Nassau, Bahamas

Breakfast in the Dining Rooms is the BEST!! This morning Brent decided to bring his own "Orange Juice" (as he likes to refer to it)

Here he is with is dew, taking a picture like the aforementioned Pirate guy!! LOL Gotta read the previous post to understand the face in this picture!
"Okay Robert, I'm going to take your picture..... when I say 3, you need to look at me, both eyes open and smile....One..... Two..... Three!" LOL!!! He is a tough one to take pictures of.

Michelle towing the line. She is good at towing the line, she gets lots and lots of practice. :-)

Yahoo! Here we are, in the Bahamas!! Nassau to be exact. I've always always wanted to visit the Bahamas. Although it was overcast we were in for an amazing day!
Over, across the water there, the pinkish building, is Atlantis on Paradise Island. We won't talk about how much we paid to spend a day at this resort, because that would ruin the whole mood of the blog. All you need to know is, although they are totally price gouging here, it was a totally cool, once in a lifetime opportunity.

This room, the one that looks like a bridge... $25,000.00/night!!!!! SERIOUSLY!!!!! I Suppose you only have to find one yoyo per year to break even. LOL

We STARTED on the slide that I was most afraid to go on. This picture just doesn't even do it justice!! It is a 60 ft, almost vertical drop that ends up in tunnel that runs through a shark tank. The tunnel could have been through China, and I wouldn't have noticed, my eyes were closed so tight and my heart was pounding so hard there is NO WAY I was noticing my surroundings! I got off, my legs shaking so hard I could hardly stand, and Brent says "That was SO cool!! Did you see the shark tank?" "Shark tank??? NO!! I totally missed the sharks! Now I have to go sit down, my legs are too week." I felt about 80 years old at that moment. But it passed.

And we were off to the next slide. Where I went very fast... I went faster then Brent! I know this, cuz they have timers! Timers that start when you push off! Michelle beat Robert too... I think it's cuz we didn't touch the slide the whole way down. LOL!! I can handle these bumpy ones.
Then we went on another one that was pretty thrilling, and fast. 50 ft drop followed by a 200 foot slide. It joined in the fun with the other two, of slamming our swimsuits up our rears and bruising our buttocks.
It landed us in the underground aquarium that was super cool! I certainly didn't expect that at the bottom of the slide. Glad we did that one, we almost didn't do it.
The lines weren't too bad, there were quite a few people there, but there was a lot to do. There was also a lot to look at while you stood in line, so it didn't bother me too much to have to wait.
We also went on another tube slide in there that took us through the same shark tank as the crazy slide did, but the tube drifted lazily through the tank so that you could actually see the sharks. That was cool too. See what I mean by totally unique!
Then we went on what I like to call the "not so Lazy River".
This thing was incredible! There were rapids, you had to be sure to keep your toes clear of the walls, and your bummy clear of the rapids. I guess it too wanted a shot at banging up our rears.
At one point in the river there is a wave machine..... Like they use in wave pools. This pushes you along, and quite a nice clip, for quite a while. Michelle managed to catch us at the top of a wave! (nice work girl!) This "not so lazy river" was SOOOOO long!
At one point we had to get on a little inner-tube escalator that took us up, just a wee bit to continue our "lazy" adventure.
At one particular junction, if you went left you continued on with the river, if you went right........ you were in line, for this..
Incase you can't tell what this is.. it is a GIANT inner-tub escalator, that you have to go up backwards to get to the top of the slides. That's right folks. No haulin' your tube up the stairs, no waiting in line while the kid in front of you shoves his tube in your face, and scratches your sunburn with the sharp little edges of his tube. You just sit back, relax, chat with your inner-tube buddy and wait for the thrill.
This slide begins at the top of a 121 foot tower, where you plummet down, only to be swiftly shot right back up the other side, like a roller coaster! (again with the bum! LOL) It was really something else!!! By the time this was over, us old folks were ready for a break and some food. Our excursion included lunch... which was yummo.. This sign cracked me up!!
Also at lunch we discovered a happy new thing:
BAHAMA GOOMBAY PUNCH! Which is not what I would call a punch at all, because it is carbonated. Oh, my friends, heavenly yummieness!!! And I will have all you "anti dew" people know, that there was no caffeine in this stuff, and we still loved it. And Michelle and I each brought home at least a dozen cans from the Bahamas! If they had this here in TN, I would bag the dew... okay.. I wouldn't drink it as often, but I will always like me some BAJA! But this just proves that it's all about flavor!
After lunch we went for a walk around the grounds and through the aquarium while our lunch settled. This looks so unreal. I kept telling Brent that it looks like a set at Universal Studios. Just amazing, the whole place.Here we are in front of "our room". :-D
We took lots of pics in the aquarium, but I liked this one cuz you could see the hotel up through the water and the rays of sun.
Conk is a delicacy here in the Bahamas. Isn't it ugly? That dark brown thing on the end is like a toe nail. who knew that those beautiful shells housed such ugly creatures?
I touched it.. ewwy.... They told us that in order to get these guys out of the shell, you have to break in the back way... they said you can pull and pull on them all day long and they won't come out the front.
Michelle touching a sea star.
Taken from inside the crazily priced Hotels. A standard room for 4 rents at about $700/night.
After our wanderings, we headed to this little lagoon area to see what we could see under the surface of the water. The Snorkeling was MUCH better here!
Tho the water was still cold, you could find a warm patch here and there. The day stayed over cast, and we had a few rain storms, so it wasn't a terribly hot day. The water here stayed rather shallow, but had rocks and weeds for fish to hide and play in, so there were way more fish.
Michelle was being a big baby about how cold the water was. Brent told her "just stick your face in and go." I had the camera ready for it.... this is what she did!! LOL!!! I love this woman!!!
Us, looking ever so loverly....
One Fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.
Really I'm just posting these to prove that we DID actually see some fish, some colorful ones too.
Can you see that scary looking guy. Brent took this picture. Apparently Brent is a very dangerous predator, cuz he can spot all the ones that are supposed to be hidden in their environment.
Michelle did get in... eventually, for a minute or two. :-) It was really cold again, and the two of us were out LONG before the boys.
Me, in all my proper snorkeling form.
This little guy tried to hide from my camera, but he was a little too impatient. He quickly hid in a hole when he saw me, but not 2 seconds later came out to see if I was still there, GOT HIM!

Brent was quite thrilled with his school of Angel Fish. He swam around with them for a while. There had to have been 30 of them. I think that snorkeling was one of Brents favorite parts.
One last picture before leaving the resort to head back to Nassau to shop and get some food.
We happened upon a Hard Rock Cafe!!! Brent collects Hard Rock Shirts and pins. So we went in there really quick.
Michelle found that guy she was looking for,
And I found mine. :-) Unfortunately, the roll up the sidewalks at 7:00 in Naussa. We got to go in a few Americanized shops, but no little Bahama market. :-( I like the locals so much better. We found where the market is.... so if anyone goes there, call me, I'll tell you were to head. But they were all closed up for the night.

We headed back to the ship rather late that night. We went up to the cafeteria to grab a bite. The boys were wishing they had some delicious warm melting cake. ... So were we. We decided that since the late dinner people were still in the dining room, it wouldn't hurt to go in and ask Santi if he could get us some cake to go. He pulled some strings and sent us off with 4 cakes and 4 ice creams. YUMMMMM!!!
We were greeted tonight by this darling elephant! Oh, I love Cruising!!