I booked the Miami Combo tour: Everglades, Miami, and a boat tour of Biscayne Bay.
For what I really really liked and highly recommend: The Everglades tour and tour guide, even though it went waaaay off schedule due to Sawgrass Rec Park's airboat tour timing issues, were amazing. Definitely note that the online information was incorrect about contactless and Venmo payments for tour guides. They only accept cash, so bring some small bills for tipping. Tour guide provided good information in English and Spanish, was patient, and knowledgeable.
My reason for the one star was because most of my day was spent hungry, hot, and irritated by the City of Miami tour and tour guide, who called himself Enrique Inglesias. For all his enthusiasm about how "we're going to see it all!" we saw very little other than the depressed side of Miami and some tourist shops in Little Havana. His tour knowledge seemed to focus on the rough edges and some celebrity histories of Miami and not much on culture, unless you count him spouting white-washed "facts" about the Indigenous Miami people. He shared, very inaccurately, that it's a myth that European settlers are the cause for the decimation of Indigenous peoples in what is today called the United States of America (my wording there at the end, not his. He used erasure language like all Indigenous peoples are gone from these lands - they are very much around!). Read Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, please! He said most "Indians" died from chickenpox.There is SO much wrong with his presentation of information and it really put me out for the rest of the tour. The bus was dirty and the tour was terrible.
I was also expecting to have some time to explore Little Havana instead of being shepherded by the tour guide. The bus dropped us off in one place and we weren't told where the pick up location was, so we had to keep an eye on him and stay nearby. This meant we were taken first to a cigar shop where most of our bus loitered outside the smoky store waiting to understand what we were going to do next, particularly because we were promised a taste of Cuban coffee before we departed the bus. After hardly - maybe no one - was interested in Cuban cigars, he moved us to a souvenir shop where we had little complimentary shots of Cuban coffee before being towed into an empty but VERY LOUD bar and told to give our orders to this poor woman who clearly struggled with us English-only speakers. Because the coffee had been complimentary, everyone assumed the mojitos were also complimentary (a nice sales trick, don't you think). They were not. I ordered a nonalcoholic -aka virgin- mojito, which is syrup and sprite with some ice, lime, and mint leaves, and then was asked for a $8. I live in an expensive city and I've never paid $8 for a soda. Still, I paid for it because I hadn't had a meal or cool drink since I boarded my first tour bus at 9:30 am and it was now 2pm! When was this promised "free time for lunch"?
Following the tour guide walking us to yet another souvenir store in Little Havana before taking us back onto the bus, we finally seemed to be headed to where we'd be able to get lunch. We parked at the Bay mall, and were asked for tips while we exited the bus. No one had any idea what was going on. This was 4pm and the Boat Tour of Biscayne Bay began at 5pm, but this tour guide had kept telling us we're going to eat "real Cuban food!" Now he was asking for tips and dropping us off. We all stayed corralled by the bus...while he counted his tips...
After 15 minutes of waiting on him to count his tips and wondering where this authentic Cuban food was and where were supposed to go to meet the boat, he finally exited the bus, walked us all through the mall and dropped us off at a restaurant in the mall and said we had 1 hour to eat: Enjoy! It was 4:20, so we had 40 minutes to order, eat, and be where ever we needed to be. So much confusion, and also, hunger.
I ordered a sandwich because there was so little time (nice to have spent so much of my "1 hour" watching him count his tips) and while I was eating--around 4:30, a young man came to my table and exchanged my boat trip tour receipt for a tour ticket. He told me where I needed to go and said I had to be there at 4:50. I could see some of my tour companions panic a little since they were still waiting to get their food orders. I don't know how folks who didn't eat at this particular restaurant got the information they needed and received their boat tickets.
The boat tour was fine and the tour guide for the boat was funny. She balanced everything she said in English with Spanish. The tour is designed to be headed back to their port as the sun is setting behind the City of Miami skyline, which is a lovely sight.
Unfortunately, none of us were told how we were supposed to get back to Miami Beach where we started our tour! I figured it out (go back to where the double decker dropped us off). read more