Today we had our excursion starting at 10:15 so we went down
to breakfast a little bit after 9am. I think we were late for the excursion
meeting point by maybe 5 minutes and there were no announcements over the ships
PA to say to be there at all. However when we got to the Broadway Showroom
which is the meeting point for the excursions it was completely empty. We ran
to reception and they called to the excursions people and fortunately they hadn’t
yet left by the time we got outside so we were able to get our tickets and
almost immediately board a taxi van to the Dolphin Academy where our excursion
in Curacao was to be. The ride to the
facility was maybe half an hour long and we got a small idea of what the island
looked like. It was cleaner than Venezuela was at least. We had really nice
weather with a lot of sun and a little bit of cloud cover. While we were riding
I put sunblock on my face.
When we arrived they brought us into the Dolphin Academy
where we sat in a theater until we signed some safety waiver forms and were
separated into our individual types of excursions (encounter or swimming with
dolphins). We had chosen to swim with
the dolphins so we got pink armbands to add to our collection. They sent the various types of groups to
individual briefing rooms where we were shown a brief video about dolphins.
When that had just barely finished our video when one of the dolphin trainers
came to get six people to do the first swim with the dolphins session and we
managed to go with a bunch of people who didn’t speak Spanish as their main
language. She took us first to get our
flippers and I took a life vest because I am not a strong swimmer. Then she took us all the way around the
entire facility it seemed before we got to a blue platform and a separated pool
of the ocean with 2 dolphins in it.
In our group was a couple from the Netherlands who were a
French woman and Dutch guy who boarded in Aruba after being there for a friend’s
wedding. They didn’t speak any Spanish though apparently Bjorn could understand
some. Also we had a mother and daughter
who were Brazilian from Brasilia. They didn’t speak Spanish either, only Portuguese. We got a quick briefing about how to act in
the water then it was in the water immediately and the dolphins came up to us. We were to swim with our hands to our chest
and to only touch the sides of the dolphins and not the face or the tail. They came up to us and swam around and we got
to touch them many times. They are very soft and have smooth skin. They are gentle creatures also it was obvious,
but they could get startled. After a couple minutes the trainer started having
the dolphins do tricks with each of us. They can shake hands, kiss you and do
spins with you. We would take turns having the dolphins do a trick with each of
us then small swimming breaks. The final trick was a ride with the dolphins.
Both would swim out to you with your hand signals as the trainer directed for
each of the tricks and then you could grab onto each of their dorsal fins and
ride them back to the platform. For some
reason the younger dolphin who was still training was afraid of my life vest
and they steered in a different direction than they were supposed to for the
pictures when I got my ride. They weren’t able to get good pictures so the
trainer had me try it again. It took a few attempts and we had to do some extra
swimming. The second ride had the same issue where they veered off to my left
instead of going to the platform. The
trainer had me stay in the pool and everyone else get out and then I got one
final ride that did go right to the platform. She said she wanted the dolphin
to do it right so he understood that it was what he should do. She didn’t want
him to not do it correctly for proper training.
So I was the fortunate guy who got 3 dolphin rides for the price of one.
After the swimming portion we were brought to some quick
showers then into the briefing room where we saw another video about protecting
endangered species and wildlife especially dolphins. Then we went into the
photo shop and looked at our pictures and decided to buy the whole lot of pictures
delivered on a USB drive. We talked to
the others and agreed to share the pictures and they could contribute what they
would when we got back to the ship. The pictures are very good quality. I liked
them better than the Seatrek pictures.
After the photo shop we also bought some souvenir stuff and
then went and had a snack at the snack bar restaurant. I had a hot dog and
Daniela had a tuna sandwich. By the time we were getting the food they were
just getting ready to start the final dolphin show. We got our food and headed
over to the show area right next to the snack bar. They did a show of probably about 20-25
minutes of dolphins doing trick like flips and spins. I was able to get a bunch of the tricks on
video. After the show we headed to the
taxi and rode back to the ship. We really only had another hour on Curacao and
ended up just boarding the ship then going back to the room and drop stuff off.
We went to the buffet and had a dessert for lunch since we
already ate at the snack bar. Then we
sat outside near the pool for a while and I read. I had taken way too much sun
because in all the rush of the rest of the day I had forgotten to put sunblock
on anywhere but my face and my shoulders became really burned. So while Daniela
wanted to stay in the sun I went to the room and showered and got dressed. We
had arranged to meet the other people from the swim in the piano bar at 6 to
swap the photos. I chose to get Daniela at the pool and bring her with me for
this. Fortunately Bjorn and Isa had a
laptop and Raissa had bought a USB drive with only a couple pictures on it so
we let Bjorn copy the pictures to his laptop then we copied them to Raissa’s
drive. We all stayed and talked for
quite a while before we realized it was past 8 and Daniela still had to shower
before we went to see the show in the Broadway Showroom.
So we went back to the room and Daniela got cleaned up then
we rushed up to the show which was a comic show of mostly mime comedy so it
didn’t matter if you understood Spanish or not. They did acrobatics and
juggling. It was the first time I saw a guy do tricks on a pole like exotic
dancers use. Fortunately it was not a sexual thing but just acrobatics. They
pulled people from the audience for some of the sketches.
After the show we went to dinner at our restaurant and I had
a shish kebab with a bean ragout and Israeli couscous. Daniela started with the Chicken Voldostana
but since it had mushrooms she decided to get what I had. Both of us had the
cream of cauliflower and blue cheese soup to start. I had vanilla ice cream and she had a chocolate
mousse cake for dessert. We both had red
wine. The food was excellent and I am sure
I would have liked her chicken dish since mushrooms don’t bother me but I am
glad I got what I ordered. The meat was medium rare and very tasty.
After dinner we walked around deck 7 to front of the ship
and just stayed out there in the dark watching the stars for a long while. The front
of the ship was not lit up much and it made for spectacular viewing of the
stars in the ocean darkness.
After that we went back to the piano bar and Daniela had a
tea and I had a hot chocolate then we headed back to the room and called it a
night.
I will say the dolphins swim was the best excursion we’ve
done the cruise by far and I would recommend it to anyone. It was spectacular.
My pictures from day 6 are located here.
The Dolpin Academy pictures are here.
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