Bucket List Item - Check!

I always wanted to be an animal trainer. Work at a place like Sea World. Work with dolphins and whales. In college my writing intensive course for my psychology degree was Animal Behavior. I also wanted to work for the Disney Company and walk on a moving platform and have a desk. So I did two of those things, but never made it to being one on one with animals.... but now I can say I have!

Prior to going on our Disney Cruise vacation Katura and I spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos of people on their vacations. We liked to see what to expect, what to pack, what kinds of fun things we could do OFF the ship. One of those videos we saw had them going to see dolphins. Katura was so excited and said she wanted to see dolphins! Being a person that has always loved them and only pet one once, I was on board with this plan. When it became our check-in time for the cruise and we could start booking excursions I told her if there was a dolphin thing open I would take her. After doing my research ahead of time (seriously, if you're going to cruise with Disney and want to book character things, dining, excursions.... study early so when your window opens you can book them right away. Things fill FAST!!) I saw there was one dolphin excursion our family could do together given Katura's age. It was open, and we were booked!

The plan had been to stay on the ship when we got to Nassau, but that changed now that we were going to Blue Lagoon Island for a dolphin encounter! At 11:45am we were at the D Lounge on the Disney Dream, organizing into groups and heading off the ship to get to our respective boats. 

We got ourselves a nice seat with a view and settled in for a ride to the next island. It was maybe 40 minutes long, but full of entertainment. Music, dancing, sight seeing. We were able to see the ginormous Atlantis Resort and a lot of celebrity homes.

See those two houses? BOTH belong to Oprah Winfrey! We also saw the homes of Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, DJ Khaled, Nicolas Cage, Beyonce and Jay-Z and more whose names we are blanking on. We also saw a defunct Club Med!

When we arrived at our destination we had about an hour to play around in the ocean. I don't even need to say how great the water felt! 

Soon enough we were able to head over and check in for our dolphin encounter. There were two areas for the dolphins. The dolphins themselves had tons of area to swim and play, but we humans had two areas to line up and meet the dolphins. Ours was that first one you see in the photo below. We took a spot in the shade closest to the building. 

Now it will be heavy photos, light text! Basically we all sat around the edge with our feet dangling in the water. We were introduced to Clifton, our dolphin! It was so cool being so close to a dolphin and hearing him make all of his cute little dolphin noises. He'd even go out of our area and out into the big open water to do tricks. But then it got even better! We were part of the first group to get down in the water. There was a platform we were able to stand on so Clifton could swim right up to us. Katura was a tad short, but her dad was nice and held her up. So let's see what happened!

First he did a slow swim so we could pet the top of him.

Then he came in between us so we could pet his back again, then flipped over for his tummy. This made Katura a little nervous, so she didn't pet his belly. She was all smiles though!

Those of us brave ones took the opportunity to get to touch Clifton's teeth!

Now this part was my favorite... we ALL hugged AND kissed Clifton!!

Now that we had hugged, kissed and pet... it was time for a dance party!

All of that dancing worked up an appetite - so we got to feed him. I totally touched a dead fish! Anything for Clifton!

Finally we had family photos taken. We parents didn't know where Clifton was, so it was pretty fun to see the photos at the end and see him snuggling up to Katura again! We had many more photos AND complete video of our whole experience. Sure, it cost a lot but I am so glad we did it and bought them all!

When we were done Katura and Shawn went back to the beach, I bought the photos. They saw a sting ray on their way back! How cool! We had quite a bit of time left to swim again before boarding the boat back to the Dream. There was NO way we were missing that boat!!!!

Somehow the boat ride was faster, and more of a party, and Katura managed to fall asleep! We have discovered the Bahamas is obsessed with the Macarena and Baby Shark. Both songs were done on the way to and from Blue Island! I have full video of Shawn and Baby Shark if you need to see that.

We did have to walk a little bit to get back to the ship, so we were able to see a little bit of Nassau that way. That was enough for me really. I grabbed some photos, here's one.

It was quite a full day, and absolutely worth it!