FLL How to "waste our day"?

[Cruiseagain2012]

Hi, We are arriving back to FLL on the Crown Princess 11/30. Our flight home isn't until 6:30pm. I am thinking about renting a car for the day and doing some sightseeing...much better than sitting in the airport. I have done a little research on EZ check in, and debated that...but for $20pp I would rather haul my luggage in the trunk of a car. (there will be 4 of us) My ? is...should I go to the airport and rent a car? Or is there a rental place close to the Everglades? Has anyone done this?

 

This all being said...any suggestions of something fun in FLL is great too. Restaurants (If we are still remotely hungry after our cruise).

 

Thanks!

Laura

[Keith1010]

Laura, for information on Rental Car places you may also want to post this on the Florida Departures Board.

 

Keith

[chrysalis]

Princess has excursions for the day, and will take you and your bags to the airport

[Goldenfox]

Avis has a rental shuttle at Port Everglades. Call them at 954-713-1500.

[AJMissal]

Hi, We are arriving back to FLL on the Crown Princess 11/30. Our flight home isn't until 6:30pm. I am thinking about renting a car for the day and doing some sightseeing...much better than sitting in the airport. I have done a little research on EZ check in, and debated that...but for $20pp I would rather haul my luggage in the trunk of a car. (there will be 4 of us) My ? is...should I go to the airport and rent a car? Or is there a rental place close to the Everglades? Has anyone done this?

 

This all being said...any suggestions of something fun in FLL is great too. Restaurants (If we are still remotely hungry after our cruise).

 

Thanks!

Laura

 

We did the everglades tour afterwards and they took our luggage to the airport. It was great! Would highly suggest it.

[bigchid]

We've done it, We caught the rent car shuttle at the dock and were on our way from the airport in the car in 30 minutes. I've read here that sometimes they ask for proof of reservations in order to use the free shuttle, but they didn't ask me. I think the shuttle is for Budget and National. We used National.

We drove around sight seeing for a while, then rode the water taxi for a while. The crew of the water taxi gave us advice on where to eat, and even got us a discount, we were very pleased with that choice.

Edited November 15, 2013 by bigchid

[NewPennCruiser]

We've done this a couple of times as well. We usually rent through National in Florida so we take their shuttle to the Airport Rental Center, get the car and explore for the day. Then it's easy as can be to just return the car and fly home.

 

Dave

[Pam in CA]

FYI, the EZ Check also checks you in for your flight, prints your boarding passes and you go directly to Security when you get to the airport. It's way more than just a luggage handler. :)

[JSWalk]

FYI, the EZ Check also checks you in for your flight, prints your boarding passes and you go directly to Security when you get to the airport. It's way more than just a luggage handler. :)

 

Pam,

 

We have a 5:30 PM flight out of FLL. I think it would be smart for us to use the EZ Check. How do you sign up for it? Is it with the Airlines (Southwest) or is it through Princess? Do you sign up before the cruise or once on board? Thanks for all your help on these boards, you are a wealth of information.

[Liz54]

IF you can do EzCheck then you could just walk to the Water taxi, get a HOHO ticket and tour the beautiful homes and stop of at Los Olas Blvd for lunch or/and shopping. The complete circuit is about 3 hours but with hopping on and off could "waste" lots of time!

[skynight]

Assuming you are off the ship by 9:30am and you need to be at the airport at 4:30pm, you have 7 hours. Some suggestions

*Princess runs tours

*If you arrive at Pier 2 in the Northport section (The Crown is scheduled for pier 2 on the 16th, so there is a good chance it will be there also on the 30th), use EZ Check for you luggage. Walk over to the water taxi which is just outside of the gate next to the Hilton Marina Hotel, Take the water taxi tour. Get off at one of the stops, have lunch, walk the beach walk, then take a cab to the airport.

*Rent car, Drive to Sawgrass Mills Mall and spend the day. It might be less expensive to take a cab. It's a 20 min or so drive. It's a really large outlet mall.

[jnky]

Pam,

 

We have a 5:30 PM flight out of FLL. I think it would be smart for us to use the EZ Check. How do you sign up for it? Is it with the Airlines (Southwest) or is it through Princess? Do you sign up before the cruise or once on board? Thanks for all your help on these boards, you are a wealth of information.

 

I just did this last Sunday off of the Royal with a 6:30 pm Flight on Southwest. The ship will provide you all the info needed to sign up and register. I had early bird boarding and did receive 'A' boarding group on my boarding pass that they gave me. You get your boarding pass, baggage tags, everything the night before. For our late flight, too, we were placed in the late 10:30 deboarding time, which made for a VERY stress-free day. We pretty much walked off the ship, walked thru Customs, had no bags to fool with, caught a cab and off we went. It's the most convenient 20.00 you can spend...they do everything for you.

[JSWalk]

I just did this last Sunday off of the Royal with a 6:30 pm Flight on Southwest. The ship will provide you all the info needed to sign up and register. I had early bird boarding and did receive 'A' boarding group on my boarding pass that they gave me. You get your boarding pass, baggage tags, everything the night before. For our late flight, too, we were placed in the late 10:30 deboarding time, which made for a VERY stress-free day. We pretty much walked off the ship, walked thru Customs, had no bags to fool with, caught a cab and off we went. It's the most convenient 20.00 you can spend...they do everything for you.

