Recommend an Everglades Tour, please

My wife and I have decided that our family will go to Florida for mid-winter vacation. One thing I’m insisting on is that I want to take a boat tour of Everglades National Park.

But there are so many to choose from, and so little information about each! The Everglades covers so much area, I’m not sure which is the best city to tour from. (Everglades City would sound like a no-brainer, but there are Everglades tours based in cities all over South Florida!) So…anyone ever go on one of these tours? I want to get a feel for the uniqueness of the Everglades. I don’t want it to take more than an hour or two. I think using an “airboat” sounds very cool (that’s one of those boats with a big fan in the back, right?), but if you think a non-airboat tour is better, I’m open to considering it.

Thanks for all the help!