Monday, April 2, 2012

Spring Break - Nassau, Part Two

Our driver left us at the dock for the next part of our tour...the "Sea" portion included a boat ride out to a "submarine" for an up close look at the fish along a coral reef.

As we headed out to deeper waters, Paradise Island was to our left with the great big Atlantis resort as well as a bunch of multi-million dollar homes belonging to celebrities like Mick Jagger, Tiger Woods, Nicholas Cage, Michael Jordan, Chuck Norris, Tom Cruise and Oprah.

One of the catamarans taking cruise passengers out for a sail and snorkel tour.


Pulling up to dock with our "submarine." It was a two level boat - the undersea level had these incredible viewing windows with little mini seats in front of them.

The captain steered us out over a couple of different coral reefs in the area and fed the fish, bring bunches of very colorful fish to our viewing windows in great big schools.





Our tour guide on the submarine and one of the helpers with the boys.


As we came back up to the pier, we saw the third ship of the day docked and two more in the channel. This is the backside of the Norwegian Epic.

We had planned to go back for lunch on the ship before exploring on our own, but the boat captain recommended someplace special for lunch called the Fish Fry. It's an area of about 30 little seafood restaurants down near the docks where the fishermen bring in the fresh catch. He said it was a nice 15 minute walk and so we decided to try it. It took us past all of the shopping and the straw market, down past the long expanse of public beach. The boys did a good job of keeping up with us! When we got there, only a few restaurants were open for lunch. We found one that seemed to be busy, called "Twin Brothers" and had a great lunch. Parker had fish and chips off the kids menu (Wesley ate chicken nuggets pretty much everywhere we were that week) and the grownups had fresh conch burgers which were super yummy!

The adventure of our lunch came with a trip to the bathroom. It wasn't located inside of the restaurant - this whole "Fish Fry" area had one set of shared bathrooms in a pink building across the street. Needless to say we didn't send the boys by themselves!

After lunch we hiked back into town and had fun shopping. We found the requisite magnet and Christmas ornament, and got t-shirts for all the guys and new hats for the boys (from this place called Piranha Joe's). In the straw market the boys found these little "walking turtles" made from the shells of coconuts. We bargained down the price and Parker bought one with his souvenir money and we bought one for Wesley too ($5 each).

By 3:30 we were all exhausted and headed back to the ship. We all crashed for a nap in the cabin! We woke up in time to see the ship sail out of port (the boys watched from our window) and then packed most of our stuff before dressing for dinner. Our waiter Komang took extra time with the boys this night, doing magic tricks with a quarter for Wesley and making a special animal out of their napkins.


After dinner we headed up to the Promenade deck for some shopping. We had visited here several times to pick up pictures and the boys wanted to get their final boat souvenirs. Parker picked out a brown bear with a Carnival Destiny t-shirt (that he paid for with his own money) and Wesley picked out a stuffed Fun Ship Freddy and an inflatable boat.

We took our new souvenirs with us to the Palladium Lounge for one last Vegas style show, called Voila Paris! The boys had fun getting more soda and of course watching the showgirls. Then we headed up to the lido deck for one last set of ice cream cones!


Our final towel creation awaited us upon our return - a heart. It was appropriate because our boys fell in love with cruising during this trip and were already asking if we could visit new countries next time!

We packed up the rest of our luggage and put it out for the room stewards to collect before crashing into bed.

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