Saturday morning we woke up docked in Miami and ready to debark our ship. After one last feast aboard the ship we made our way to the Miami Airport to rent a car. While sitting in the airport I did a Google search on airboat rides near Miami and was surprised to learn how close and inexpensive they were. So we had to do it! It was only a 35 minute drive West of Miami until we reached the Everglades.
I had absolutely no expectations going into this adventure. My only concern was not being able to see any alligators in the wild. Luckily, that was not the case! The place was crawling with them. I think what made this adventure so memorable, was being there with our boys and seeing their reaction to it. It was really exciting to see their faces light up the minute they would spot one. That right there was worth the effort! After our 40 minute airboat ride we watched an alligator show and walked through their museum. Before we left the Everglades we decided to stop for lunch and have ourselves some Gator Bites. They were very good, but a bit chewy.
After our fun in the Everglades we made the 235 mile drive back to Orlando. Along the way we stopped at a rest stop and my kids, who are notorious for this, brought back a ton of flyer's on the Disney theme parks. One of the flyer's was for a place called Downtown Disney. It looked pretty cool and when I saw the part that said, "Parking and admission to Downtown Disney area are complimentary", I was sold! So that is how we spent our last night on vacation, shopping in the world's largest Disney & Lego store. The kids were in heaven!
I feel really grateful to have had another successful family vacation. This is our second year of opting to go on a family vacation in lieu of having a big Christmas, and I don't regret it for a minute. Even though there was a lot of underling stress of dealing with lost luggage our entire trip, it didn't ruin the vacation in any way. We had a great time together and a lot of memories were made!
Yeah for alligators!
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