Caribbean Cruise - Fort Lauderdale - Day 21 - 1/7/2013

Getting off the ship was quick and easy.  We picked up our bags in the port terminal, went through customs, and got on our excursion bus within no more than 20 minutes.  We will take a tour of Fort Lauderdale in the morning and then the bus will transfer us to the airport for our flight home.  The flight is at 4:45 pm so we have plenty of time.  We don't enjoy airports much but we like to leave plenty of time to get checked in as settled at our gate before the flight.  We had a leisurely lunch at the airport Chili's.

As for the tour, we had been in Fort Lauderdale a number of times before but we got to see parts of the city on this tour that we couldn't have seen before.  I didn't realize it but Fort Lauderdale has hundreds of miles of "fingers" connected by water ways.  It is referred to as the "Venice" of America.  You can't see the "fingers" without getting on a boat.

Of course, property in this part of the city is very expensive and there are many "rich and famous" people who have homes here.  I am not going to try to list every one mentioned on the tour but the number of recognizable names was long.  There are also many "entreprenures" with homes here with names that you would not recognize.  You would recognize the product or service that made them wealthy.  When they talk about house prices here, it in 10's of millions of dollars.  The same for the yachts.

Here are photos of the homes and waterways of Fort Lauderdale.

This yacht has a tender yacht that travels with it.  The tender carries all the water toys like speed boats, jet skis, etc.  It also has a helicopter pad on the stern.  You can see both boats in the photo.

Steven Spielberg's yacht was so big that we couldn't get the whole thing in one photo.  His yacht cost $260 million to custom build.  It looks more like a naval destroyer than it does a yacht.  If Mitt Romney (the much maligned rich "out of touch" guy) sold everything he had, he couldn't afford to buy Spielberg's yacht.  Everything is relative.

One of the fastest yachts in the world.

Christmas decorations still on display at one home.

And so the cruise comes to an end.  Sigrid and I have "been there and done that" in the Caribbean.  We will not return.  There are too many other places in the world that we haven't been and too many others that are much nicer.  We prefer the Pacific Islands and are overdue for Hawaii.