We decided to try the Atlantis Submarine Tour over a trip to Kualoa Ranch (the location set for Jurassic Park and some other movies) since it’s a different experience.
You’ll board a boat first at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel which will take you to the Atlantis Submarine. The beach at the Hilton is so beautiful! Too bad we didn’t bring out swimsuits. :(
Here’s the top portion of the Atlantis Submarine. Got the photo from gohawaii.about.com.
And here’s how the vehicle looks like underwater. Photo taken from Alohatopten.com.
And here’s a photo when we were settled in inside the Atlantis Submarine.
Here’s the submarine’s helmsman with all the control panels and switches. Look at the upper left corner of the photo which says 82 ft. That indicates how deep we are under water. We went up to 100 ft under water.
And here’s the captain giving us pointers. He also served as our tour guide.
The Waikiki Dive site we explored is actually an artificial reef. The site has 2 sunken ships – a US Navy vessel and a Korean fishing vessel, a plane wreckage and 4 Japanese-designed reefs.
Here are some photos I took during the submarine tour.
The plane wreckage.
We spotted not just fishes but a sea turtle too! Also a shark but it was too fast so I wasn’t able to take a photo.
More fishes.
And here was the closest fish which passed by my viewport – a unicorn fish – based on the Dive Log they gave us.
More schools of fishes. The colors of the fishes aren’t too obvious though because as you get deeper into the water, “the sea water filters each color of the sunlight” (as indicated in our Dive Log).
According to the Dive Log, red is the first color to break down. At about 30 ft, Orange is the next one to break down and begins to look yellow. At 60 ft, yellow begins to break down and appears green. And at 90 ft, green begins to break down and appear blue.
At one point in time, the Captain asked us to smile at each other and look at each other’s teeth. They were all yellow! Haha… Also, my seatmate’s hot pink tank top became violet!
The captain also showed us how thick the glass windows of the submarine are (the piece he is holding).
He passed it around for us to see. Here’s a close up on how thick the submarine window glass is!
The Atlantis Submarine Tour costs either USD109 (for the standard submarine) and USD119 (for the premium). The only difference between the standard and premium is that the premium is bigger and has more viewports. For USD10 price difference, we opted for premium.
Just to warn you though, the actual submarine ride is just about 30 minutes! Really expensive. So if you're wondering if it's worth to ride the Atlantis Submarine, here's my honest assessment - it’s a good experience but if you want value for money, I suggest that instead of doing the submarine tour, join a snorkeling tour. It’s slightly expensive than the submarine tour but at least you’ll be able to see the fishes in their natural color plus the duration is definitely more than half an hour. More about our snorkeling adventure next time. :)