 

 

Thanks for the information. Is that $20.00 per person or $20.00 per bag? There are 18 of us in our group, but we will probably have 2 bags each. This sure sounds like the least stressful way of handling our debarkation and fly home day.

[Off2China]

Thanks for the information. Is that $20.00 per person or $20.00 per bag? There are 18 of us in our group, but we will probably have 2 bags each. This sure sounds like the least stressful way of handling our debarkation and fly home day.

 

Just used EZ Check last Saturday. It was $20 per person and well worth it.

[OCruisers]

Princess has excursions for the day, and will take you and your bags to the airport

 

This is certainly the easiest and most convenient way to do it. :)

 

LuLu

~~~~

[Paddigton Bear]

Book in to a hotel for day use. That's our choice and there are many around the airport that offer it.

[seamwoman]

I have lived in FLL for over fifty years! I don't think your day would be "wasted" if you rent a car and drive along A1A. My favorite beach restaurant is Sea watch. It is right on the beach. You can drive to Las Olas and stroll the shops there. If you have the time the Jungle Queen cruise gives a great tour of local mansions. If you are a shopper the Galleria Mall or Sawgrass Mall are great choices. Hope you enjoy your visit to my town.XK

[JamesEM]

A ride on the Water Taxi is always fun thing to do.

[shutterbug63]

I'd rent a car and do the the luggage valet. Alamo and Hertz both offer pier pickup.

 

It's so easy...you just get off the ship, go to the rental shuttle, pick up the car. I love getting to the airport & just walking through security instead of having to check bags.

 

And it's $20 per person. Best $20 I ever spent.

[Cruiseagain2012]

I have lived in FLL for over fifty years! I don't think your day would be "wasted" if you rent a car and drive along A1A. My favorite beach restaurant is Sea watch. It is right on the beach. You can drive to Las Olas and stroll the shops there. If you have the time the Jungle Queen cruise gives a great tour of local mansions. If you are a shopper the Galleria Mall or Sawgrass Mall are great choices. Hope you enjoy your visit to my town.XK

 

Oh...I meant to be sarcastic by putting my "waste our day" in quotes. Anyplace in Florida is a total treat when you live in Chicago! I think we will rent a car and do something fun. We went to the Everglades last Christmas when we went to Miami to see the NIU Huskies in the Orange Bowl. I think we will probably find a beach area to relax...try to wrap our brains around going home. I think of the last day of our cruise and I am already depressed.

 

Thanks everyone for your help! I don't want to go to the airport any earlier than necessary. Still thinking about EZ check in...or dragging our luggage along for the day. I know $80 isn't much more when we just spent a small fortune...I think if we rent a car I'll drag my bags, if we do EZ check, we can use cabs in town since we will be luggage free.

[Cruiseagain2012]

Book in to a hotel for day use. That's our choice and there are many around the airport that offer it.

 

That is another great idea! We can relax and use the pool...I am going to look into that as well. Decisions, decisions. I have 2 teens and a husband to drag around...I will pass along all of the suggestions and let them make the choice! :o

[cath32]

We just did this, this past weekend.

 

We booked a car from Dollar. They have a free shuttle which picks you up at the pier and takes you to their port location which is at the entrance to the port. We returned the car to FLL later in the day. (Dollar and Thrifty share the same shuttle/location.) We just made sure we booked a car with a trunk to lock up the suitcases for the day.

 

We just went to Sawgrass Mills to shop for the day. It was raining when we got off the ship, so not the nicest day for sight-seeing.

[Cruiseagain2012]

Thank you for the perfect advice...just what I needed! I love this website!

 

 

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app

[dstein]

Laura, we, too, have a late (6PM) flight out of FLL after our return and what we've decided to do is to use the luggage valet service to send our bags to the airport to get them out of the way. We're then going to grab a cab at the port and go have breakfast at the Old Fort Lauderdale Breakfast House, then walk over to the Museum of Discovery and Science to spend a few hours there. (Our boys will be 14 and 9, and we all enjoy these kinds of exhibits).

 

Finally, we'll walk down to the Water Taxi and take it to Pier 66, from where we figure we can easily arrange for a taxi to take us to the airport when we're ready - wandering around the grounds at Pier 66 if we have to wait for the taxi.

 

This is all designed to get us to the airport by about 4P, allowing us time to grab a snack and then board the plane.

 

Projected schedule looks something like this:

0800- Debark, customs

0830-1000 Taxi to breakfast, eat, walk to MODS

1000-1300 MODS

1300-1430 Walk to lunch, eat, walk to water taxi

1430-1500 Water taxi to Pier 66

1500-1600 Order taxi, wander around Pier 66 area

1600-1630 To FLL

1630-1800 At airport

 

-Doug

[waterbugohio]

Just did the water taxi again Saturday night in FLL. Just love taking this for means of transportation.

 

If you decide to check luggage, make sure to consider the water taxi. Great two for one deal going on now with travel Zoo.

 

Never get tired of looking at all the huge yachts and also a great way to hop on and hop off at different locations. We had dinner at Bahia Cabanna, then back on and got off for shopping at the Beach Place, then on for drinks at Coconuts and then back on the water taxi back to the Hyatt. Great way to spend the night. And no worry about having to drive if you have a drink or two!!