I LOVE vacations, but, honestly, I think I LOVE LONG weekends even more! :D Day 2 of our Bahamas Cruise took us to Nassau and Atlantis! We both have never been to the Atlantis but have always wanted to go.
If you all ever go on a cruise to Nassau/Atlantis, do NOT do the excursion because you can save a ton of $MONEY$ by doing it yourself. It was $5 a person for the 10 minute taxi ride there and then you have a few options.
* Tour the hotel for FREE yourself.
* Buy a ticket to tour the DIG/Marine Habitat and all the underwater aquariums $39 (it’s awesome & totally recommended if it’s the ONLY thing you do!)
* Buy a ticket that lets you tour everything plus have access to the beach plus lunch ~ $60 (this is what we did ~ the excursion price was $106 and we followed our own schedule)
* Buy your water park/slide/pool ticket (I don’t know the price here but am pretty sure it’s cheaper than the excursion).
Just a side note in case you were thinking of it :D Now, onto our bazillion pictures. I totally wish I wore my pedometer because we spent ALL day just walking around checking everything out before collapsing for a nap on the beach 🙂
The interior was amazing ~ the decorating was so extravagant, yet, beautiful.
There are FOUR glass sculptures inside the casino, each one valued at over $1 million and built glass sculptor Dale Chihuly. Pictures really do not do them justice!
The Atlantis has several pools, here are a few.
It is so easy to get lost all over the resort. They have signs and pathways, but, it’s covered with tropical vegetation that all looks the same (even if it’s different :D)
Outside there is a sting ray pool – they swim right up to you.
Baby Sting Rays – so cute!
This rope bridge is so cool, but…..
You have to walk across it to get pictures of the hammer head sharks – freaky!
Waterfalls!
I thought it was cool you could walk on the inside of the waterfalls too.
You enter these caves as you go down into the underwater Marine World.
As you enter the cave, you can see all the hieroglyphics that tell a story about the Atlantis.
We took a ton of pictures and did not even capture everything we saw. This has to be the coolest and HUGEST under water Aquarium we have ever seen (and that includes all the ones we have been to in California!)
Puff fish!
Lots of big and small fishes were surrounding you on all the wall to wall aquairiums.
This fish was HUGE ~ 8 feet long – I’d totally freak out if I saw this guy snorkeling 😉
Sea Urchin
Starfish that you can touch if you want to.
This is a CONCH! After watching this “thing” move all around as she talked about it, I was pretty convinced I never needed to try eating Conch 🙂
Dah, dunh…….dah, dunh…….
Sharks have friends too 🙂
They swam right up next to us!
I swear the sharks were watching us as much as we were watching them.
These are Sting Rays too – they had 4 types there. Black & Gray in this picture.
Lobster
Jelly fish…the kind that you see most often in the ocean.
Another type of Jelly Fish that is deadly if you are bitten.
Eels!
We spent about 3 hours walking around the resort and the aquariums. You can choose to tour the marine life by yourself, but, it’s so cool with the tour guides because they tell you what all the types of fish are as well as the history.
This is the Lunch menu you get with your pass.
Nothing fancy, but, if you ordered it all individually, it would be $20 – crazy.
My turkey & cheese wrap was basic, but, totally delicious after walking a million miles all day 😉
Our last trip recap of Great Stirup Cay and Food Highlights is coming up tomorrow, then, it’s back to normal bloggin’ about food 🙂
Here are our recaps so far…..
Florida 2010 Part 1 Gator Park
Florida 2010 Part 2 Island Queen
Florida 2010 Part 3 The Bahamas – Freeport
Night all!
This is going to sound sad, but ever since I saw the Mary Kate & Ashley movie (used to be obsessed with them) Holiday in the Sun, I’ve always wanted to go to the Atlantis. It looks amazing!!
WOW – Amazing pictures!
atlantis looks absolutely breath-taking! i love the glass sculpture on the ceilings of the casino! i can’t get enough of the critter photos, either. i love places like aquariums, zoos, and that type of thing. so fascinating to me! great recap, danica!
xox.
WOW!!! That looks soooo fun!!!! Im glad you have had a blast and are back safe!!!
I have really enjoyed all your vacation photos, but these are my favorite. I LOVE love LOVE Chihuly though I’ve never seen any of his works in person 🙁 So jealous! Atlantis looks like a beautiful place to visit. Why are all the pools so empty? Was the weather not good? I would have expected it to be quite crowded there.
Hi Liz,
Thanks ~ this was my favorite destination as well. I could spend hours walking around just checking everything out.
I am not sure why they were empty other than one you could swim with sharks, another it was jelly fish season and the other, well, it was a normal pool. It was so HOT/HUMID and had our passes covered the pools too, I would’ve been in there!
The glass work is really amazing ~ pictures do not even come close to doing it justice.
Have a great weekend!
Danica
Hi Danica! Great information and great pictures! We are going on a cruise this month and are thinking of doing the Atlantis excursion. I see that you mentioned that we can save a ton of money by NOT doing the excursion through the cruise line. Did you buy the tickets directly through Atlantis or what do you recommend we do? Any input would be appreciated!
I’m even more excited to go now that I’ve looked at your pics!
We were also worried that the lines would be long for the slides and pools and that the 4 hour excursion wouldn’t be nearly enough time!
Thanks for your input!
Hi Amy,
That is awesome – you are going to LOVE it! We did a little research online because as you will see the All Day Pass for Atlantis was $$$ (like $100+). We read that you could take a taxi cab over there for cheap, then, buy you tickets at the Atlantis yourself and it is a lot cheaper (we saved I think close to $40/person). We googled it online and there are a lot of cruise ship forums out there where people recommend things.
The taxi people are right there when you get off the boat and into the waiting/shopping area. They have signs saying taxi – it was a short ride and the $4-$5/person includes the toll the taxi people have to pay.
They have 3 different levels of tickets you can buy at the Atlantis.
* Tour the hotel for FREE yourself.
* Buy a ticket to tour the DIG/Marine Habitat and all the underwater aquariums $39 (it’s awesome & totally recommended if it’s the ONLY thing you do!)
* Buy a ticket that lets you tour everything except the pool/slides plus have access to the beach plus lunch ~ $60 (this is what we did ~ the excursion price was $106 and we followed our own schedule)
* Buy your water park/slide/pool ticket (I don’t know the price here but am pretty sure it’s cheaper than the excursion – I want to say it was like $80-$100).
The BEST part of going on your own is you control the time you go to/from and can stay longer if you like.
When we were there the lines were not bad for the slides, but, I think it really depends on how many cruise ships are there for that time. We had 3 other boats there with us. Alot of people I think go to go on the beach, do the beach rental activities, lounge at the pool, etc. The place is SO HUGE you will definitely not run out of things to do and most likely will get lost 🙂
I hope that helps a little, but, feel free to ask away and I’ll answer what I can.
Danica
We are leaving in 2 days for a cruise out of Charleston to the Bahamas. Can’t wait. All the good information on line is great. We will definitely take your advise.
Thanks