Our Bahamas Cruise – Day 3 Nassau

Nassau was our next stop after Freeport. According to the reviews, despite  the numerous beautiful beachfront hotels in Nassau, the city itself doesn’t have much to offer. That is why we chose Atlantis Aquaventure Full Day excursion. The Atlantis is an incredibly popular mega-resort and casino located on Paradise island.

On this beautiful sunny morning our ship docked in Nassau, the capital, largest city, and commercial center of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. The city is located on the island of New Providence.

Here we are leaving the ship. It was a “mandatory” picture taking on our way out. 🙂 At least it is a good quality picture.

Our tour began with boarding an air-conditioned motor coach for a 20-minute ride over the bridge to the famed Atlantis Resort of Paradise Island. This island was originally called “Hog Island” until renamed by a developer to a similar name as the homeland of Wonder Woman, Paradise Island. Upon our arrival, we were escorted on a tour of the grounds of the largest water-themed attraction in the Caribbean.

There is the bridge suite located on the portion connecting the two towers. Our tour guide informed us that its cost is $25,000 per night and it is constantly in demand, so it has to be booked in advance. The Bridge Suite was designed by Italian designer Versace and has been a favorite for many celebrity visitors including Michael Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, Celine Dion and Bill Gates. It has been a filming location too for many movies including “After the Sunset”.

The myth of Atlantis goes back to the dialogues of Greek philosopher Plato, who told a legend of an advanced island civilization somewhere west of the Mediterranean Sea that mysteriously sunk into the sea about 11,000 years ago. The Bahamas Atlantis is a gorgeous and specious resort decorated with beautiful chandeliers, glass art, and pearl-like fountains among others.

The Atlantis casino was built in the Royal Towers, and contains millions of dollars in art. The most notable of which are Temple of the Moon and Temple of the Sun by glass sculptor Dale Chihuly, insured for $1 million apiece. This is Temple of the Moon.

This is Temple of the Sun.

Perl-like fountain.

Our tour ended at the Day Visitor Center, just beyond the Royal Towers, a place designated for catching a coach back to the ship. Next, we went to explore Atlantis on our own. We started with viewing the marine exhibit called The Dig, which was presented with tunnels and streets of the famous lost city of Atlantis full of spectacular marine life.

These lovely fish are called “Look-Down Jacks”.

  
At the end of our journey through The Dig aquarium.

Then, we went through the Atlantis park to explore the water rides and other activities that the park had to offer. Passing the Stingray Lagoon.


This is the beautiful Lagoon Bar & Grill is situated near the Predator tunnel, which we visited later in the day.

We took some pictures with the Atlantis in the background.

 

The main draw at Atlantis is the resort’s 141-acre Aquaventure water park and 11 swimming pools. We were excited about the water park and started our first water rides  in the seven-story Power Tower. We began with the Drop, a single or double inner-tube ride which begins with an ominous “drop” through darkness in an enclosed tube. There were open-air twists and turns before splashing down into white-water rapids. At this point, the riders could continue to ride the river with the inner tube or get back to the slides. After the second time of the Drop ride, we took a full river ride.

The most adventurous ride here in the park is the Abyss waterslide. Just climbing to the top is worth the 360 degree view of the ocean and resort. Beginning with a staggering near 50-foot vertical drop through complete darkness within the Power Tower, this thrilling 200-foot-long body slide ends splashing through waterfalls into a dark cave with 2 beautiful aquariums built into the walls. Dave completed his ride first and waited for me in the cave, which was very nice of him. This ride was very fast, dark and scary. Here is only the top of the Power Tower with the tulip-like decorations seen in the picture below.

Here is the Current river that I mentioned above. We rode it twice and it was fun to ride the rapids for relaxation. The Current, a mile-long river, which propelled our inner tubes via water escalators, rolling waves and extreme rapids powered by master blaster technology. The river ride was enjoyable with moderate rapids, but you still need to be careful there. We saw a couple of guys with some good size scratches. I think if you bump into the stone river wall, it will damage your skin.

Here is a relaxing part of the river without any rapids.

