Vacation Part III

 One of my favorite days of vacation was when we got to be ultimate trainers for a day. This gave us a look behind the scenes at the Atlantis animals. We arrived at the Dolphin Cay in the morning and it was a beautiful beach and the water was filled with dolphins swimming around. It was so quiet and peaceful. 

We checked in and started our day behind the scenes with a tour. Our tour included a photographer that took photos all day so we didn't have to worry about it. This was great because I now have really nice photos of the memorable day. We got to see where they put together the food for the day for each animal. This room smelled so bad though. I pretty much couldn't wait to get out of that room. We then moved onto the hospital where we got to see animals that were being taken care of. We even got to hold some.

Next up was the nursery. This was absolutely adorable and we got to hold the four-week-old sea turtles. We also got to hold the three-year-old sea turtle. Max wasn't feeling this very much. He really wasn't into holding them. 

Next up was feeding the sharks. This was really cool and the kids loved it. The sharks were ready to eat and they were feisty. Max was really looking forward to this because he loves sharks.

We moved onto the stingrays. We got in the water with them and fed them shrimp. There was snorkeling involved and I wasn't very into that. Max wouldn't even get in the water. He fed the stingrays shrimp from the stairs and he definitely did not snorkel. 

After lunch we went back to the dolphins. This was really cool. We got in the water with them and they pushed us across the water from our feet and they pulled us across the water as we held onto their fin. 

The dolphins did some tricks.

We got to pet and feed the dolphins before we swam with them for a bit. 

After a fun time with the dolphins, we met Canilla. This was probably my favorite part of the whole trip. Canilla was the sea lion and she was a character. She smiled, did tricks, did the dab, "attacked" us, etc. She was a hoot and a ham for the camera. Towards the end of our time with Canilla her friend, Sunny, came out to join us too. This just made the day, if not the whole trip. Everyone had huge smiles on their face. It was so fun!

The last part of our day was experiencing the beautiful parrot. We got a demonstration with the trainer and plenty of photos. In the last photo when the parrot flew over our heads, he kept hitting Andy in the head. I am not sure if the bird was used to flying over someone so tall or if it was intentional. 

Experiencing the Ultimate Trainer for a day was so fun. It was a great experience and even better that it was just our families for the whole day. I would highly recommend this experience for anyone visiting Atlantis. 

Vacation Part II

 We might have been surrounded by sand and water, but we spent very little time at the beach. The water was a little murky due to the hurricane that was out to sea, so it wasn't very enjoyable to get in. Max did enjoy playing in the sand when he wasn't on the waterslides at Atlantis.

Here is the beach we hung out on for one day. There was a lot of seaweed that washed ashore on the second day that I wanted to hang out on the beach so we opted for the pool but did the very short walk to the sand for Max to play.

Each kid took a turn getting buried in the sand.




This is another beach close to the pool where our lounge chairs were.


I did lay in the hammock a few times to enjoy the breeze and the sounds of the waves crashing.


We didn't get much time at the beach but we did have plenty of water slide and pool time. Max did get to make sand sea turtles, bury himself and make a sandcastle with a moat so he was happy. 

Vacation Part I

 I haven't blogged in a while because we have been out of town in the Bahamas for 10 days for our framily vacation with the Campbell family. We stayed on Paradise Island at Harborside which is next door to Atlantis. 

Paradise Island is huge and there was a lot of walking, so I got more than enough steps in each day. Here is Max the first night where we walked around Atlantis to check it out.

We arrived on September 26th and the first thing we did was check out the aquarium at Atlantis and that was really cool to see.

We spent a lot of time at the pool during our 10-day stay. There is just so much to do with the many water slides and pools. 

There was one water slide where you rode on a tube and you ended up floating through a clear tube through the shark tank. Max loved this because he loves sharks. 

My favorite water slide was called The Drop. You basically dropped from a very tall building on your tube. Here is the view from the top of the building. 

At the end of every day, if the kids were well behaved they earned ice cream from the Chocotini place on our way out. The kids were very well behaved all week and they earned their ice cream daily.