Our driver and guide was Daniel. Our walking tour guide was Pancho. Both did an excellent job. I was in awe of Daniel maneuvering that huge bus on narrow traffic-clogged streets. On the bus we were provided with interesting maps of our route which included facts about the area, landmarks, businesses, and terminology. We were also given a Little Havana Dining Guide, water, USB charging ports, and a WiFi password. It was a large, comfortable, air-conditioned bus. We toured various Miami neighborhoods. We got off the bus for guided walking tours of Wynwood Walls and Ocean Drive on South Beach. We had an hour and a half in Little Havana for lunch and shopping. I had lunch at El Cristo. I chose this restaurant, because it was highly recommended by our bus driver and walking tour guide. I had a Cuban sandwich and shoestring fries. The sandwich was very good. I bought a t-shirt and keychain at the Little Havana Visitors Center.
When we returned to Bayside Marketplace, the entrance had been closed in preparation for the marathon the next day. We were stuck in traffic from 1:15-2:30p trying to get back to Bayside Marketplace. Daniel needed to drop off some people who were going to take a Biscayne Bay cruise and some who were done with the tour. Daniel did a masterful job of finding a way around all the closed roads and detours and finding a place to park the bus on the side of the Marketplace and arranging transportation for the people who were leaving the tour (heading back to Miami Beach) and a guide to deliver people to the harbor tour boat.
I stayed on the bus for the afternoon tour of the Everglades. It was nice to be out of the horrendous downtown traffic. The airboat tour was fun. The driver/guide was knowledgeable and very funny. I had forgotten that the Everglades is a shallow slow-moving river filled with tall grasses and some small islands, not a swamp. It is replenished by rainstorms and hurricanes. We were provided with ear plugs. It was fun to learn that turning a corner in an airboat is like a car’s controlled sideways skid around a corner. We also saw a wildlife show where a guide showed us alligators and talked about them.