5 Year Anniversary Cruise: Day 4 - Nassau

Thursday we stopped at Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. Tyson was the most excited for this island because when he was little he saw a commercial for the Atlantis resort and has always dreamed of going there. It's SUPER expensive so I doubt we'll ever go to stay but at least this way we could go see it. We had heard that on the islands like this there are a million people offering the same excursions the cruise ship does but for a much lower price. We decided not to book anything through the ship and just see what we could find.

Tyson's Atlantis resort in the background. It was massive!

After wandering around for a while it started to rain so we found a funny tour guide who was offering a van tour of the city and it included Atlantis. It was cheap and perfect to do while it was raining so we went with him and about 10 other people. He was hilarious and it was fun to listen to his Bahamian accent the whole time we drove around. He took us through the slums and around some historic buildings before Atlantis. It was actually really sad to see the difference of about five minutes from the slums where some people still don't have indoor plumbing to across the bridge where the bridge suit of Atlantis (in between the two towers) costs an absurd $25,000 a night with a five night minimum stay. There really is something wrong with that picture! The hotel was beautiful though and it was fun to see all the unique decorations and themed elements of it.

The cool fountain just outside by the parking lot and drop off area.

There were so many little themed details everywhere. The shells pouring out water...the octopus things under the bridge...

...swordfish on top of the towers...

...sea horses holding up balconies...

We were only allowed into certain parts of the hotel. Mostly just the lobby and casino. Everything else was blocked off and we'd have had to use a room key to get past the guards. We caught glances into the forbidden parts and it seemed the the hotel just got cooler and cooler as it went it farther. I can only imagine how awesome the themed rooms must be! This was a big beautiful mural on a wall of the casino.

Everyone was taking pictures with this million dollar chair. I still haven't found out what the story is behind it though.

These blown glass sculptures on the ceiling of the casino were incredible! It's a little hard to tell in this picture but at the tips of most of those spirals are sea shells!

They were all huge too. I should have zoomed out to include people below for perspective but I bet they were at least 15 feet across!

Up close of some of the sea shell shapes at the tips.

A cute dolphin waterfall in the lobby of the hotel.

These dolphins were just in random halls as we tried to wander. There was a big shopping area too. We got quite lost for a while and it made us nervous that the shuttle driver would leave us!

After visiting Atlantis we went to The Queen's staircase. It was named for Queen Victoria who reigned for 65 years (the same number as there are steps) and was the one to abolish slavery. The canyon used to be solid limestone and was carved by slaves as an escape route for soldiers at the fort just up the hill. It was never used. It took 600 slaves 16 years to carve out and it was all done with pick axes and shovels.

The hand carved waterfall was beautiful.

Sad story behind the canyon but it was really neat looking with all the trees growing up around the edges!

We walked all around a little flea market at the top of the hill while we waited for everyone to come back to the shuttle and there was lots of reasonably priced souvenirs we'd have loved to buy but we had given all of our cash to the driver. :( We thought after lunch we could find our way back up but once we drove down we realized it would be too far. After we got back in the shuttle, the tour guide stopped by someone's booth and treated us all to conch fritters. They were weird but we both tried them just to say that we had. They were just round balls and deep fried or something. They didn't taste very fishy but did leave a weird after taste in our mouths. The funniest part was that they came in a bowl with some pink dipping sauce. Everyone in the van loved it and asked the driver what it was. He didn't know what to call it and just tried to describe it but we knew exactly what it was...fry sauce! It was hilarious that no one knew what it was. I guess it really is just a Utah/Idaho thing.
After our tour was over we decided to go eat a late lunch for free back on the ship and then go walk around the town to see what kind of souvenirs we could find. We changed into pants since it had been pretty chilly earlier. There were lots of random stores with plenty of souvenirs to choose from but not nearly as much selection as there was on the hill. It was disappointing. We still got some fun stuff though. As we were walking around it started to rain again. It was just soft at first so we kind hopped from store to store and only got a little wet. Then it started to completely pour! Even the locals said it rarely rains that much. The streets turned into little rivers and if we accidentally stepped in a puddle we got wet clear up to our shins. It was crazy! We hid out in some stores and under some pavilion things but then decided to just head back to the ship. We were pretty wet and pretty cold. We started sprinting back but then kinda slowed down and thought "What the heck? This is fun! How many people can say they've been puddle jumping in Nassau, Bahamas!?" We still ran but didn't worry as much about getting soaked and didn't try as hard to avoid the puddles. It was hilarious. When we got back to the ship and were dripping wet, they had towels ready for us at the security check in. It was great. The ship's air conditioning felt SO cold though!

I asked a security guard to take a picture of us wet but I guess she didn't really understand that we wanted a full body shot instead of torsos plus the ceiling haha

I must have bad posture and a big bum cause my lower back and upper legs stayed dry. ;)

This was Tyson's only dry spot on his entire body. Even the other side was a little more wet.

Leaving Nassau

The towel animal on this day was very appropriate because the crazy food we tried at dinner was frog legs! Just like the conch fritters we ordered some just to say that we had tried them. They were pretty boring and didn't really taste like anything. However, they LOOKED so gross that I almost lost the rest of my dinner. It was totally a leg. I could tell exactly what was muscle, tendon, knee joint, etc. When Tyson started playing with them and pretending they'd jump off the table it was too much for me. It was just too realistic haha.