Advice on touring Atlantis Aquaventure?

[mmmears]

We've booked DCL's Atlantis Climbing and Aquaventure for our upcoming cruise (yes, I know about the Comfort Suites). I'm looking for help/advice in making a "touring plan" for our day in Atlantis, since we'll only be there for several hours...

If you've spent the day at the pools, slides, beaches, aquariums at Atlantis, can you please let me know about crowds, the order you did things, etc.?

We'll be there for Easter weekend, so I know it will be super-crowded. I just hope I can formulate some sort of touring plan so that we can get a little bit of everything into our very busy day!

Thanks in advance for any advice!!!

 

[ewinme]

My husband and I did the Aquaventure on our cruise. We also booked through Disney. I now it could have gottten cheaper prices booking through comfort suites but felt better doing the secure Disney Route.

The park is large but most of the slides are in one area surrounded by multiple pools. We really enjoyed the lazy river. A few areas of it are very slow and had little current, others were fast moving due to a well positioned wave machine.

We really enjoyed the slides that involved the up and down hill runs. All are found in the one tower. One of the things we found somewhat less than anticpated was the conveyer belt ride taking you directly the top of the park for the slides. It was very slow moving and the water had very little current. We only did this once and then found the stairs and used that route the rest of the day.

The only other draw back was the verry long drawn out tour you get upon arrival. I felt like they wasted some of our time when we just wanted to explore and find the slides.

All in all it was very fun day that we are glad we spent the money on. I hope you enjoy it also.

 

[mmmears]

The only other draw back was the verry long drawn out tour you get upon arrival. I felt like they wasted some of our time when we just wanted to explore and find the slides.

All in all it was very fun day that we are glad we spent the money on. I hope you enjoy it also.

Could we skip the tour if we wanted?

Also, how was the transportation and the lunch?

Did you feel like you had enough time at Atlantis?

 

[Princess April]

Could we skip the tour if we wanted?

Also, how was the transportation and the lunch?

Did you feel like you had enough time at Atlantis?

I would like to know this too, I also have this booked!!!!

 

[Bikeguy]

Could we skip the tour if we wanted?

Also, how was the transportation and the lunch?

Did you feel like you had enough time at Atlantis?

I did this excursion with two others last week. Did the planning myself.

Cab from ship to Atlantis- $6 for first person, $3 for every person after.
This is the required fare from Nassau Taxi officials.

Upon entering Atlantis- Go down the stairs toward the big fish tank, turn left. The first desk you come to sells day passes for $110/adult, $80 kid. I bought 2 adult, 1 kid. These passes are for all the slides, a tour of the underground city and the grounds in general.

I brought my own lunch ordered from the ships room service that morning. If you do this, bring extra bags for the tomatoes, as they will make some of the sandwiches soggy.

A friend booked thru Disney Cruise, but her son got sick and couldn't go. "Sorry, no refunds."

My son got sick that morning and couldn't go, so I bought 3 tickets, instead of 4.

And we got there much sooner than the excursion people, who were starting to form lines near the boat on the pier as we were leaving the ship and grabbing a cab.

No saying you shouldn't book thru Disney. Everyone has their tolerances for risk. Mine is higher than most and I don't mind a little adventure.

I see minimal risk doing it the way I did though.

 

[mmmears]

I did this excursion with two others last week. Did the planning myself.

Cab from ship to Atlantis- $6 for first person, $3 for every person after.
This is the required fare from Nassau Taxi officials.

Upon entering Atlantis- Go down the stairs toward the big fish tank, turn left. The first desk you come to sells day passes for $110/adult, $80 kid. I bought 2 adult, 1 kid. These passes are for all the slides, a tour of the underground city and the grounds in general.

I brought my own lunch ordered from the ships room service that morning. If you do this, bring extra bags for the tomatoes, as they will make some of the sandwiches soggy.

A friend booked thru Disney Cruise, but her son got sick and couldn't go. "Sorry, no refunds."

My son got sick that morning and couldn't go, so I bought 3 tickets, instead of 4.

And we got there much sooner than the excursion people, who were starting to form lines near the boat on the pier as we were leaving the ship and grabbing a cab.

No saying you shouldn't book thru Disney. Everyone has their tolerances for risk. Mine is higher than most and I don't mind a little adventure.

I see minimal risk doing it the way I did though.

I'll be there during a holiday weekend, so I booked through Disney.

Do you have any advice on touring Atlantis? What you did or saw? Was it crowded?

 

[PirateSnowmen]

We did Atlantis on our own, so I can't comment on how the DCL excursion was. We went during spring break last year, so it was fairly crowded. We didn't wait long for slides though - the longest I remember was 15 minutes and that's because something happened with the slide right before it was our turn and they had to fix it.

