Pickup and Meeting Points: How Every Tour Starts

The most common reason a good trip goes badly is not the tour. It is the twenty minutes before it, spent on a street corner in Miami Beach looking for a minibus. Here is how pickup works, and what to do if you are fifteen minutes late.

Your pickup point comes with your booking

We do not print meeting addresses on this site, and that is on purpose. Your exact pickup point is sent with your booking confirmation, once we know where you are staying, how many of you there are and whether you have luggage. It arrives with the date, the time, the driver's name and a WhatsApp thread for that booking.

• City tours: your hotel lobby, the kerb outside your building, or the nearest landmark we agree with you.
• Everglades and Keys: the same coverage on a short stop list, so an early start still works for everyone on it.
• Private tours: your door, your driveway or your lobby. You choose when you book.
• Boat tours: the marina gate, with boarding from the floating dock. We send the gate instructions with your booking.

Where we pick up

Pickup is included in the price, and we cover the whole greater Miami area rather than a single neighbourhood.

• South Beach and Miami Beach, including the hotels along the strip.
• Brickell and Downtown Miami, including condo and apartment buildings.
• Coral Gables, Coconut Grove and Key Biscayne.
• Hialeah, Doral and Aventura, on the city route and the day trips.
• Miami International Airport, for groups, with pickup timed to your flight.
• Somewhere else in Miami-Dade or Broward. Ask, and we will tell you honestly.

What the vehicles look like

• The vehicles are white air-conditioned minibuses with Leonida Tours on the side in pink and teal.
• Your host is in a pink lanyard and will be standing at the kerb.
• The bus is usually parked within a minute or two of your pickup point, with the Leonida Tours logo on the side.
• If you cannot see it straight away, message the WhatsApp thread for your booking and the driver will come to you.

The boat tour meeting point

Boats leave from the marina, not from a city street. We send the gate details with your booking: which gate to use, which side of the bridge it is on, and what the end of the boardwalk looks like. Boarding is from a floating dock with a step ladder, so wear closed shoes.

• Look for the marina office building and the fuel dock. The boat is tied up beyond it.
• Boarding is from a floating dock with a step ladder, so wear closed shoes.
• Arrive 20 minutes early. The gate closes five minutes before departure for the manifest.

If you are running late

Call the number on your confirmation as soon as you know you have a problem. The practical rules are these.

Traffic is the usual reason. If you are coming from the airport, from Brickell during rush hour, or across the causeway at 5pm on a Friday, allow 25 minutes more than the map says. The map does not know about the drawbridges.

What to bring

• Sunscreen. Required on every outdoor tour and not optional in Miami in any month.
• Water. We have it on board, but a personal bottle is better.
• Closed shoes. Especially for the boats and the Everglades boardwalk.
• A hat or a cap. The city tour has shade on the bus and almost none on the walk.
• Light rain protection from June to September. It is usually a fifteen-minute downpour and then it stops.

Getting there

• By car: if you are driving to a pickup point, do not circle the block. Your confirmation says where to stop and whether the kerb is metered.
• By rideshare: set the drop to the landmark named in your confirmation, unless it names a hotel entrance, in which case use the address exactly as written.
• On foot: in South Beach, Brickell and Downtown most pickup points are a short walk from where you are staying.
• By bus: the Miami Beach Trolley runs the strip all evening, but it does not run early enough for the morning departures.