Discover Atlantis Tour

[hugastar]

Just wondering what your thoughts and experiences are of this tour. Never been to Bahamas and have seen nice pictures of the Atlantis. Thought might be interesting to see it, but my husband thinks we should just stay on board on Nassau day.

 

[dmunsil]

For reference, you can take a cab to Atlantis for $4/person each way (ask them to drop you at the Royal Towers; it's much closer to the exhibits). And then a tour of the Dig is $35 for adults and somewhat less for kids (I'm thinking $20 or $25). Or you can do the self-guided tour, which is basically just a pass that allows you to walk through the Dig, for $25 for adults, less for kids.

The Dig is very nicely done; it's like the most elaborately themed aquarium you'll ever see. Everything is designed to look like you're seeing the ruins of some ancient lost civilization, including sunken sculptures and buildings. The area you walk through has strange ancient machines and glowing symbols on the walls. Whether it's worth $35/person is a bit of judgment call. Overall I felt like Atlantis was very well done across the board but seemed overpriced for what you get. The water park is a really nice water park, but not $150 nice, given that Disney's water parks are like $55 or so. It is unique, though, and thus can charge what the market will bear.

One thing you can do is just take a cab over and visit the free sections of Atlantis, which is basically the lobby, casino and shops. You can decide once you're there if you want to pay to do the Dig, or whether you'd rather explore Paradise Island. There's another market over there with local crafts which tends to be a little less crowded than the Straw Market near the cruise terminal, plus a nice view walking around at the harbor. You can take a cab out to the Cloisters and walk around for nothing. Paradise Island is much more upscale than downtown Nassau and much more pleasant to just walk around. There aren't generally lots of random hawkers trying to sell you things. It's nice.

http://www.practicalparadiseisland.com/Cloisters_Paradise_Island.html

If you do want to walk to the harbor, I recommend exiting Atlantis via the Coral Towers exit, which is closer to the harbor and the shopping area, or take a very short cab ride from the Royal Towers to the harbor.

 

[hugastar]

How safe is it to take a cab to Atlantis?

 

[Divah]

We have done this excursion 3 times and the wAter adventure twice. I absolutely love it. I do enjoy the tour and aquarium the most. My son is 3 this year and sharks and fish are his favorite things ,I cannot wAit to get him in the tunnels with the sharks overhead. I recommend it at least once.

 

[hugastar]

Thanks. We'll sign up for the tour.

 

[Divah]

Sign up early it goes fast. Our last tour guide was so nice. Make sure to snap pics at Poseidon throne. It is only excursion we do at Nassau...the glass bottom boat tour was dull and meh..not worth the cash.

 

[mylittlebuttercup]

We really enjoyed it!

We were actually booked for the glass bottom boat last time, but apparently it was damaged during a hurricane. However, at least 10-15 people on the tour were not notified of this (and were still given excursion tickets), and we were all waiting in the designated meeting spot for a while before someone found out they had canceled the excursion. Many of the other cheaper excursions had already left for the day, so they upgraded us to the Atlantis tour for free. We liked it so much, in fact, that we are going to do it again this time (probably with the beach day option) because our DS loves aquariums.

 

[boardwalkbride729]

We took a boat to Atlantis that had a bunch of people on it (prob 20+ people) it was 6$ a person if i remember correctly if you don't want to take a cab. There were signs to where to get the boat ticket it wasn't far from the ship. We did the cheapest package where you just walk around on your own and we enjoyed it. We weren't able to swim in the pools though you need a wrist band for that that comes in a more expensive package

 

[dmunsil]

How safe is it to take a cab to Atlantis?

I'd say it's quite safe, although the whole experience is a little chaotic. When a ship comes in, there are a huge number of vans (not mini-vans, full-size passenger vans) piled up in the "cab stand" not in a line, just in a group. There are cab hawkers asking every cruise passenger if they need a cab. If you say you want to go to Atlantis (which is where most of the cabs will end up going), they'll call over a driver, who will escort you to his van. The driver will wait until their van is full, which shouldn't take more than a few minutes. The cost to Atlantis or anything near there (like the Comfort Suites) is $4/person, plus tip. We just gave him $20 for the four of us.

