Water Taxi, Fort Lauderdale

For someone who does not drive, My overnight stay at FLL, as usual, was unforgettably wonderful. Thanks to the Hyatt/airport north's friendly shuttle dropping me at one of the shuttle's many stops, I was able to hop in and out of the beach, hop in again, go off to the wonderful 16h St fisheries water taxi stop. Too bad when I was ready to take the water taxi back to the hotel to take the shuttle to the airport, waited and waited and the water taxi never showed up. Thank God I had a back up: the friendly Hyatt shuttle chauffer, happily picked me up, we gathered my luggage and off we went to the airport. All in all, for single non driving people, disabled, but able to walk slowly here and there, I highly recommend -with the shuttle as a back up- to take the wonderful water taxi. The captains are super nice! Give yourself ample time under a tree to wait for the water taxi. I look forward to ride again soon. Viv

The brochures state that the boat rides are narrated. We got on at stop 13, the driver told us to get off at stop 12 and wait a 1/2 hour for a boat to arrive that was narrated. So, we got off and waited. The boat arrived 1/2 later and off we went, with little to no narration. Half way through the ride we had to stop for gas. At this point the narrator (an elderly gentleman) asked if anyone on the boat wanted to hear narration. Everyone said "yes". He proceeded to tell us about 3 homes followed by a lame joke. He soon discovered that one of his riders was from an area (Nebraska) that his cousin grew up in and proceeded to have an elongated conversation with this passenger while ignoring everyone else. No more narration. We got off at stop 3 and went shopping/site seeing. We returned at the posted time to learn that the posted times were not correct. We told the next driver that the posted times were wrong, his response was that the schedule posted was a misprint. I asked the driver to remedy the problem by at least removing the posted schedule so others won't be standing there like I did. He basically didn't care, he told me to call the business office to deal with it. Add to that the fact that he was more interested in getting back to drive a charter trip he was suppose to captain later that night. His boat was equipped with a microphone & speakers yet he refused to do any narration. So, my family and I spent $48 to boat up and down the canal to see homes and yachts (which was cool) but got no narration of what we were seeing. So, needless to say, I was disappointed. The real reason I wrote this review was due to this attitude of the driver who really didn't care about my families experience with the Ft. Lauderdale Water Taxi service. My advice is to avoid this company. If you can't find an alternative, then you should/must insist on narration before boarding the boat. Otherwise you will be disappointed.

I live in Fort Lauderdale but since I live beachside overlooking the intercoastal, I never attempted to take the Watertaxi. You tend to postpone to do things that are just around your backyard. Well, I had guests from out of town and decided to take them on the water taxi as it is the best way to see Ft. Lauderdale's waterways. I do agree with a few of the reviews that the boat operators were rather obvious in hinting about their "tips". If Ft. Lauderdale's tourism officials could possibly train the boat operators, it would be a plus for our lovely town. I am glad I took the ride. I saw Ft. Lauderdale with very different eyes and actually enjoyed playing tourist for a day.

I see some of the other comments here criticized the waiting times. Water taxi recently announced that it had added two vessels to its fleet to reduce waiting times and increase capacity. More recently it was reported that the Water Taxi Company had acquired another samll operator the "River Taxi". This again improves efficiency, reliability and capacity. Great news for all of the tourists and residents of Fort Lauderdale.

We boarded the water taxi to go to Riverfront for dinner. After dining, took taxi back one stop to Los Olas blvd. All was well. When we wanted to board to return to our hotel, we found about 5 people waiting at the stop. They had waited one hour. More passengers arrived -- no taxi had been by for almost two hours. It was a very cold night, windy. Finally a water taxi arrived and explained one had brocken down. Drivers were rude and started takling about riding to Skooters - 90 minutres away. Passengers were confused and a few got off to take a taxicab. Ride to stop 11 was fine - ride back to stop 5 took hours! Very unreliable.

LOVED the water taxi. Low cost, great captains, friendly people, and beautiful scenery. Can't beat it for the money!

We started out in no hurry and enjoyed the ride ... the the trouble started. The boat went dead in the water and then it started raining, really hard, and gusty wind. Another boat came along side and the operators tsalked then the other boat left. We got started again and the operator took us to he next stop and deboarded us stating another substitute boat would be there very soon. Our old boat left .. seeming to be running well and NO BOAT came for 1 hour and 30 minutes! Bad news Fort Lauderdale Bad News.

I have not experienced this Water Taxi, but from the reviews that I just read, I wouldn't even attempt chancing a ride on this boat since the reviews deemed it unreliable and it seems the staff were inhospitable.

Although the man narrating our leg of the trip was knowledgeable, his four separate "hints" at leaving a $5 tip (in 35 minutes)were a bit much, especially after we'd already paid $13 each. We planned to get on near our hotel, go to the Las Olas Blvd. shopping area for lunch, and then return. Our taxi was supposed to leave at 11:07, but the 11:14 boat arrived before ours did. That should have warned us about the reliability of their "schedules". The ride to Las Olas was indeed very enjoyable. We got off, walked around, had lunch, and then returned to the pick-up point two minutes (by both of our watches) before we were due to leave. Seeing no boat coming, we asked someone sitting there and she informed us that it had already come and gone. She also confirmed by her own watch that it had done so early. Since the next boat wasn't for 1 1/2 hours, we walked for an hour to return to our hotel. In other words, DON'T BELIEVE THEIR TIME-SCHEDULE!

Was in Ft lauderdale week of 6/15---we waited for his water taxi on 4 separate occasions, not once did it show within 4 minutes of the posted time...also some literature available at hotels and the convention center had a schedule showing every 15 min, however the schedule posted at the stops shows that it only comes once every hour. I was so excited to take the water taxi--for recreation--but I never got the chance