I will say that if you feel it gets too crowded, just hop in the lazy river. I think we spent at least 50% of our time at Atlantis in the lazy river. It was awesome. A tip for the lazy river (and the other slides): put sunscreen everywhere on your body and reapply often! My dad's back got burned up pretty badly because the tubes rubbed off most of the sunscreen. I also got the absolute worst sunburn on my feet from sitting in the tubes. Let me tell you - badly sunburned feet is NOT fun (especially since we went to WDW after the cruise!). I also got burned in awkward spots where I missed with the sunscreen (parts of my arm, legs). It left awkward looking splotches

We didn't really have a plan for Atlantis - we just went with the flow and did what we wanted. If the lines got long, we hopped in the lazy river. We noticed the lines did tend to fluctuate a bit throughout the day - it was less busy in the morning and got progressively busy throughout the day (but nothing unbearable). But, as I said, the lines weren't really too horrible.

 

[scootch]

I have a question for anyone who has done it thru DCL, do you have to schedule a time for pick up ... or do the busses just come at intervals and you take whichever one back you want?

 

[mmmears]

Does anyone have any suggestions as to where I can find information/touring plans for Atlantis online? I'm just having a really hard time finding any real info on what's available and how to sample it all in a short day?

 

[ewinme]

When my husband and I went it was in September and it was not busy at all. We never waiting in a line for more than like 2 guests to go down before us. We did not have a plan so to speak for our day just to see and do what we could.

We had plenty of time. We like the other posters spent a lot of time in the lazy river because it was easy and relaxing. At a lot of water parks you can cruise the lazy river and see what you want to ride. This was not necessarily the case here so we just started climbing steps and going down slides. If we liked them we went again, if we didn't well then NEXT. I remember one particular ride that the attendent told me was nothing, well haha, on him it was very fast, straight down and it dumped you into a underground grotto cave thing. It was very cool once we got down there but the ride was not what i expected. I don't remember the name but it was off the very top platform in the main slide building. Another one we really enjoyed was the one that you rode a tube down and you are inside a tube with sharks swimming around you. Pretty cool to see.

Lunch - was probably one of the best advantages of booking through disney for us because it was included. Food at Aqua Adventure IS NOT CHEAP!!!!!! I think when we went we got a sandwich, chips and a drink. We found a place way back in the corner where we found wraps.

If I remember correctly they have pickups every 1/2 hour or so back to the ship, (there are multiple shore excursions that go to Atlantis so there are lots of people moving back and forth). When we felt we had enough water time we started walking back to the hotel (the waterpark is in the far back on the complex). We walked through the dig aquarium and then went outside to catch the shuttle.

It was easy peasy.

One thing i did was just review their website, and some other travelor reviews before we went. It helped me know what was there and try to get a picture in my head. I am somewhat of an over analyzer so I have to read, read, read before I go.

There are probably some slides and maybe even parts of the lazy river that I would not want to take young children on unless they were good swimmers and not afraid of the water. Oh and one more warning, on the coaster slides, when they tell you to lift up your rear - pay attention haha, otherwise you will know you did not follow directions.

 

[mmmears]

ewinme -- thanks for the info! I'm a planner, too (I guess that's obvious here...) so I'm glad to read all these responses as to what to expect when we get there.

 

[TheWog]

I also like that you can be in the lazy river and if you decide to go ride a slide you can just veer off, stay in your tube and be brought to the top of the tower in your tube and then float to the ride you select. Very cool.

 

[KSDisneyDad]

I did this excursion with two others last week. Did the planning myself.

Cab from ship to Atlantis- $6 for first person, $3 for every person after.
This is the required fare from Nassau Taxi officials.

Upon entering Atlantis- Go down the stairs toward the big fish tank, turn left. The first desk you come to sells day passes for $110/adult, $80 kid. I bought 2 adult, 1 kid. These passes are for all the slides, a tour of the underground city and the grounds in general.

I brought my own lunch ordered from the ships room service that morning. If you do this, bring extra bags for the tomatoes, as they will make some of the sandwiches soggy.

A friend booked thru Disney Cruise, but her son got sick and couldn't go. "Sorry, no refunds."

My son got sick that morning and couldn't go, so I bought 3 tickets, instead of 4.

And we got there much sooner than the excursion people, who were starting to form lines near the boat on the pier as we were leaving the ship and grabbing a cab.

No saying you shouldn't book thru Disney. Everyone has their tolerances for risk. Mine is higher than most and I don't mind a little adventure.

I see minimal risk doing it the way I did though.

Great tips.....

How was the weather last week?

 

[wld4mky]

We went to atlantis on our own group of 8. Cab was $4.00 a person. We just toured what you could see for free. It is very nice. Did not swim it was too cold. IMHO Hope you have better weather.