Atlantis for the day (without getting a room)

We visited the Atlantis during our short (5 1/2 hour) visit to Nassau over Thanksgiving weekend. It was $29 per person for us to tour the "Dig" / "Aquarium". No, we did not get to use the pools, beach but we wouldn't have time to anyway really. We had a great tour guide and enjoyed viewing the sealife, etc. After we finished the tour we were allowed to walk around and have lunch. Lunch was very expensive (about $25 per person with drink & tip) for sandwiches, pizza, etc. (not including alchohol). But, hey...we knew we were at a resort and paying resort prices. If we had been there for a full day I would have considered getting the "room" so we could use the pools but for the short time we were there the "$29 pass" worked just fine for us.

We went to Nassau on the 13th via Sun Princess. We were in port from 7am-12pm.

After reading a bit on these boards about Atlantis, my husband and I did what had been recommended. We got off the ship by 7:30am, and jumped into a taxi with a bunch of other cruisers and headed over to Atlantis. Our taxi driver had us there before 8am, and let us off at the entrance that leads into the shopping area & casino. The stores were closed, and we headed into the casino. There we slipped out one of the casino exit doors and we were suddenly on the Atlantis grounds. There were very few people in sight. We walked all around the grounds, saw the pools, waterslides, lagoon area and went to the beach. We took the stairs down into the Dig and saw the entire aquarium which was fantastic.

After 10am, some of the hotel guests started coming out onto the grounds and we noticed their wristbands, noticeably absent on our wrists! We did our best to keep our wrists out of view and stayed away from the security guards that were wearing bright yellow "Security" jackets.

We left just before 11am to head back to the ship, the whole time we didn't get stopped once. When we left via the main lobby, there was a security guard there whom we know would not have let us onto the grounds had we tried to enter them by going in this way.

We didn't bother trying to go for a swim as we didn't have enough time and the weather was quite cool in the morning. The pools weren't that fancy to us anyway - the beach was pristine and looked much more inviting. There were pool lifeguards on duty the whole time we were there and may have said something to us if we had tried to go in and swim since we didn't have wristbands.

We spent our few hours there simply scouting the property, we took some wonderful pictures and enjoyed the aquarium. It was a great morning for the price of a return taxi ride (under $20 per couple). I would enjoy going back to Atlantis for a vacation (if I hit the jackpot! :) )