Tanner Life

Friday in Nassau

Friday morning Andy & I were up and headed to breakfast so we'd be ready for our excursion. Here is a picture of our breakfast spot on the VERY B A C K of the ship! It was really a neat place to eat and catch the views as we were getting closer to Nassau.

We arrived and met our group. It was time to be off to a boat that would take us to Black Beard's Cay. Andy & I had visited there before on a previous trip and loved it. We didn't add the stingray swim last time because it was an added fee, this time it was all included for about $35 or $40. You spent 3 hours at the beach, as much time as you wanted in the water with the rays (feeding them too), snorkel equipment, lunch (grilled hot dogs/hamburgers/chicken with chips and drink) and it was a 20ish minute boat ride there to and from.

Note: For those who Disney cruises and think of doing the ray thing at Castaway, I don't recommend it. If you have the choice between doing it in Nassau & Castaway, do it in Nassau @ Blackbeard's! We went and looked at the area in Castaway. Not NEAR as many Rays, you only get an hour in the water with them too! You pay more money (like $45) to have less time with them and less of them. Nuts! Spend your time @ Castaway doing other stuff!!

Oh, you know you're in the Bahamas when you see .... Starbucks right? Crazy -

We did the swimming with rays first thing, awesome! I was sooooo glad we chose to do it this time. It was one of (if not #1) favorite all time excursion for us both. We LOVED it!!! Andy was able to snorkel with them all he wanted. I'm not a snorkel fan, but I was able to hang out with them all I wanted in the water. They are amazing and social creatures. It was like being in a room with tons of cats! The rays rub on your legs, touch your legs all the time and swim between your legs. It's crazy. They are all "manicured", no barbs. (They say it's like cutting your finger nails, it's something they have to do often. There are BIG rays and tiny rays, every size in between. There are oodles and oodles and ooodles of them!!

The Island....

When we fed them we had to get down on our knees in the water. They came around and gave us squid to feed them. I was under the impression we'd get a PIECE of squid, WRONG. They were handing us WHOLE squid (eyeballs, 8 "legs" and ALL)!!! Eeeewwww... that was the worse part. We held them under water, near the bottom. The rays came and swam over our hands, sucking the squid out of our hands. It was like a vacuum, very cool!! The rays would SWARM around you when you had food, they were all around you front/back/side. It was awesome!!!

We had a blast and didn't want to leave. When we were boarding the boat and talking about how awesome it was someone working on the boat asked us if we wanted to stay. He said that they'd be back in an hour to take the last group back to their ship. The Carnival guests came an hour after us and didn't have to head back yet. Our ship wasn't leaving until much later, so we said sure we'd stay. He gave us extra tickets to get something to eat and drink again. (free) We were thrilled!

When we boarded the boat to return the 2nd time we thanked the gentleman and gave him a big ole' tip!

Friday night was also Pirates IN the Caribbean night. How much fun is that??!! We love the pirate "show" up on the deck, so fun!! The fireworks over the ocean, well... you just can't describe how amazing it is!! We dressed up a little but the pic I took is HORRID. I was 100% sad that we didn't get a pirate Mickey or Minnie picture. Andy promises to dress up more next time and do a picture right!