnel with our parking tag and explained our situation.  She chuckled a little and made the call for us . Within half an hour we were back where we started, loading up Joe’s car.

Next stop is Fort Lauderdale Airport where I have a rental car waiting. That’s where Joe will drop me off and head back to Orlando and I will head into Fort Lauderdale to find my hotel. I’m going to spend a couple of days here in hopes of getting to the Everglades for some serious photo opportunities.

We found the car rental return but not the pick-up so Joe dropped me off at the return and I hoofed it to the lobby. It’s not even noon yet. With luck I’ll have most of the day to explore.