Ft Lauderdale - What to do?

Hi... I was wondering if anyone can give us an idea on what we can do in Ft Lauderdale to kill a few hours.

Our ship arrives on Thursday, 21-May at 7am. And our flight does not leave Ft Lauderdale airport until 3:45pm. Assuming we should be at the airport by 2pm - and assuming we can be one of the last people off the ship (~10am)... does anyone have any recommendations to kill 4 hours? (be careful with your answers! ;) ) Is there a local hotel/beach resort where we could pay a daily rate for use of their pool and chairs? Obviously we are going to have our luggage with us - so a typical shore excursion or walking around a shopping area is not practical unless our luggage can be stored.

Thanks in advance!

Not sure which cruise line you will be with, but you should check and see if they have any excursions after docking. We took the everglades excursion with Carnival. Got on a bus with our luggage right away in the a.m. Took the excursion and then they had us back to the airport after noon sometime. We enjoyed it a lot. Plus we did not have to worry about our luggage.

I too, would like to check into the excursion for FLL. We are sailing on CCL the end of May but I did not see anything listed on the excursions for FLL. Could you tell me where to find it. Thanks for your help.

I only know with Carnival. It is on the page that shows what excursions you can book on Carnival.com. When we did it, we could not book ahead of time. We had to wait until we were on the ship and then book it. The everglades excursion was $45 per person a little over a year ago.

Holland America also does post-cruise excursions. We were able to book our tour of the Everglades from the web site. It was as easy as clicking a button.

Our baggage was loaded on a bus by the tour operator. We boarded after making sure that the bags were okay. -----One person warned us to not leave until we saw our luggage safely inside the bus storage compartment.:eek:

The tour itself was just okay. We had transportation directly from the ship, directly to the everglades and directly to the airport. We didn't get lost once! It rained, we were hearded into a souvenier shop, and spent only 20 minutes actually on the boat touring the everglades. With all that in mind, I can say that it was a 100 x better than sitting in an airport.

I am looking at the Celebrity website and it appears that they also have excursions for Fort Lauderdale.

You could try calling the Sheraton Yankee Clipper directly (not the 800 number). They are closing in June, I know they will rent you beach chairs for $10.00 per chair on the beach and maybe you can pay them to store your luggage. It will cost you between $10 and $15 from the ship and about $20 back to the airport for a taxi. They have a nice little beach bar and restaurant there. As long as it is a nice day, it would be a great spot to spend a few hours.

www.sunny.org

www.visithollywoodfl.org/cruise

both offer three hour tours

www.porteverglades.net

Thanks all for the ideas! I appreciate it! We will look into possible shore excursions - or - if is a really nice day - check out the Yankee Clipper.

Another idea may be to check our luggage at the airport if the airline will take it early (or use a baggage storage at the terminal) and then rent a car and drive around for a few hours and shop, site see, etc...

Thanks again! And if anyone else has more ideas... please keep them coming! We leave on Saturday morning and I will be checking this thread through Friday night.

Thanks all for the ideas! I appreciate it! We will look into possible shore excursions - or - if is a really nice day - check out the Yankee Clipper.

 

Another idea may be to check our luggage at the airport if the airline will take it early (or use a baggage storage at the terminal) and then rent a car and drive around for a few hours and shop, site see, etc...

 

Thanks again! And if anyone else has more ideas... please keep them coming! We leave on Saturday morning and I will be checking this thread through Friday night.

Why not get a rental and head over to Las Olas? You can store the luggage in the trunk of the rental.

You can get on the Water Taxi for a nice tour of the homes (very very nice homes) and then have a nice leisurely lunch sitting outside at one of Las Olas's fabulous restaurants. The people watching is fantastic.

The shopping is also very nice on Las Olas.

Thanks, since I couldn't find anything except departure from port to pier and it had to be done from the ship, I was going to check on the ship. It sounds like it would be interesting. Thanks again.

Just as a followup - we ended up going to Las Olas. Fortunately we were able to check our luggage from our ship - and they sent it on to the airport - so that saved us a major headache!

We took a taxi to Las Olas for ~$25 from the ship - and then we walked around and did some shopping. Then had lunch at one of the hotels (near the Cheese Cake factory) at one of the sidewalk tables. Perfect way to kill a few hours!