エバーグレーズ小グループガイド付きボート＆ウォーキング遠征

Arrangements may vary but our "expedition" was a ride in a small boat with outboard motor propulsion, maybe room for 6 passengers. The boat took a great deal of time chugging up a man-made channel then finally went out into the "10,000 Islands" area of the Florida coast. You may pass within the boundaries of the national park on occasion, but you won't notice. You just look at the coastline of lots of little island channels, all bounded by mangroves. Our guide kept his mouth shut most of the time, but did stop ocasionally to tell us about this or that bird he spotted. The walking part of the expedition was just beaching on a sandbar and letting us out, unaccompanied, to look for seashells. We were quite disappointed with the whole thing and told the guide to cut it short. On the way back we drew him out and got good suggestions for a restaurant and sightseeing for our trip back to Miami. Yeah in some ways the whole thing was our fault, for failing to understand that the Everglades is a big place and is not just swamps and alligators. We didn't research carefully enough and expected something quite different from what was provided. Still, this was a poor quality "expedition." We expected a guide to "talk it up" and not just silently pilot a small motorboat. And we expected the walking to be more than being let out by ourselves to roam around on a sandbar. Hence the two stars.

Great trip! First of all, this is not the trip I originally booked. Due to scheduling changes, my shorter morning trip became unavailable but the director phoned me immediately and offered me a choice of another trip at the cost of my original booking. So my friend and I ended up on this longer trip, guided by Captain Don. It was just us and another couple. Don was so knowledgeable and so eager to show us around. He had spotted a group of dolphins mating earlier in the day, so we zipped right out and he located them -- I mean, how often do you get to watch dolphins canoodling right in front of you? Then we headed further out and Don took us to whatever looked interesting, which was a lot. We stopped at 2 small islets/cays/beaches? I don't know the proper word. But anyway, he showed us all sorts of interesting marine and bird life, as well as local vegetation and objects of historic interest such as the ancient oyster shell wall. Believe me, it's impressive. If you are guided by Captain Don, make sure to ask him about Nyad -- he has a lot to tell you. All in all, a wonderful outing with a very pleasant and knowledgable guide. I'd repeat this trip if I were in the area, that's how good it was.

We had am amazing time - Dan was our captain, and it ended up being just our family group on the boat. We saw a lot of wildlife during the tour - baby horseshoe crabs, nesting birds, and several dolphins (including a group that played near the boat for a while). The sandbar where we anchored to walk was beautiful, and we also got a chance to see some really interesting artifacts from the first people who had lived in the Everglades. Dan was a great captain - tremendously knowledgeable and friendly - and we got a chance to see things on the tour that we wouldn't have even known to look for without his expertise. Cannot recommend the tour highly enough!

-Incredible and knowledgeable guide -Learned about the history and indigenous people -We saw lots of wildlife -Small group of kindred spirits -Lots of fun!

Amazing morning in the Everglades! We loved seeing dolphins, manatees, a bird rookery and a stingray. The tour was perfect for our family. We loved hearing about the history and the wildlife.

Jerry was an awesome guide and he was so patient with our little one asking questions every 5 min. We saw tons of dolphins and Jerry made the follow the boat. It was a small group too!

We had done a cruise out of Miami and stayed a couple of extra days to do this tour. It was was amazing - we all thought it was the high point of the vacation. Our party consisted of me - an old guy, two 30-somethings, and a 5-yr-old. We motored out to Little Pavilion Key and spent a couple of hours walking it and checking out the shells. Our guide (foolishly, I can't recall his name) was incredibly knowledgeable about all the wildlife. We thought he was a marine biologist or retired college professor, but no, it was knowledge gained over years of doing these tours. We saw hundreds of birds and even came upon a pair of dolphins in their mating ritual. My grandson (age 5) was a bit disappointed he didn't see any gators, but our guide pointed us to the Oasis visitor center on the way back to Miami and there were about 20 of them in the canal by the boardwalk. My wife unfortunately got sick and was unable to do the tour. I called after we got home and had a refund before I even hung up the phone. Highly recommended if you ever get a chance.

We went on what was described as "Boat Assisted Kayak Eco Tour (Dolphins/manatees, sea turtles)" We were in a beautiful location with many birds, although we saw no dolphins, manatees, or sea turtles. We had been expecting to spend a great deal of time on kayaks, but it was less than 1/2 hour, rest of the time in a boat. The reason for the abbreviated kayak experience is that of the three couples taking the trip, one couple hadn't ever kayaked before and were having a difficult time. Instead of kindly instructing them, the guide got mad and yelled at them. Then the guide decided we'd done enough kayaking. We didn't know the other couples, but felt bad for them and it kind of ruined what otherwise would have been a nice trip. We did walk on a beach while the guide gave interesting explanations of shells we found and the scenery was lovely. More patience on the guide's part would have made it a 5 star experience.

We had an absolutely incredible trip out with Don as our guide. We took a motorboat past incredible mangrove stands to a remote sandy beach filled with amazing shells and Calusa artifacts. We saw dolphins leaping out of the water right next to the boat, as well as ospreys, pelicans, ibises, terns, plovers, and so many varieties of shelled sea creatures (the Florida fighting conch and lightening welk were highlights). Don was so so knowledgeable. He was absolutely amazing at answering every question my 7 and 9 year old threw at him (and they had a lot!). When he learned that my 7-year old was a vegetarian, he showed him a plant on the island he could eat, which he enjoyed sampling. We took other guided kayaking trips during our trip to Florida, and this one really stood out because of Don’s incredible depth of knowledge. Highly recommend!

A very interesting trip to different side of Everglades. Don was so knowledgeable about eveything coming our way. We really appreciated this introduction to Everglades.