Simple Hobby Homesteading

Day 3 of our cruise and Kevin had not gotten better overnight. He had gotten worse. Totally stuffed up, cough, and utter icky feeling all over. This cold had knocked him out for the count and I was bummed. We had bought a “Resort For a Day” package several weeks ago which gave us a hotel room by the world famous Atlantis water park as well as admission for 4 for a day of fun in Atlantis! We had gotten the room because it was a cheaper deal than just buying four passes to Atlantis and Kevin has never been a fan of swimming and water parks so we figured he could hang out there if he didn’t want to stick around Atlantis.

Oh well… looks like this day on a foreign island would be mom led while Kevin relaxed on the ship. The boys and I went out to get a taste of Nassau and to be honest we weren’t all that impressed. Four other ships were docked at the port and it was crazy busy! We headed back on the ship to get our stuff to head to Atlantis and noticed something interesting… the sign on our room door had some signatures. What a neat idea! The signs had been placed the day before to welcome all us homeschoolers (by Mazie or Shelly, not sure which) and it was really neat to see more and more signatures added as the days went by.

 

I packed a bag for our trip to Atlantis and gave my husband a kiss goodbye for the day. We embarked off of the ship once again and caught a fun water taxi to the adjacent Paradise Island where Atlantis awaited. When we got off the water taxi I had no clue where our Comfort Inn and Suites was but figured it had to be close to Atlantis so we headed that way. Did I mention it was about a million degrees with insanely high humidity? We stopped at a welcome center and asked where our hotel was. She pointed and said “Just keep walking, you’ll run right into it.” Ok, I didn’t ask how far it was because I thought my boys might refuse to go another step further if the answer wasn’t to their liking.

 

 

We walked about 3 blocks and sure enough there it was, Comfort Inn and Suites! Woohoo! We went to what looked like a main entrance but the door was locked and we didn’t have a room key to open it yet. Other side of the building, same thing. We finally found the main entrance (quite obvious looking back now) and poured ourselves into the lobby. The boys crashed in some chairs while I checked us in without issues. We went to our room and I celebrated the fact we had found the hotel while my boys each claimed a bed and practically passed out.  Everything just seemed less fun without Kevin and the boys tend to be a bit more… shall I say “whiney” without their dad in earshot.

I tried to get my boys up and moving but they were already sawing logs… seriously, we had just gotten in the room like two seconds before! The hotel had WiFi but I resisted the urge to take my phone off Airplane mode. I had noticed an interesting phenomena since we had left the port in Florida a couple days before. I was seeing people’s eyes, smiles, and having conversation after conversation with interesting folks without heads buried in phones. Royal Caribbean offers internet packages while onboard but they are quite expensive so I don’t think many people opted in for them. It was absolutely refreshing to not see people tied to their phones and to not feel like I was tied to mine… LIBERATING!!

My phone stayed on airplane mode and I plopped down on the bed next to my 16 year old (that usually gets him up rather quickly). I got a 16 year old “Moooooooooooommmmmmmm…” so I hopped over to the next bed where Gunner lay (11 year old who has not yet quite perfected the long drawn out Moooooooommmmmmm yet). I asked if he was ready to go be dazzled at Atlantis and he made me promise (for like the hundredth time) that I would not make him swim with dolphins. Apparently dolphins are mean creatures that are out to kill the Conways. I promised and he said he’d get up and get his swimsuit on. That’s all I needed to convince Jackson to get up and get moving! In about 15 minutes we all had swimsuits on and were ready to head to Atlantis.

It was a super short walk of block to get to the Atlantis resort, head through the casino, and down to the entrance where we got our wrist bands for the water park and aquarium. The fish were magnificent in the aquarium and there was a tube that you walked through where lobsters crawled above and all around you… kinda creepy but cool.

We found our way easily into Atlantis and came right in by the famous “Leap of Faith” water slide. Many stories tall and straight down through a tube where sharks swam around you. We may have to work up to that one… Jackson and I tried to talk Gunner into doing the tube waterslide where you go through a tube surrounded by sharks as well but there was no convincing him so Jackson and I went.  Kindof a tame ride but the tube through the shark infested water was a unique touch. We live 20 minutes from Holiday World in Indiana so we are a bit water and amusement park snobbish (Holiday World is amazing… plan your next family vacation to Santa Clause, Indiana and then stop by The Shepherd Hobby Farm in Boonville and say hi to us!

