Up at 05:00, ARG! And me not a morning person. We took the shuttle to the airport and arrived about 06:00.  There were way too many Southwest Airlines employees on the shuttle that were way too cheerful this early in the morning. The original flight was at 08:00 but they changed it to 07:00 starting this day.  Unfortunately, nobody told the pilots.  Everyone, (the ground crew, the gate crew and the passengers) were there on time, but not the pilots. Well, after free breakfast (I hope this becomes a theme), they finally got the plane there at 08:30.  We boarded and headed out to the Bahamas.  For those pilot readers: The plane was a DH-8 quad engine turbo-prop.  The take off was the smoothest I ever encountered.  Never felt the plane leave the ground.  The flight took about 1.5 hours.

The flight to the island was really smooth and as we approached the islands the water's color started to change.  It was deep blue in some places and crystal clear in others.  At some locations we could actually see the bottom of the ocean.

The approach into the island showed a fantastic view of the hotel.

We landed and took a shuttle to the hotel.  It was a pretty tight fit.  The bus held about 12 people, but we had 14 plus everyone's luggage! It was tight, but it was a quick ride (5 minutes) over to the hotel.  Luckily, we were the first stop.

We stored our bags then checked into the hotel.  It was too early to get a room, so we walked around and got the lay of the land.  There are three hotels that are all connected with internal walkways.  The three hotels are the Beach Towers, the Coral Towers, and the Royal Towers.
 

We stayed at the Coral Towers.  This hotel was in the middle.  It was centrally located to everything. Each hotel has its own pool.  The Royal Towers has a big one next to their water slide (more about this later).  The Coral Tower has a small pool with a very large lagoon that you can snorkel, wade, or swim in.  The lagoon is open to the sea with a grated barrier to keep people from going out into the ocean while sea life can still pass through.  The Beach Tower has a pool with waterfalls and a lazy river you can ride innertubes around.

All of the hotels are a short walk to the beach.  There are places you can swim, lounge, rent jet skis or go para-sailing.  Along the beach there are places to get massages.  They offer a 30, 45, or 60-minute version.  They cost $40, $60, and $75.  There is a shuttle bus that goes between each of the three hotels as well as the Ocean Club, it's a more pricey resort. Except for the Ocean Club, it is probably faster to walk than to wait for the shuttle bus.  You can walk from the end of one hotel to the other in less than 10 minutes. We popped over to the Ocean Club and checked it out.  We were thinking about eating dinner there for our anniversary.  We did not see anything on the menu that appealed to us, so we ate lunch at the beach grill and decided to pick another restaurant instead for our anniversary dinner.

A quick note about meal plans.  We did a comparison with purchasing a meal plan versus paying for each meal separately.  It is a better deal to just pay for your food since mandatory tips and alcohol are not included in the meal plans.  We ended up spending a lot less per day and that paid for drinks.  You might want to do your own evaluation, but for us it was a better deal to not get the meal plan.

During lunch, we quickly learned the pace of life on the island is slow.  Most people (Californians) expect quick and prompt service, on the islands, slow is the way to go.  No rushing, but you have to make sure you plan around that if you might be in a hurry to get somewhere.  Fortunately, we were not in any hurry!  The service here is not slow, the entire pace of life seems to be slow.

We returned to the Royal Towers hotel and toured the underwater ruins. They also have something called the DIG.  There are a number of things to see.  Some of them are displayed below:

The idea is to make it seem like you are walking though the lost continent of Atlantis.  There are many viewing ports that you could see the ruins and look at all the sea life. The Atlantis hotel boasts the largest aquarium in the world.

We sat in the hotel lounge and had our first tropical drinks.  I had a Bahama Mama, and Angie had a Bahama Colada.  They were pretty good.  We checked into the hotel and took a nap.  We were pretty tired after the early flight and those damnable spirited Southwestern Airline employees.  We toured the casino and checked out the games.  We left the standard token offerings to the slot-gods.  The table games were a little too rich for our blood.  Their minimums were about $15-$20 per game, so we passed on the table games and played the slots. We do plan to go to Reno in the near future to catch up on the table game withdrawal. We were pretty hungry and ate dinner at Mama Loo's, a Chinese restaurant.  The food was pretty good, but they only served fried pot stickers.  No steamed dumplings for us.  We ate late because we did not have a reservation.  It is important to make a reservation at most of the restaurants the night before or the same morning to make sure you can eat at the time you want to.  The earliest slot for dinner was 22:00.  We sat in the bar and had drinks while we waited.  Angie had a Miami Vice (A colada with a strawberry daiquiri on top of it). After dinner we headed back up to the room and ended our first day on Paradise Island.

Here is a really cool picture of this hotel