Atlantis is located on Paradise Island of Nassau in the Bahamas.
There are 3 ways to visit Atlantis while in Port on a cruise ship:
Book an excursion through your cruise line.
Get a taxi to the resort and purchase a day pass.
Book a room at the Comfort Suites next door, get a taxi to the hotel, then walk over to Atlantis and get your complementary day pass. (Contact me to give you a quote!)
On our first visit to Atlantis via cruise ship, we had no idea what to expect. Three months later, we were back! Once again, we booked the shore excursion through our cruise line.
It takes about 15-20 minutes from the cruise port to arrive at the resort. They drop you off at the lobby of The Coral. There is a guide when you first arrive.... They mention to come back to this location when you're ready to return back to the ship. A transfer leaves every 20 minutes or so. I'm not quite sure what else they tell you as on our first visit, we accidentally wandered away. This being our second visit, we had an idea of where to go so we immediately walked away from the group and entered the lobby.
When we first walked in, we returned to the dolphin fountain to take some pictures then went into the gift shop to buy a few stuffed animals.
Instead of wasting valuable time wandering the convention center halls, we immediately headed towards the Crystal Court Shops (turning left from the lobby entrance).
We veered to the right to enter the lobby with the illuminated crystal sculpture. We stopped to take a picture at the sculpture, starting a new tradition.
We then continued on walking through the casino to get to the Royal Tower lobby.
Past the casino are The Royal Shops. You need to walk through those in order to get to the Royal Tower lobby. Once there, we walked down the stairs to enter Atlantis' aquarium The Dig.
Prior to the entrance of The Dig, you'll find the Ruins Lagoon - a 2.7 million-gallon marine exhibit with more than 20,000 deep reef and pelagic fish! There are daily scheduled feedings that you can watch and you can even book a snorkeling excursion.
The Dig consists of multiple marine exhibits as you walk through various tunnels where you'll see lobster, lionfish, Cuban hogfish, queen angelfish, rock beauty, grouper, seahorse, clownfish, jellyfish and moray eels.
On this trip, we discovered that there's a gift shop in the middle of The Dig! You'll find a variety of key chairs, mugs, glasses, magnets, toys, puzzles, books, ornaments, and more.
When you exit The Dig, you find yourself outside the Royal Towers between the Paradise Lagoon Beach South (to the right) and the Royal Baths Pool (to the left).
We briefly checked out the beach. Being a lagoon, there are no waves. It's a very quiet and peaceful spot. Since it was time for lunch, we headed back towards The Royal, walking past the Royal Baths Pool and got lunch at Dive In which was immediately to our left (one of the locations where we could redeem our excursion lunch ticket).
Dive In is an outdoor dining venue where you place your order then pick up your order at the counter when ready. There are plenty of tables with umbrellas with a couple tables next to the Royal Ray Lagoon where you can see sting rays and blacktip reef sharks swim.
After lunch, we headed towards the Aquaventure. We stopped at the Leap of Faith slide (the one that looks like a Mayan Temple) to watch people scream as they speed down the near-vertical 60 foot slide into a clear acrylic tunnel submerged in a lagoon filled with sharks. On this visit, we discovered that if you continue to walk on the overlook bridge, go down the stairs and turn left, you can view the lagoon via an aquarium window and watch people go thru those tunnels! This is also the location of a Starbucks!
We then found a pedestrian bridge that takes you over Paradise Lagoon. Looking to the left you'll see a small outlet. Looking to the right you see The Coral, convention center and Breakwater's Bar & Grill (where you'll find the Predator Tunnel).
From there, we briefly checked out the Atlantis Beach West. You'll find some waves at this beach. There's normally a guy renting out jet skis at this beach; I've personally never seen it very crowded. There are more people down the beach at Atlantis Beach as it's right next to the hotels.
We returned back to the path in order to go to the Predator Lagoon and Tunnel. You get beautiful views of The Royal along the way.
This time we found the rope bridge over the Predator Lagoon!
When you're walking along the path headed towards Breakwater's Bar & Grill, you need to go to the left when the path splits. You'll end up walking thru The Coral Pool and come into Breakwater's Bar & Grill from the other side. It's a much longer walk but totally worth it! It's beautiful at the rope bridge, and it's a picture perfect spot! We started a second tradition here.
Just beyond the rope bridge is an overlook which is another picture perfect spot!
We then made our way to the Breakwater's Bar & Grill. There's a staircase that leads you down to aquarium windows where you can see into the Predator Lagoon and then the entrance to the Predator Tunnel.
Being our second visit to Atlantis, and having an idea as to where some things were, we managed to leave the Predator Tunnel with a couple hours to spare. We decided to head back to the Aquaventure and go hang out at the Splashers Kids Pool until it was time to head back to the ship. Sebastien was young at the time so there wasn't much we could do in the Aquaventure aside from this pool and the one adjacent to it.
If you have young children or adults who have no interest in water slides, you might want to save some money and book an excursion that does not include the Aquaventure.
The walk from the Aquaventure back to The Royal is very scenic. There's a lot of vegetation and of course, views of the iconic Royal tower. We headed back to The Coral lobby then exited the building to get back on the van to return to the ship. If you're the first person back, you may have to wait a bit for more people to be ready to head back to the ship. The vans typically leave every 20 minutes but it can be less or more depending on how many show up. Just make sure to head back towards the ship at least an hour prior to when you need to be back on to guarantee that you won't be left behind in Nassau.
We were the second to last ship to leave Nassau so we got to sit out on our portside balcony and watch the various cruise ships leave.
We got to see a little bit more on our second visit and started new traditions! If you didn't guess, from this visit forward, we always visit the crystal sculpture and rope bridge and take a picture there. It may seem trivial but if you have a child, being able to look at pictures you've taken in the same spot throughout the years is something special.
Atlantis is truly a massive resort! There's simply not enough time to see everything in one day; especially not a partial day while in port via cruise ship. This excursion is great if you plan to spend the majority of your day at the Aquaventure. Otherwise, save yourself some money and book the excursions that do not include access to the Aquaventure.
View pictures/read about our prior/subsequent visits here:
Atlantis Aquaventure Full Day With Lunch (January 2016)
Atlantis Dolphin Shallow Water Interaction & Beach (November 2016)
Comfort Suites Paradise Island - Complementary Day Pass to Atlantis (November 2017)
Atlantis Dolphin Shallow Water & Aquaventure (April 2019)
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