My family of 4 just returned from Atlantis. We had a very good vacation. I will try to outline the good and some areas we felt they fell short.
First, our rooms were great location-wise. I don't know if Disney worked out some deal but we were 6 feet from the beach. We were in the Dolphin Villas - had 2 rooms. They were supposed to be connecting but were not. However, our patios connected which turned out to be better because we sat out there a lot. (If out kids had been younger it could have been an issue not to have connecting rooms.) The one negative about the rooms was maintenance. The TV had a chip out of the center of the screen, the tub was chipped, and our safe wouldn't open after we put our passports and jewelry inside - took an hour to get that fixed. However, they were clean and the beds were comfortable. They could have used more drawers.
We did the Modified American Plan (MAP) which was $60/day/person and covers breakfast and dinner ony in specified venues only. There were 5 or 6 places for breakfast including 3 that were buffets and 6 or 7 places for dinner including the 3 buffets. While the meal plan covers your meal, you are billed for the tip at 15% of the price of the meal (not the meal plan). So, if the regular buffet cost is $45, the tip on that is $6.75 each. We did breakfast buffets every day - pretty good, not real imaginative but filling so we could skip lunch. For dinner we ate a couple of nights at the non-buffet (a la carte) restaurants. The MAP covers one appetizer, one salad or soup, one entre and one dessert. Again, you are charged 15% of the actual cost. For example, at Bimini Road one of the appetizers was shrimp at $3 each. I asked the waiter how many would be covered under the MAP. He said as many as I wanted. I ordered 6 and my son ordered 8. So, the tip on just these two appetizers alone was $6.30. Add a couple of surf & turfs at $50 each and those tips add up.
I'm still not sure if we saved money on the MAP - we probably ate more than we would have but we never ate lunch. One negative for me is that there were restaurants I would like to have tried but they weren't on the MAP. I think if we go back I'm going to try to convince hubby not to do dining plan. But, he eats a lot more than I do so no telling what that will cost.
As for nearby restaurants, I really didn't see any where I would want to eat. There was a little strip center with a few sandwich shop type places just off premises. My daughter and I ran every morning over one of the bridges to Nassau and back over the other one. There was an Outback right at the base of the bridge from Pleasure Island. I don't remember any other nearby restaurants (there were some in the Harbor but I'm considering that on premises).
I realize this is getting long but two more important points - unless you are into the casino scene, the place shuts down and rolls up the sidewalks at 7pm. The pools close, the beaches close. There is a free movie theatre (about the only thing free there), but the selection wasn't great and didn't change. We bought a deck of cards and played spades every night on the patio. We weren't thrilled with the bars as they were smokey. Snorkeling in the lagoon was a waste of money - nothing there at all.
Do check your bill every day or so. We got charged for all kinds of things in error - the room bar, phone calls, etc. My husband just battled it out every couple of days and they would eventually remove the charge.
The beach, pool and towels were all free - just show your room key to get a wrist band every morning.
Hope this helps. I would definitely go back but St. John still my favorite island.
