Today is Lane’s birthday! My little boy is turning 3 years old! How the hell is this possible, I mean it was just yesterday that _______________. You all know what I mean…
This was set to be the best day of the trip because it wasn’t just Lane’s birthday, but also the day that we get to play with the Dolphins! Shelly and I were stoked, but Lane seemed to be somewhat indifferent.
Our appointment with the dolphins was at 10:30 AM, and we really didn’t want to be even a minute late. So, in an attempt to save some time, we hit the continental breakfast bar in the lobby of our tower, but still paid $30. I’m not complaining (much), but you can’t eat a meal here and get away for less than $30. It’s amazing.
After we ate, we made a dash for the dolphins. Our excitement meant that we were there about 20 minutes early and had to kill some time. We headed into the “Learning Center,” but a number of the displays were out of order. Lane still got to see what a dolphin skull looks like, and watch video of dolphins doing tricks.
Finally, we went through registration and were off to orientation. First thing, wetsuits. You walk up to a woman who spends a fraction of a second looking at you, and then hands you the perfect wet suit size. I know that she does this all day long, but it is still impressive. Getting the damn wet suit on was as hard as you would expect it to be. Once all three of us were suited up, off to a room with everyone else to wait for our “teacher.”
While we waited in this room, there was a large display that treated us to all kinds of dolphin trivia. Things like: dolphins gestate for 12 months, lose their hair when they are born and hang out in fluid social groups. Once the instructor/trainer came in, he gave us even more info on dolphins. Like the fact that their two eyes act independently and can focus on two separate objects at the same time, all of their “talking” noise actually comes out of the blowhole and not the mouth, and that they hide symptoms of illness and/or disease until hours of their death in order to not be picked off by predators as being the weakest link. Lastly, our room full of thirty were separated into groups of 10 and were pointed to the water.
Our group was paired with a dolphin named “Cosmo,” a three year old dolphin from the Florida Keys. The first thing that we did was line up shoulder to shoulder with our arms stretched out in front of us, and Cosmo swim by giving us our first chance to pet him. Next we got to go up to Cosmo individually and “hug” him. This was a posed hug, as the photographer was there to capture everyone’s moment. Cosmo then swam out and did a number of jumps and tricks before coming back and letting each of us go up and give him a kiss (again, posed for the photographer).
At this point, our group switched dolphins with the group to our right. So, now we had Cosmo’s brother, Mckay. Our last intimate interaction with the dolphins was a group hug done with the couples or families within the groups of 10. So, Shelly, Lane and I got to go up and smile for the camera and have one last moment with the dolphin. Finally, Cosmo and Mckay waved goodbye and did a series of jumps and tricks before we headed back to pry off the wet suits.
If your wondering about Lane, he really enjoyed it when the dolphins did their tricks and especially when they talked. But, at no point did he ever try or want to touch the dolphins. I was impressed that one of photos actually even captured him looking at the dolphin, he really wasn’t too into the whole thing. Oh well, Shelly and I really enjoyed it.
After getting dressed, it was a made scramble to get to the photo desk. This place was just nuts. Everyone was trying to review and purchase their photos at the same time, but one of the security guys mentioned to us that if we waited 30-45 minutes, it would be much calmer. It was a good tip. We went to a concession stand and got some fruit and veggies, and then headed back. It still took about 10 minutes or so, but there were far fewer people, and the whole place wasn’t so busy.
They had about 12 photos of us, but only 1 that looked decent – the one of Shelly kissing the dolphin while holding Lane. Our group shot wasn’t great, and both Shelly and I hated the way we looked. We ended up buying those two photos. It’s amazing that we paid so much just to have the ability to get in the water with the dolphins, but then they take all these photos so that you will spend even more money… and it works!
We headed back to our room for Lane to take his nap, and once he work up, it was back to Atlantis Beach. All Lane really wanted to do on his birthday was play in the sand. Because we forgot all of his sand toys at home, we had stopped and got him a bundle of sand toys at the kids store earlier in the day.
On our way down to the beach, we gave in and bought two coconut drinks – one for Lane, and a “special” one for me. Lane’s appeared to be nothing more than Fruit Punch and some cream, but it wasn’t too sugary and he really enjoyed it. Mine however, well it had at least five different kinds of alcohol in it, along with a lot of ice and some cream. It tasted like what I would assume gasoline and sweet cream mixed together would taste like…
A few hours of playing in the sand ended with showers and then we ate dinner at Johnny Rockets. This time, we ate outside, so we missed out on all the entertainment. After dinner, we hit the ice cream parlor and ate two scoops of Strawberry in a waffle cone. The line at the ice cream parlor was just as long as ever, but it was definitely worth the wait.
