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I was never a real fan of the Caribbean, I’m sorry to say. Maybe I’ve previously been to the wrong islands, the wrong resorts, Maybe I was too spoiled by trips to Greece, Croatia, Italy, the French Riviera, to really give the Caribbean its due…. but I was never interested in visiting the Bahamas before…
My first big mistake: I had a blatant misconception that the Bahamas were only for 2 groups of people: Singles and Couples. But I was so wrong! The Bahamas are a perfect family-friendly vacation teaming with activities for adults and kids alike!
Apologies for my ignorance! The Bahamas have won me over and I no longer believe I have to go far, far away for a magical island getaway. There’s one right off the coast of Florida within easy reach, in the same time zone!
The Bahamas are made up of 700 individual islands in over 250,00 square miles, and 29 of those islands are inhabited. Each island has its unique charms and activities, making so many different types of vacations possible! You can be as alone as you like, or on an island bustling with people and nightlife! You can walk on the pink sand beaches of Harbor Island, or swim with the gentle pigs on Exumas. There is amazing diversity in the Bahamas!
The island we chose to stay on is Paradise island: Home of the Atlantis resort. The island’s original name was Hog Island. I believe its new name, Paradise Island, is certainly a more welcoming name for it, and the name is well suited! Because it certainly is a piece of Paradise….
The largest and most elegant hotel on Paradise Island is the Atlantis. With salmon colored towers, meandering walkways through lush gardens, giant aquariums and ponds full of marine life, a bustling casino, immense water park, Dolphin to swim with, sting rays, sea turtles and sharks…. the Atlantis kept us busy and excited at every turn!
Within the Atlantis are many different hotels and residences to choose from: there is the hotel Atlantis itself, with the separate Reef and Cove Towers, the Coral, Harborside Resort, and for those sailing in there is a beautiful marina. We checked into the Harborside Resort with its one to three bedroom villas, perfect for families!
Checking in to this very colorful resort, we received our room keys which not only opened the door to our beautiful villa, but also served as a payment card at all the restaurants and gift shops. This was very convenient as we could leave our wallets in the hotel room safe.
At the pool, we checked in for pool towels and our resort bracelets which gave us full access to all areas in the Atlantis Resort.
What surprised me the most about the Atlantis resort was not only the immense size of its grounds, but also how family-friendly it was! First and foremost in family entertainment is the huge Aquaventure Water Park….
There are pools and water sports for all ages, water slides that shoot you through dark twisting tunnels and then out into the daylight again where you find yourself surrounded by sharks (happily on the other side of your all-glass tunnel) daring almost vertical water slide drops, lazy rivers and not-so-lazy currents. There is enough in the water park alone to keep the kids and us adults busy for days and days and days!
With 18 water slides, 11 pools, 5 miles of beaches, and over a mile of river rides, you may want to stay in your bathing suits, folks!
But when you do want to dry out a little, there is plenty to explore down in the Digs and the Ruins Lagoon! You can even sign up for snorkeling in these 2.7 million gallon aquariums, filled with stingrays, sea turtles, sharks, barracudas, and fish of all kinds.
Or you can wander through the caves and glass tunnel in the Predator Lagoon where there are plenty more sharks, sting rays, sawtooth, and barracudas…
For an even closer encounter with the sharks, there is a Walk With the Sharks Adventure for the brave, featuring specially designed equipment that slips over your head! If you prefer the friendly Stingray to sharks, you can choose to snorkel with the stingrays instead.
The amount of marine activities readily available at the Atlantis is staggering. The most popular is most likely the Dolphin Cay, where you swim and play with the dolphins! Make sure you make reservations in advance for the activities, because they do fill up quickly!
They have kids covered when it comes to activities here at the Atlantis! There are programs for every age. For 3 to 6 year olds, there’s Sea Squirts where there are supervised feedings of the marine animals while wading through the shallow ponds.
For older kids who are 6 to 10 years old, there’s the Junior Ultimate Trainer for the Day! They get a 4 hour experience of the behind -the-scenes life of a dolphin trainer. And for the pre-teens, there are plenty of activities as well at the Kid’s Club and the Kids Adventures Programs. I know my 11 year old will definitely want to join in the Culinary activities at Cooks@Play.
There’s even a night club for the teens called Crush! And to finish off a great evening of activities, you can go to a movie at the Atlantis’s free movie theater, or spend time in the game room. Kids have plenty to do!
The Atlantis has you covered when it comes to exercise, too, with a beautiful fitness center and weight room, a lap pool, spa, tennis courts, and a world-class, 18 hole, par 72 championship golf course!
The Atlantis keeps its littlest guests safe with free life vests to use. These are located all over the resort for you!
There is plenty to make a yearly trip again and again. So we are happy that its convenient to use our timeshare here with the Harbor Resort.
One more fabulous fact I learned at the Atlantis: For the past decade or so, Atlantis has had a marine conservation entity called the Atlantis Blue Project Foundation. The hotel is the home of many, MANY adult green sea turtles that were wounded, rescued and helped to recover here at their new home.
With its aquariums and water pools full of marine animals, the Atlantis was the birth place of over 1,000 baby green sea turtles that were carefully released back into the Caribbean last year.
This hotel project hopes to protect not only the local animal species but also the Bahamian oceans themselves. Without these turtles, which feed on the algae that grows in coral, many other marine species would be in danger of dying out.
This same conservation entity also raises multitudes of sting rays and sharks! Walking around the property, you can see ponds of each variety, from tiny babies on up to the full grown adults of all these different species!
A portion of the proceeds of all your marine activities here at the resort will go toward supporting the work done by this foundation to preserve the Caribbean for future generations.
The Bahamian people are extremely friendly and helpful. As you get to and from places, the taxi drivers are a great source of information, and love talking about their country during the drive.
They’ll point out different areas and points of interest along your route and answering your questions. We met one taxi driver who was originally from Harbor Island. He told us that You will not find a Bahamian community anywhere else in the world as you do many other Caribbean cultures, because not many Bahamians immigrate.
“Bahamians leave here for only 4 reasons according to our taxi driver: vacations, shopping since everything must be imported, specialized medical care (if it is some area not available at their own hospitals, which are quite advanced in some areas such as stem cell research) and the 4th reason is advanced or technical education.
“Otherwise, Bahamians stay in their own country, and why wouldn’t we?” He continues, “We are very proud of our country and, well, we live in Paradise! So why would we leave to live anywhere else?”
I certainly tend to agree with him.
I could definitely see why, and I have plenty of reasons to come back myself with so many many excursions to choose from! Tours of all sorts are available right from the Atlantis Harbor to go scuba diving, snorkeling, sailing, island-hopping….
but really, we spent five days in the resort itself and never even depleted what it has to offer. I can’t wait to come back next year with the kids!
