The River of Grass moves three metres per day. From Lake Okeechobee south to Florida Bay, the Everglades flows as a shallow sheet 97 kilometres wide, rarely deeper than a human knee, carving through limestone and peat at a pace imperceptible to the naked eye. Congress designated 607,028 hectares as national park in 1947, making it the first American preserve chosen for biological richness rather than scenic grandeur. The ecosystem shelters 68 threatened or endangered species, among them the Florida panther, West Indian manatee, and American crocodile, the latter sharing brackish estuaries with its distant cousin the alligator in one of the few places on Earth where both reptiles coexist. Sawgrass prairies stretch between hardwood hammocks and cypress domes, the landscape punctuated by solution holes where acidic water has dissolved the bedrock. An everglades tour from Fort Lauderdale cruise port navigates these waterways aboard airboats, flat-bottomed craft powered by aviation-grade propellers that skim above submerged vegetation without disturbing nesting sites. The vessels reach speeds exceeding 64 kilometres per hour, their operators threading narrow channels between sawgrass stands Cladium jamaicense, the sedge that gave the region its name and whose serrated edges once slowed Seminole War soldiers to a crawl. Naturalist-led walks traverse elevated boardwalks through cypress strands, where resurrection ferns cling to bald cypress knees and barred owls nest in cavities 15 metres overhead. Port Everglades lies 64 kilometres from the park's main entrance at Homestead, but shore excursions from the cruise terminal typically route northwest to Sawgrass Recreation Park, a private concession within the Water Conservation Area bordering the federal preserve. The sawgrass wetlands there mirror the national park's ecology: wading birds—roseate spoonbills, tricolored herons, wood storks—probe the shallows for crayfish and mosquitofish, while alligators regulate body temperature on sun-warmed mud banks. Dry-season months between December and April concentrate wildlife around shrinking pools, improving sightings, though summer rains transform the floodplain into a single continuous sheet, the River of Grass at its truest expression. Cruise passengers on everglades tour from fort lauderdale cruise port excursions work within tight port windows, most itineraries designed as half-day loops that return travelers to the terminal three hours before all-aboard time, the wetlands visited in compressed bursts between embarkation and departure.