Today we woke up in the beautiful port of Nassau, Bahamas. Our day was already fully booked with Dolphin and water park activities at the Atlantis resort so it was simply a matter of getting our tickets in order and catching the shuttle over the bridge to Paradise Island, the home of the giant mega-resort. This is the day that Kim was most looking forward to in our trip as she has wanted to swim with the dolphins for quite some time. To say she was eager to get underway is an understatement…
Click on any image to open up a slide show.
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- Here is a panorama of the Nassau port as seen from the cruise ship after we docked there.
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- Here’s a view of the Atlantis resort as seen from our port in Nassau. It is a giant glitzy mega resort stuck on the edge of what is an otherwise rather poor city. Sadly, due to the events we signed up for, we would end up spending all of our time in Nassau at Atlantis and not exploring the town itself. Oh well, we kind of signed up for the full-on commercial experience with this cruise, so we’ll just roll with it.
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- Here’s the view of the port after we disembarked. Now we just need to wait around for our ride over to Atlantis…
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- Kim is showing off her bands which entitle her to enter Atlantis and participate in the dolphin experience. To say she was excited is an understatement…
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- You know you’re in the tropics when you see birds of paradise everywhere. I spied this one in some of the landscaping around Atlantis.
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- Once on site at Atlantis, our hostess ushered us directly to Dolphin Cove (which involved a walk all the way across the resort practically). Here is what we saw when we arrived. Next step, get into our wet suits!
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- After checking in, and locking our belongings up, we were handed our wet suits. A short orientation later, we were ready to get in the water!
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- So we were introduced to our handlers and got right into the water. Shortly thereafter, our first dolphin guest swam over. She performed some tricks for us and we got to touch her and hear her talk. Then it was photo time and each of us got a few moments with her for a kiss and a hug. Here’s Kim’s special moment.
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- Here is the photo of Kim hugging her special dolphin friend.
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- When the time came for my solo pictures, the older matriarch dolphin swam off and we were introduced to the youngest member of the cove, an 8 month old baby dolphin. My kiss/hug pictures were with the baby. We also got a shot taken with us together as a couple.
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- On our way out of Dolphin Cove, I snapped some pictures of the next group. You can see the main handler, the photographer, and the groups of tourists. Our experience was very similar. Yup, we both got to do the dolphin dance as well.
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- In the back area of the cove, one of the dolphins decided to show off and was repeatedly jumping out of the water and doing flips. Awesome!
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- After our dolphin experience was over, we headed towards the giant water park area which we also had tickets for. Along the way, we spotted this cool fountain and snapped a picture.
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- Atlantis is festooned with aquariums and ponds full of fish life. They have sharks, sea turtles, manta rays, and all sorts of fishies. The water park even had several giant aquariums framing the grotto where one of the more extreme slides dumps out. There’s even a clear tube ride that goes right through a shark tank (which was unfortunately closed that day).
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- After having visited two hatching beaches this year with nary a Sea Turtle in sight, Kim made it our mission to seek out the Sea Turtle pool at Atlantis. It took us a bit of walking and we got lost a couple times, but we did eventually find a large saltwater pond teeming with sea turtles.
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- Here’s Kim with the sea turtles. Yep, we could reach right out and touch them.
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- I found this spiny lobster scrabbling along the edges of it’s own pool He was the only one I could spot in there, but boy was he big…
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- And now for something completely different. As we were wandering back through the many lobbies to our charter van, I spotted this gentleman marching along to some unknown destination. I pulled out my camera and he obliged me with a salute.
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- When we got back to our room onboard after our adventure at Atlantis, we found this guy made up out of towels and a pair of sunglasses Kim left behind. It’s a cute little trick, but it nicely padded our tip to the room attendant!
Atlantis was pretty cool, but super expensive. The dolphin encounter was a total blast and Kim was grinning from ear to ear the entire time. Afterwards, we toured the resort and spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the water park. The Atlantis water park has THE BEST lazy river ride I’ve ever experienced. You know how most water parks have a loop where you can grab an inner tube and lazily float around in a circle? Well Atlantis takes that idea and totally pumps some fun thrills into it. This lazy loop, called “The Current” is a mile long and features sections with faster currents, waterfalls, caves, and even a long section with a tidal wave generator in it that is constantly sending surges under your raft. There’s no relaxing on this loop, but is sure is fun. The slides were great too. There’s one called The Drop that shoots you straight down on your back in a dark tunnel with zero visibility. A short thrill ride later, you’re deposited into a neat grotto under the tower complete with towering aquarium displays on either wall full of giant fish. We both enjoyed how aquariums dotted the landscape everywhere we went. They were next to swimming pools, under the hotel, along the walkways around the grounds, and even integrated into some of the water rides.
We stayed at Atlantis all day and caught one of the last shuttles back to the ship. We skipped all the shopping and touristy stuff, but didn’t really miss it. Our day at Atlantis was a blast. Once back on board, we rested up a bit and headed to dinner. On the ship, you have the option of formal dining in the main dining hall at a scheduled time, or hitting the cafeteria type restaurant on the upper deck whenever you wanted. We chose the formal option every time. If you don’t have to deal with screaming kids, why miss out on the option to be served freshly prepared high quality meals by a very attentive wait staff? Our table had room for 8, but only one other couple regularly joined us for dinner. I don’t know what the other six people were doing for their meals, but they were missing out!
Tomorrow we spend the day at Royal Caribbean’s own private island, Coco Cay where we’ll get to go on a nature walk, kayak in the ocean, and go para-sailing. See you then!