The Mayan Temple took us through a slippery adventure, each slide offering a different exciting thrill, whether on a tube, surrounded by sea wonders, or a dark enclosure with the build-up of a rollercoaster. Here, Dave stands in front of the Challenger slide of the Mayan Temple in the picture below. On this twin high-speed slide guests can challenge a friend to a high-speed splashdown, and then check their speeds on the time clocks at the bottom to see who won. Dave and I took a ride without challenging each other. 🙂 It was a speedy ride.

The Leap of Faith slide offers a daring and adventurous almost 60-foot vertical drop from the top of the iconic Mayan Temple and it is super fast! The body slide propels riders at a tremendous speed through a clear acrylic tunnel submerged in a shark-filled lagoon.

On the five-story corkscrew Serpent slide, guests travel on a tube at high speeds through the darkness of the Mayan Temple’s core. The twisting and turning ride culminates with a leisurely pass through a clear acrylic tunnel submerged in a shark-filled lagoon. An interesting part of this slide was a slow ride through the acrylic tunnel, where you can actually see the sharks swimming around you as opposed to the Leap of Faith slide where you are sliding through the tube very fast, so there is no chance to see anything.

It was an amazing waterpark, really top notch. And at every turn was another pool, more deck chairs or a beach with white sand and crystal-clear water that you could see through to the bottom.

We took some pictures on the cute bridge while crossing Paradise Lagoon, one of many lagoons in the park.

 

Atlantis is home to the world’s largest open-air marine habitat. According to the Atlantis web site, the resort’s 34-acre waterscape comprises 11 million gallons of fresh and saltwater. the eleven exhibit lagoons contain more than 50,000 fascinating sea creatures representing over 250 species.

Predator Lagoon is a wildlife habitat under the sea, featuring predominately deeper reef fish: sharks, barracudas, rays, sawfish and giant grouper live among vibrant schools of fish in a natural environment. It is located below the Lagoon Bar & Grill, outside the Coral Towers. We took a leisurely stroll through the predator lagoon and took some photos. There were a few long glass tunnels filled with sharks and other fish.

 

We saw for the first time white sawfish and learned that this predator has special saw sensors. Sawfish use a sixth sense to help them in their hunt for fish. They stalk and locate fish using pores primarily concentrated on the upper sides of their saws, which detect the electrical field of their prey. Once their quarry is found, sawfish use their long, tooth-lined rostrum, or saw, to slash prey into pieces.

Caribbean Reef Shark.

White stingray.


A lot of all kinds of fish.


After lunch, we went to the beach to feed the seagulls leftover French fries. The Atlantis beach was included in our day path, but we didn’t have much time left to stay there.

The walk back to the Coral Towers to the bus stop was pretty long, so we had some time to look inside the resort and take some pictures.


This is the Crystal Gate sculpture by Dale Chihuly of blown glass outside the Atlantis Casino. The eighteen-foot-high Crystal Gate is made out of 3,100 hand-blown crystals. Each one of the glass sculptures in the casino is valued at approximately $1,000,000.

Beautifully decorated Royal Tower West.

This is a wonderful modern image of the river gods of ancient Greece, which were often depicted as bulls with fish tales.


We passed a variety of luxury boutiques on our way out.

Here, we are passing the last  shopping area and Hair Braiders before entering the ship.


Back to the ship, and on time.

Embarking from Nassau. Still can see Atlantis from the ship.


Almost everyone was outside on the deck or the balcony.

Passing colorful port area of Nassau.

The buildings looked pretty in the soft light of the sunset.

These two ships: Disney Dream (Disney Cruise Line) and Majesty of the Seas (Royal Caribbean International) were docked next to our ship.


Dave and Toni are watching our departure from the balcony.

Passing the Paradise Island lighthouse. This is the oldest and best known lighthouse in the Bahamas and the oldest surviving lighthouse in the West Indies. It is located at the western end of Paradise Island marking the northwest entrance to Nassau Harbor. We had a good view of the lighthouse from our cruise ship leaving the Nassau harbor. The sunset was getting brighter and prettier.

The last view of Atlantis from the telephoto lens.

Getting farther into the ocean on the way back to port Canaveral. The last day on the ship was Day at Sea, which will be my next post.