It was our girls day/boys day. us girls bought a deal at the dolphin place to be "trainers for a day" and the boys had plans to go to paradise beach and wing it from there. We were a little worried that we would be late getting to our dolphin adventure since we only had 15 min to get off the boat and to our destination but it worked out perfectly. We arrived with a minute to spare.
We waited in the restaurant for the rest of the people to arrive and then we started our adventure. first we got lockers, towels, snorkels and water. we stowed all our stuff in the locker and headed to the training room.
We watched a slide show and listened to our trainer teach us about dolphins and how they train them. We learned so much so fast it was hard to process it all. After our classroom lesson, we headed down to the training pool. They split us into 2 groups to start. Andrea and I started with behaviors. We all learned a bunch of hand signals together working with a dolphin named Athena. Then we each got several turns to choose a trick and instruct Athena. It was so cool to have the dolphin listen and understand us! We got to reward with with either fish or clapping and praise.
After a bit, we switched with the other group and we got to work with the touch pole. We got to take turns holding the target and having the dolphin jump up and touch it and asking the dolphin to do the trick. It was amazing! After we all had a turn, we got to do a few more behaviors before we headed to our next stop.
It was time to get in the water with them!!! We all got on life jackets, and swam out in a line to float in the water and touch Aphrodite as she swam back and forth.
Then we took turns going on a belly ride and having our pictures taken with her. Finally we swam out one more time for some more touching before getting our kisses and a little dance.
Then our time with the dolphins was up. We got to snorkel in their protected little cove, which had an amazing amount of fish and sea life.
Our last activity was a delicious Mexican buffet. They had some amazing chicken.
Then they presented us with our training certificate at the table and they let us go into the gift shop to see our pictures. We each got 2 free pictures printed from our day and we were able to buy more if we wanted. For about $365 we could get all of our pictures on the disc + the DVD video of our swim but I talked them down to $166 so Andrea and I split the cost and we will share the CD and DVD. We had a few hours left before we had to go back to the ship so we grabbed a taxi and had them take us to an open air market we had passed on our way to the dolphin place. We browsed around for a while and I got a leather purse for Elinor and a wooden top for Wesley. Andrea got some souvenirs and we bought matching necklaces that are so pretty. Then Andrea had wanted her hair braided so we found a lady who did that and got it done for her.
by that time we were pretty done, and it was pouring so we went back to the ship about 30 min early. Jon was already in the room when I got back so we shared stories while I took a quick shower then we hung out in our rooms for a few before dinner time.
After dinner we went to see the comedy show. The theme was parenting and she was hilarious!! We finished the night played a card game called Hand and Foot.
Sadly, our last day is tomorrow, so we are off to bed for tonight so we can be ready for one last amazing day.
No comments:
Post a Comment