Atlantis is located on Paradise Island of Nassau in the Bahamas.
There are 3 ways to visit Atlantis while in Port on a cruise:
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. This will only work if you have a late departure time for Nassau due to new rules imposed by Atlantis. (Contact me to give you a quote!)
We've booked the excursions through our cruise line every time except for once when we got a room at the Comfort Suites.
To read about subsequent visits, click here.
Atlantis is a huge resort! You will not get a chance to experience everything in a day trip via a cruise ship...
We've been to Atlantis 6 times via cruise ship (as of writing of this post) and we have yet to see/experience everything that Atlantis has to offer! The goal is to one day stay for a week (or more) and finally get to thoroughly experience it all.... 🤞
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.... What they tell you? I honestly cannot tell you! We somehow walked away from the group, entered the lobby and ended up wandering around and discovered things on our own.
When you first walk into the lobby, you'll find a fountain and some shops immediately to your right.
If you go to the right, you'll find bars, restaurants, shops, the conference center, and another fountain. We just walked to the fountain, took some pictures and walked back in the direction that we came from.
Heading back and walking beyond The Coral's lobby, you'll find the Crystal Court Shops featuring high end retail.
If you go to the left, you'll exit outside. If you veer to the right, you'll enter a lobby with an illuminated color changing crystal sculpture and bathrooms. Beyond this lobby, you'll find the massive casino, restaurant and night club.
You can walk through the casino and then you'll enter the lobby of The Royal. From here, you can continue on to The Royal Shops and then exit the building, or you can go down the stairs and enter The Dig, aka the aquarium.
We've been super spoiled after experiencing The Dig! I have yet to see another aquarium that compares on the East Coast of the U.S.! You will see various fish, sharks, sting rays, lobsters, sea horses, star fish, and jelly fish. The floor to ceiling windows make it a breathtaking experience for all to experience. Sebastien was in awe being able to walk right up and see the fish.
The Dig eventually leads you to an exit that takes you outside. From there, we headed to the left and stumbled upon the Royal Baths Pool. We kept walking past the pool and found a quick service spot where we had lunch (your excursion ticket comes with a meal voucher to select quick service eateries). We had burgers with fries and a soda.
After lunch we ventured away from the Royal Towers and stumbled upon the Mayan Temple slide. This water slide has you speeding down into an underwater tunnel with sharks swimming around in the lagoon! It's fun just standing there watching people come down the slide screaming!
We then walked beyond the slide (to the left) and found the awesome Splashers Kids Pool! We ended up hanging out here for a bit until thunder forced us to no longer be able to stay in the pools.
Across from the Splashers Kids Pool is the Ripples Kids Pool.
We started walking back towards the Royal Towers but ended up veering to the left and found ourselves at the Atlantis Beach West. We then continued on a path walking along the Paradise Lagoon which gave us beautiful views of the resort until we found the Breakwater's Bar & Grill.
Little did we know that there are stairs at the Breakwater's Bar & Grill that lead you down to the Predators Lagoon and Tunnel. If you couldn't guess by the name, this is where you find even more sharks!
We then made our way back inside The Coral, did some last minute shopping at Atlantis Baby and found the shuttle waiting outside where we were dropped off. The shuttles leave every 20 minutes giving you some flexibility as to when you want to return to the ship.
Our first trip to Atlantis left us wanting more! We quickly realized there was so much more to see.
If you're going to Atlantis for the first time via cruise ship, you'll want to consider how much time you anticipate spending in the Aquaventure. With a one year old, we barely got any use out of the Aquaventure. One ride down the Mayan Temple and about 30 minutes at the Splashers Kids Pool. There are other excursions that do not include Aquaventure access and are cheaper. If you feel you'll wander around exploring (like we did), then save yourself some money and skip an excursion that includes the Aquaventure.
Additional Pictures from around the resort:
View pictures/read about our 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)
Atlantis Aquaventure Day Pass (November 2022)
If there is no link yet, please be patient... The post will be published soon!
