On our last day we would be departing the Bahamas for home in the afternoon. But we still had the morning to enjoy. I wanted to get out to Cove Beach and spend some of the early morning in the Aquaventure Park, and made my way to the there while the park was just opening.

My visit to Cove Beach and the Lagoon I included in the Aquaventure video I posted in the previous post. I was momentarily hesitant to get my swimming trunks wet and sandals full of sand on the day of departure, but I decided to just go for it. I could always put them in waterproof bags in our luggage and clean them up when we got home.

After walking through part of the park I returned to the room. I knew Shelley wanted to visit Dolphin Cay (and so did I) and I didn’t want to go there without her.

I returned to the room and we quickly packed up our suitcases and showered. We decided to go to Murray’s Deli again for breakfast but found that it was closed. So we stopped at the Starbucks in the resort and got some takeout coffee and breakfast sandwiches to eat at Dolphin Cay.

I mentioned previously that the Aquaventure Park is HUGE and there is about a mile walk to the Dolphin Cay from the Royal Towers. But we did find our way there with our breakfast items in hand to eat while enjoying the dolphins.

Dolphins are another animal that we both love seeing and watching. Dolphins are intelligent and playful. We were seated at a table a distance away (we weren’t inside the Dolphinarium itself but just outside it) but could watch the dolphins interacting with the trainers.

While we ate we pondered when we might come back again as a family. There’s a lot of fun things to do at Atlantis and it would just be a matter of when it made sense to fit it into our schedule. We would actually have to pay for our hotel room of course 🙁

We returned to the room, gathered our luggage and checked out of the hotel. We had a Welcome Pickups driver already scheduled to take us to the airport (which is about an hour away on the other side of New Providence Island).

We had a good conversation with the driver on the way back to the airport. As I mentioned in the prior post we talked to him about our experience at the restaurant in Nassau the prior day and he encouraged us to come back and visit the Bahamas again. We likely will in the coming years.

One more interesting note: The US customs processing line was in the Bahamas, so when we boarded the plane from the airport in Nassau we had already passed US immigration. When we landed in Denver we were free to go without waiting through customs. It was nice to do this first rather than have it waiting until arrival when we were already tired.

We really enjoyed our trip. October was a crazy month for us and by the time we returned we were glad to be home. But I felt like everything that we did, with the week in South Carolina and Georgia, followed quickly thereafter with the Bahamas getaway was worthwhile no matter how crazy the schedule became. Sometimes you just have to take advantage of opportunities when they come and throw caution to the wind.

Our 11-year-old son was fine while we were gone (though he missed us and got bored) and my parents were able to get him to school, etc. Our 18-year-old son also helped and we felt good knowing they could step up for us when we needed help.

We don’t have a lot planned now for a while. The economy has affected Shelley’s job and we aren’t sure how long she will remain there. We are just planning a relatively easy roadtrip in the summer of 2025 as of now and leaving more complicated travel plans for the following years. There are a lot of places we want to visit or revisit. Its just a matter of time and opportunity.

I had no idea we’d be taking this trip to the Bahamas at the start of 2024. It came out of nowhere. We didn’t win a million dollars, but we got a free trip and that was a great win by itself.