On the way back, cab service from Atlantis is basically like any other fancy hotel, with a porte-cochere and bell captains who will whistle a cab over when you ask for one. The price was the same $4/person back to the cruise terminal.

One useful thing about taking your own cab is that you'll get there much faster than the Disney transportation. You can just get off the ship as soon as it docks and head over, while the Disney trip goes through multiple stages of organizing the expedition, taking tickets, giving instructions, etc.

I do not recommend the Paradise Island ferry. It waits until it's full (really full) and that can take time. It's more expensive than a cab. There's an aggressive "tour guide" who talks during the trip and then asks for a tip at the end. Completely pointless unless you just want to do it for the experience.

 

[NAB]

We did the Disney tour , it was nice to listen to the guide tell you things about the fish and the hotel itself. They give you a head set to listen. Afterwards we looked around a bit and jumped back into a van waiting to go back to the ship. They have them coming and going all day. We really enjoyed it. The van drivers are nice and give you a little history of the town too. We usually just stay and shop around the port and always wanted to go over there.

 

[stickeymouse]

We did this tour in January of 2014. It was "neat" to see Atlantis and the aquarium, but we weren't blown away by it. If anything, it made us realize how phony Atlantis is, kind of like a Vegas mega-hotel. Some people are into that, though. Don't eat there unless you want to spend $20+ per person on mediocre food. We probably won't do the excursion again.

 

[Melissa S]

Biggest waste of money. Half the tour was looking at the "million dollar" lighting fixtures. Would only go again if booked the waterpark through comfort suites or on our own with discounted tickets as pp mentioned. The excursion through dcl is a huge waste of time and money.

 

[Frozen2014]

Our ship offers this tour too. Can I ask why it is marked as 'strenuous'? We are only in Nassau until 2pm so not much time to do much, but it sounds ok and a way to sortuv see the Atlantis.

 

[Melissa S]

There are A LOT of stairs and the elevators are tiny. This normally wouldn't be an issue for us but at the time DD was 2 and we brought her stroller. The elevators required an attendant and was small so only one stroller and a parent would fit at a time, so it took forever. DH ended up carrying the stroller all day with me holding DD. It was a huge PITA.

 

[mylittlebuttercup]

Our ship offers this tour too. Can I ask why it is marked as 'strenuous'? We are only in Nassau until 2pm so not much time to do much, but it sounds ok and a way to sortuv see the Atlantis.

I have no idea why it was marked as strenuous; I am rather out of shape and was pregnant at the time, and I was fine. It was not strenuous at all.

 

[Baileykiko]

Just did this tour last week. It was meh. Won't do it again, it's too expensive. Nice to see the aquarium and Atlantis. I felt the tour/tour guide really rushed us and we didn't have time to really look at the exhibits. And I agree with above poster-our tour guide made sure to point out "our million dollar light fixtures"! Lol.
Afterwards our tour guide said we could walk around the grounds. However, we were not provided any maps and had no idea where anything was at. So-we just went back to the bus and head to the ship.

 

[Wonder2008]

Does anyone know how much it is to just buy access to the Atlantis aquariums when you arrive there? I was thinking about going there just for the morning and just look around to see if I want to do more there in the future.
Thanks,
Robert

 

[dmunsil]

Does anyone know how much it is to just buy access to the Atlantis aquariums when you arrive there? I was thinking about going there just for the morning and just look around to see if I want to do more there in the future.
Thanks,
Robert

Last I checked, it was $42 for adults (13+) and $33 for children (4-12), free for 3 and under. The Dig is very cool, but I'm not sure it's $42 worth of cool. You also get access to the predator lagoons, the Royal Towers lobby and a few other areas.

Sadly, there's not that much to see if you don't get some kind of pass (and the Discover Atlantis pass is the cheapest). You can go into the casino. You can go into the Coral Towers, and there are some stores and restaurants in that tower. I believe you can go into the Beach Tower, but didn't try it. Both of those are basically ordinary tower hotels that were subsumed into Atlantis when the Royal Towers was built. The iconic structure with the fancy bridge is the Royal Towers, and pretty much everything you'd want to see is in it or accessed through it, and you're not even allowed into the lobby during the day unless you're checking in, have a resort wristband, or the paperwork you need to get a resort wristband.