We went last November on the 3 day land/4 day sea. There was me and dh (both in our early 30's) and our 3 kids ages at sailing were 9, 7 and 3 and also my inlaws (hubby's parents) in their late 50's. Hubby and I did a scuba excursion that morning that should have told us everything we needed to know about our day that day but we were blind. After a very disappointing scuba experience we ate lunch and all of us went on the glass bottom boat tour in Nassau. We walked for what seemed like miles with the kids until we finally got to the end of the dock. We were hit up many times by women who wanted to braid all 3 of us girls hair (which I understand is their living and if they were all nice about it it would have been fine) but by the time we got to the boat my dd was in tears because some of the braiders scared her to death. We got on a pretty nice boat that was basically 3 levels with a top level in the sun, the middle level was just that sunny in some places, shady in others and then the bottom. We all sat in the middle tier (I think there were only about 30 people on the excursion and 7 of them were me and my family) and they set sail. The boat ride out where they were taking us was ok. It was ironic that we ended up in the same place we had scuba dove earlier that day and we didnt think it was that great earlier and it wasnt that great later either. Once we got to the point to see the fish (about a 10 min boat ride out) they stopped the boat and sent us all down this treacherous staircase where my mil and I both ended up slipping down the last few stairs as they were steep and for some reason wet. Once in the freezing cold bottom of the boat hull they opened up some viewing windows that unless you were at least 5 feet you had to stand on tip toes or have someone hold you. Not really fun for a 3 year old that is for sure. We were down there just a few minutes and while it was true we did see quite a few fish the rocking motion in the bottom of the boat and the coldness along with no fresh air made us all green and we ended up going up to the top of the boat as fast as possible hoping to get enough air to calm the stomach down. Our kids watched for about 2-3 minutes and were instantly bored. We have taken them to many other aquariums like The Living Planet in Denver and they enjoyed it for hours but this experience was very boring to them. There were people feeding the fish huge hunks of bread to get them to come by the boat which was a great idea and there were alot of fish but not alot of variety in color, size or shape. Finally when they were finished with their loaves of bread for the day they had everyone who was still down there come up to the middle or upper part of the boat and we went back. It was a total of maybe 40 minutes including the walk to and from the ship and the boat ride out and back. If it were me I would NEVER do that excursion again. This is just our opinion as a family but none of us enjoyed it and we felt that even though it was one of the least expensive excursions it felt like a rip off to us.
I hope this helps a little bit.
Heidi
