Okay, okay, so we fell prey to the hype. I dig submarines, and the Atlantis Submarine adventure in Aruba sounded absolutely irresistible as a shore excursion on my recent cruise with mr_chelledun. Go to the ocean’s depths in a real submarine! See ship wrecks! View hundreds of species of marine life! Too bad about the $99 per person price tag, but I felt confident the experience would live up to the price. While we had a nice morning on the Atlantis, the experience most definitely did NOT live up to the price.

Nuts and Bolts
The Atlantis VI, Aruba’s model, is a real submarine, not a semi-sub or glass bottomed boat. Approved for up to 150 foot depths, the ship accommodates around fifty people. Atlantis makes several journeys each day between late morning and early afternoon. We traveled on the first sub of the day. Atlantis in Aruba seems to be operated by Red Sail Sports and leaves from the harbor in Oranjestad. You may also buy tickets from the Atlantis company directly.

The sub carries a high price, at between $94 to $99 for adults (depending where you get tickets) and around $49 per child ages 3-16. Sometimes Atlantis runs buy one, get one free specials via Travelocity for a huge savings. Unfortunately, no such special operated during our trip. We actually booked through the ship for $95 each. I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen a ship excursion offered at a price equal to or less than that of the vendor.

Preparing to Dive
We met our Atlantis host in Aruba’s cruise dock tourism village. Promptly on schedule, we were executed out to a boat in the harbor and loaded aboard. The submarine, obviously, cannot come into the harbor and a twenty minute boat ride is necessary to reach it. Our boat was called the Shark Slayer or Shark Chaser or something like that and manned by an extremely enthusiastic (possibly too much so) crew that reminded me somewhat of the skippers on Walt Disney World’s jungle cruise. We received narration of the sites we passed en route to the Atlantis VI. Unfortunately, this included the land fill, which provided us with its distinctive odor for a good quarter of the trip.

Upon reaching the submarine, our boat was tethered to the submarine and the two began to gently swivel around together. In groups, we and our fellow passengers were escorted off the Shark Slayer (or whatever), onto a walk way to the submarine, and down a ladder. The logistics of getting from one moving boat to another and then climbing down a ladder make this excursion a poor pick for those with mobility limitations. Rainy conditions on the day of our visit actually made this tricky for even the most agile passengers.

Quite a lot of hubbub ensued once we boarded the submarine. The Atlantis VI has a row of portholes on each side. Seating consists of a long bench on each side with these sort of butt imprints to indicate how much space each person should take up. As we had a full house, we were instructed to move all the way down without leaving any spaces. Groups of tourists tend to have trouble following this simple instruction and our Atlantis VI cohorts were no exception. It took almost ten minutes of crew member exhortations before everyone was satisfactorily seated in his or her own portion of the bench. We learned quickly that viewing the ocean’s wonders would not be a comfortable experience. For some reason, windows were placed just low enough so passengers must constantly scrunch over to peek out. By the end of the trip, my back and neck were really stiff.

Finally! We’re Going Down!
Once everyone was finally situated, the Atlantis VI began its descent. Our trip started out with a view of the coral reef, including dozens of types of coral and many fish that live there. An employee described what we were seeing and pointed out particularly interesting fish. To be honest, the views seemed less exciting than I expected. This may be because we had seen many of the same types of fish the previous day while snorkeling in the fabulous waters of Bonaire. The highlight for me was seeing ridiculous amounts of huge barracudas. Other than that, though, we did not see any large or particularly unique marine animals. No sharks, even little ones, no manta rays, no turtles. I had expected larger animals based on the promotional material.

After viewing the coral for a while, we passed the two shipwrecks promised. Call me naive, but the website description of the sunken “Mi Dushi, a 70 year old Danish fishing trawler” suggested to me that this ship a. had sunk, you know, naturally and b. had been sunk for 70 years. In fact, the “shipwrecks” used by Atlantis were sunk by the company just ten to twelve years ago. This kind of makes it…not a shipwreck, right? It didn’t wreck, did it? Anyway, ten to twelve years is apparently not long enough for anything truly exciting to grow, so these sites just had plenty of seaweed and some little fish nibbling at it. There was no sight nor mention of the “mysterious sunken airplane” advertised. Our sub had some steering trouble around the dive sites. At one point we had to backtrack in an attempt to give the starboard side their turn to view, but ended up whipping around in a near circle. We wasted a lot of time due to the current. As it turned out, though, we on the port side had made the right decision about where to sit. Although our captain promised to give equal views to both sides the current really made this a challenge and the starboard people definitely got short-changed.

Eventually, we reached the advertised depth of 150 feet, landing on the ocean floor briefly to commemorate the occasion. After about forty minutes underwater, we were told the next group was waiting and returned to the surface.

Seriously, Let Me Off!
The worst part of the trip followed our submarine adventure. Apparently both the Shark Slayer and the Atlantis VI have strict weight limits. This presented complications, since the boat was full of people needing to get onto the sub, and the sub was full of people needing to get onto the boat. We had to switch places in small groups, like a human Rubik's Cube. In the meantime, lots of standing in the pouring rain occurred and the outgoing group seemed agitated to be starting their journey late. I can appreciate that, at the price of $2.00 per minute underwater. The disembarkation/reboarding process took over fifteen minutes. Definitely pick the first or last sub excursion of the day so you only have to do this shuffle once.

We rode the Shark Slayer back to the Oranjestad dock, blissfully free of narration. There we received our certificates saying we traveled in the Atlantis VI to great depths. Hooray!

Overall…
We didn’t have a bad time on the Atlantis Submarine. I do have a thing for somewhat scary ocean animals and enjoyed seeing lots of barracuda. However, Atlantis definitely did NOT live up to its ridiculous price tag and turned out to be a disappointment. We didn’t see anything we couldn’t have seen snorkeling, and the logistics of getting people off and on the sub need some serious work. Additionally, this excursion is prohibitively expensive for families and really overpriced for just 40 minutes underwater. I recommend an Atlantis tour in Aruba only if you would never snorkel and have lots of money to burn. Personally, I recommend spending your day in Aruba enjoying the beautiful island instead.

Recommended: No

Best Suited For: Families
Best Time to Travel Here: Never