Nassau - Atlantis Day Pass Review

[steveholtam]

First off, thanks to ScubaGirl for all of her tips. I went against your recommendation as my review indicates, but at least I knew what I was getting myself into on this stop of my cruise.

 

This day stop was with my eleven year old daughter and myself. I was really torn on what to do with our day in Nassau. Day pass at Sheraton or Atlantis? I did not decide until the morning we arrived. Some of this had to do with the fact that we both got sunburned on the prior beach day and had another beach day planned the following day. So thinking about three day directly on the beach had me nervous since we are both un-tanned.

 

So I opted for Atlantis. I knew all the ups and downs about going to Atlantis. The crowds, the costs, the toll this place takes on the locals, etc. But when in Rome...

 

Instead of booking through the cruise, I figured I would save some money and time and just do the whole thing on our own. We got a VERY shared taxi for $4 per over to Atlantis. This van taxi was full. We made it over pretty quickly. Even with a stop at that hotel where people book a room to get the four passes.

 

We got our day passes onsite before the pools were open, so before 9am. This allowed us to get a locker quickly. I noticed later on as the cruise excursions begin unloading that very long lines formed at this location. Very long. It is a slow process to get one for some reason.

 

I also read that the wait time to get a floating tube thing can be long. The rides and slides do not open till 10am. So we walked around a bit and saw some of the resort grounds. It really is a beautiful resort. There are many areas to check out, and we did not see all of them.

 

About 15 minutes till 10:00, we found an area that had the floats and were the first in line to get ours. This is where I first noticed that many of the employees at Atlantis are not really friendly or just don't care much. If you ask them questions they never know the answer or sort of ignore you. We were waiting for another 15 minutes after 10:00, and the worker would not let us into the water, but would not say why.

 

At this point there was quite a mob forming. At some point some people started grabbing floats, and it took just about everything the one dude had to stop people from just jumping in. I'm not sure if this is what happened or not, but all of a sudden we were floating down the river! I did hear a whistle though... :-)

 

I'm not the best swimmer, and was thinking this would be a lazy river sort of thing. Maybe with a few rapids. And this is how it started. Then we got to this section where this giant contraption drops 1000's of gallons all at one time which creates giant waves. There are two sections of the river that do this I think. These are like ocean style waves that can fall over on themselves, like surfing waves. If your on the down side of these, you can easily get tossed onto others, flipped, are both at the same time. The first pass through my daughter got smashed really hard and was flipped over a few times. These wave sections last for 4-5 minutes as the waves chase you down. My daughter did not mind at all and thought it was fun.

 

Myself on the other hand, I was a bit unsettled getting tossed around, under and on top of people when my turn came to take the full brunt of the first wave. I survived, and it was almost fun, but I'm just not that into water adventure. Maybe because I wear contacts. Despite this, we went around a few times. I was just more of a baby about it. Lol. My daughter thought it was funny though. Oh, and the water is standing deep almost the entire time. It's just when the waves hit it gets deeper briefly and will knock you around and such. So it would be hard to drown, but its easy to get nervous if your not comfortable in surf like conditions.

 

Part of the rapid ride is that you can take certain rivers to get to different attractions. One is more rapids, and another takes you up a giant conveyor belt to two more slide choices. One is a dark slide option, and another is a large drop option. They were both fun. But keep your butt high up. I'm a normal size guy and my ass hung low a few times and got bumped and maybe bruised a bit on these portions.

 

Oh, it did not take long for all the floats to get grabbed up. At every beach location, there were always people standing around waiting and asking if they could take your float. People were very protective of theirs. We relinquished ours after a few hours and decided to get lunch.

 

I read the prices were very high at Atlantis, but I have to disagree. A bit high, but a lunch burger or chicken combo was like $10 or $11. That is high, but not vacation high to me. I got a beer and that was expensive. Around $11 or so. I think it was a 16oz can. The food was good. I had a bacon cheese burger and it was well seasoned and not over cooked. A rare thing.

 

After lunch we decided to check out the Dig/Aquarium site. This was very nice as well. The large tanks were well stocked with a huge variety of species both very large and small. They had a couple of Rays that must have been 20 feet across! Plus a bunch of large sharks. I liked this portion of Atlantis. Even the "relics" from the digs.

 

After this we went back to the slides where you do not need a tube. I opted out at this sections, but my daughter went down them. The lines were only a few minutes each. Maybe five or so. Not very bad. She liked them she indicated.

 

We found another taxi around 3:00 and made our way back to the port. My daughter re-boarded the ship and I went over to Senor Frogs. This was my first time at one of these and it was fun. The staff was fun and the crowd was enjoying themselves.

 

So, Atlantis is expensive. Direct through them the cost to get in was $215 for the two of us. Not cheap. Was it worth it I have asked myself? And I would say yes. The place is beautiful. The rides were fun. And how often will I be back to Nassau? Maybe never. I like to visit new places and destinations on every trip. My daughter and I had a good time there, had great memories, and that is what it's all about.

[jbanana1]

Glad you and your daughter had a great time and it all worked out for you. Me and my two sons loved it (DH's not a big waterpark fan) and I doubt we will ever be back as a family (boys are 19 & 21) so it was worth it to us. Have great memories.