Things to Do in Carol City

Miami Aqua Tours’ fleet of three Coast Guard–certified vessels sweeps away passengers on holiday parties, evening voyages, and picturesque tours of Miami’s coastline that depart seven times a day. Boats, including the company's Island Princess, embark from Bayside Marketplace, cruising along Miami’s glittering coastline as the downtown buildings wistfully wave goodbye. Tours float past Star Island’s majestic celebrity mansions and weave around the Venetian Islands as seafarers gaze into the ocean beyond, searching for lost treasure or the keys to the captain's jet ski. Alternatively, passengers can stroll from port to starboard aboard a schooner or a 58-foot pirate ship on Saturday and Sunday during the daytime or on scenic sunset tours. While drinking in nautical breezes, customers can sip liquefied libations from the ship’s bar as tour guides narrate Miami’s tell-all memoir in both English and Spanish.

The personable watersports specialists at Adventure World share a zeal for helping visitors explore the ocean from every angle, from the bird's-eye view of a standup paddleboard to the fish-eye view enabled by snorkels. The aquatic enthusiasts perch their collection of gear on the edge of the Atlantic, ready to assist guests with assorted watery recreation. Jet skis and tandem sailboats excite oceanic daredevils, and rafts and inner tubes allow ocean currents and bossy dolphins to dictate direction along the shoreline.

Along the deck of the Flamingo—a 65-foot fishing vessel whose motto is "Fish Can't Hide"—anglers cast their lines into the deep seas in hopes of taking a big catch back to shore. After leaving the docks, the boat travels down the intracoastal waterway, also known as the Venice of America, before reaching the fishing grounds, where schools of kingfish, snappers, black fin tuna, and grouper rush to hide from the full-color fish finders. All guests may keep any fish within the size regulations—an arbitrary number, quite frankly, derived from the president’s arm span—and, while waiting for a nibble, camera-toting sailors can train their lens on the whale sharks, porpoises, and sea turtles breaching the ocean's surface.

The pirates have taken over the ship, their ebullient singing and laughter filling the salty sea air and alerting those around them that this is no ordinary vessel. One of these rowdy buccaneers halts his sea chantey to lift his eye patch, smudging his dark beard in the process, which elicits giggles from his fellow sailors sporting similar face paint. These freebooters are not gruff pirates, but rather youthful adventurers partaking in one of Bluefoot Pirate Adventures’ daily cruises along the crystalline waters of the south Florida coast.

Dedicated to both educating and entertaining kids of all ages, Bluefoot Pirate Adventures’ crew of well-trained staffers keeps wee passengers enthralled with action-packed aquatic outings. Before shipping off on the U.S. Coast Guard–certified Bluefoot, sea-dogs-in-training partake in a buccaneering crash course replete with face painting, pirate-slang translations, and studies on the linguistic evolution of landlubber. Journeys embark from the Bahia Mar Yachting Center in search of a treasure chest's lost key and culminate with an epic water-cannon fight with the nefarious Barnacle Bill. Upon docking, junior pirates receive an official certificate and a take-home bag of booty.

Perched on the Dania Cut-off Canal, Thunderboat Marine Service center's three separate marinas and dry-dock facilities harbor, rent, repair, and sell vessels as large as 50 feet in size. For customers, staff rents out sleek Bayliner Bowriders for all-day, self-piloted voyages of Florida's scenic Intracoastal Waterway. Concierges wash and fuel boats at the marina's slips, and technicians at the certified Mercury and Yamaha dealership repair troubled outboard engines, mend broken fiberglass hulls, and scare off stowaways from the steerage by waving a broom at them.

When the lights go down on Revo Soccer's stretch of realistic indoor turf, glow soccer transports the game into an otherworldly dimension decorated in swooshes of invisible paint that pop under blacklights and a twilit cityscape that appears on one wall. In the darkened arena, players decked out with glowing T-shirts, glow sticks, and face paint imitate their favorite bioluminescent athletes as they send an eerie orb careening around the field. During daylight hours, instructors help sharpen students' skills through weeklong camps, private lessons, and soccer academies. Twice a week, players can drop in to make friends or finally acquire an arch-nemesis during pickup games, or strengthen team bonds during league play.