We got something to eat (so weird to have to actually PAY for food… I wish I could click my heels and be back on the cruise ship) and relaxed for a bit. We then went to the “lazy river” which was called “The Current”. The name should have given me a clue that this was no lazy river which my sons assured me it was. The Current was in fact a one mile long tidal wave river ride (though you were in your own personal innertube the whole tube) with 8-foot high elevations and drops, a whitewater rapids section, and a bunch of tunnels and caves. Huge gushes of water send you up 15 feet in the air and then crashing down and into the rock walls on either side. My innertube became my life preserver in short order. I was told by the attendant along the way that sections get you rushing by at 30 miles per hour… seriously?!?! How could this ride be legal without requiring life jackets? Of course the boys were thrilled an loved it. Have I mentioned I get motion sickness easily? Like… REALLY… easily… Needless to say about 10 minutes into this neverending thrill ride I was green in the gills and wondering what the sanitation practices were for when…. Not if… I puked in the “The Current.” My sons would be mortified, I would be miserable, and “The Current” passengers might be a little grossed out.

Oh, did I mention we had just eaten? Seriously sons… last time I let you pick the “after lunch” ride! By some miracle I made it through the whole mile (literally took forever!) with my lunch still intact… in my throat, but intact. We got to the “exit” and the boys wanted to go around again… sure, go for it boys! I’ll just pull myself up to the shore like a beached pilot whale hoping things stop spinning. Ugh, I just layed there on the cement “beach” that led up and out of the water. The sun felt good, the water was finally starting to settle for me, and I was losing my icky vomit feeling. Ooh, that was fun!

I laid there for what must have been longer than I should have because someone came up and asked if I was ok. I was. I got up and sat in a nearby chair to wait for my boys to finish their crazy fun ride. They came around eventually and wanted to go around again. Sure, why not, go ahead boys, I was going to search out some ginger ale. We agreed to meet up at the sharks when they were done pummeling themselves black and blue on the rocky river ride. Kids have weird ideas of fun. Seriously, Gunner was showing off his scrapes and bruises from “The Current!”

I found some water (no ginger ale) and drank slowly while I soaked up the beautiful Bahamas rays. I lounged in one of the pools for a bit, watched some sharks, stared out at the ocean, and contemplated going on the “Leap of Faith,” a 60 foot near vertical drop from the top of the Mayan Temple. My sanity returned and I got another bottle of water.

The boys caught up with me a few hours later and were pretty darn wore out. We went on one last ride, the “Challenger Slides” where you race the person next to you down near vertical water slides slightly lower than the “Leap of Faith.” G forces, water up your nose , and heart up in your throat sound like fun? Then this ride is for you. I raced Jackson and then talked Gunner into racing Jackson trying to hide my obvious terror and ocean up my nose. He did it… yup, uncomfortable and frightening for him but made for great pictures for me!

After that we were completely done. Like, totally didn’t want to walk back to the hotel done. I tried to talk the boys into carrying me but there was no having it.

We slowly strolled back to the hotel with a quick stop at the gift shop for t-shirts. Bye sharks, by motion sickness, by crazy expensive food, and bye Atlantis. We rested at the hotel for a bit and then caught a water taxi back to the dock where our friend, the Enchanted of the Seas, was waiting for us. We stopped at the straw market before getting back on the ship to grab some souvenirs and were dragged to the inner bowels of the market by a vendor who desperately wanted me to buy some of her kinda weird trinkets.  Gunner found a neat wooden sword a few stalls down and had his name engraved into it. We really didn’t find anything else that we fell in love with so we left the straw market with just a wooden sword.

Hard Rock Café… cool t-shirts! Starbucks, yes please, Bahamas Starbucks mug! That was it… Nassau was busy and not as much fun as I thought it would have been. We got back on the ship and told Kevin all about our day. He was totally stuffed up and not feeling well at all… I felt so bad for him.

We missed dinner in the “My Fair Lady” dining room because we were in Nassau a bit later than we thought we would be so it was the Windjammer for dinner (the boys like it up there better anyways). We relaxed poolside to watch the movie “Inside Out.” Not as good as I thought it would be, but cute.

9:00pm boys wanted to watch Paul Blart Mall Cop 2 poolside and I wanted to go to the show in the Orpheum Theatre (Sideshow Bert doing comedy juggling and dangerous stunts)so we parted ways for a couple hours. Kevin relaxed in the cabin.

10:00pm Gunner was tired so he headed down to the cabin and Jackson and I went to the Love and Marriage Gameshow… SOOOOOOOOOO FUNNY! They took three random couples from the ship, newlyweds (married 3 months), middle (married 20 years if I remember right), and older couple (married 34 years if I remember right). I’ll do another post for that show because it was so funny and this one is already getting quite long. I’ll link it here after I write it. I repeat though, SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FUNNY!

 

11:30pm… how were we still walking? Tired to say the least! We ran up to Midnight Delights Buffet to get something to eat and back to the cabin to go into our usual food and exhaustion induced coma. Yup, sleep came quickly to all of us (except Kevin who hacked up a lung most of the night) this night. Ooh and we wanted to give room service another try so we filled out our sheet for wheat toast, pastries, orange juice, and bacon. I wonder if it will come?

Toodle loodles, until installment 6!

Jhenna