Where to stay

I know this has been asked a million times but we are going on a cruise in mid October. We are staying in Fort Lauderdale for two nights before the cruise. We usually cruise out of Miami and stay right on the beach. So I am torn between staying at the Hilton Marina so we can be near the water taxi or staying on the beach. I would like a hotel where we can walk to different restaurants for dinner and maybe a coffee shop we can also walk to. We also wanted to do the water taxi one day so we can see other areas.

We will just Uber to the cruise port so I am not concerned about free shuttles and all of that.