The kickbacks are so obvious they ruined the tour for me.
First off, the Everglades airboat ride was cool and pretty straightforward. You don’t go deep into the Everglades, never leaving sight of the highway and the power lines, but we still saw some cool birds and an alligator (that one idiot on the boat tried to touch). The reptile exhibit at the end has about 10 small enclosures with some lazy reptiles and turtles hanging out in them. There’s a food stand with reasonable prices on things like chicken strips, fries, etc, and the option of trying alligator if you haven’t before.
The City Sightseeing Tour was where it fell apart. We drove around and heard useful things about Miami, like the fact that Phillip Frost invented viagra and has a mansion along the route, how long the bridge is, just normal tour guide stuff. Then we got to Little Havana, and it was suddenly super important to our tour guide that we all enter at three very specific places. She told us what time the bus would depart little Havana, and since I have asthma, I didn’t want to go into the cigar shop since it aggravates my condition but she got all huffy about wanting me to go inside. Then, when we went to the souvenir shop, I already had the souvenirs I wanted and she was crowding 50 of us into a small shop so I started to buy some watermelon from a cart literally at the door of the souvenir shop and she tried to tell me I needed to wait until the specific panini shop she had planned on for lunch. Similar problem at the mojito place. I didn’t want one since it was morning and I don’t really like drinking at 10:00 am and she got all bent out of shape that I wasn’t going to buy a $7 mojito.
Finally, when the tour arrived at the marina where we were to get lunch at the specific panini place, we had magically arrived just 10 minutes after the bus back to Miami Beach for those not going on the boat ride so they would have to hang out at the lunch spot and market for 2 hours before the next one came. There was a woman with a toddler who had clearly had enough and just wanted to get back to Miami Beach who did not take it well and pointed out the blatant kickbacks that come from a comment like, “well, looks like you’re stuck at my friend’s shop for 2 hours. Guess you’ll have to shop.”
All in all, would not recommend.