Atlantis? Exciting!

[T Swift]

Spent a wk at Atlantis last March. It's grounds and aquariums are spectacular. There's a quiet lagoon for swimming, snorkeling, and a lovely white beach on the ocean. Food is outrageously expensive on site, as is transprotation to town. So, wether you eat there or locally, it's very expensive. The food was very good, and there are several buffets. We knew about this in advance, so we took powder drink mix and a large bag of dry snacks for our 16 yr old eating machine. We toured the villas that the timeshare uses, and they're lovely. Right across from the casino and yacht docking. The yachts there are amazing...huge and clean! Many stay docked there all winter, and are rented out, complete with staff. It was amusing to see folks that had rented the yachts play the part of the owner for a week.
I'd recommend it, at least once.

Have fun,
TS

 

[Dean]

Originally posted by vacationman
TCan it be this bad of a deal?

It is for the Cruise and for the 3 or 4 CC options I've investigated. The max return I've seen is less than $7 pp unless one is looking at the cruise and you've already missed the early booking discounts. My cruise this past March would have returned $4.50 pp compared to cash plus I got a $75 credit on top of that. The plaza was also between $5-6 pp for the two times of the year I looked at.

 

[goldilocks_63]

and do you think it'd be cheaper to get your own airfare, or to let Disney help us with that too.

And can we pay cash for the airfare part?

Flying from CHicago to....?

Is it Nassau? What is the Symbol for that?

 

[kel3420]

Yes, you do fly into Nassau, there is a closer, smaller airport by the resort, but MUCH more expensive. So normally you would fly into Nassau, and use the resort shuttle. The shuttle took approx 30-45 minutes.

I can't remember who we used for airfare several years ago, but we did separate it from the resort fee and save money.

Before we went, I did alot of research. There is a very active Bahama/Carribbean board with tons of info regarding Atlantis. This is where I found alot of ideas, such as bringing a collapsable cooler, buying beer and pop across the street, what excursions are the best for the money, restaurants within walking distance, bringing snacking food for the room, bringing your own coffee pot (that alone saved us a TON of money). Another example would be buying the continental breakfast in the lobby in the morning and bringing it to your room, but every person in your party doesn't have to have it, we would buy four and have enough for the six in our two rooms.

There is also a Comfort Suites hotel right across the street that has full Atlantis privledges for those that are looking to save a bit of money.

Within walking distance of the resort is the marina (not the resort marina). This is where all the boating excursions are. We took an all day snorkeling trip on one and had a ball. We also had my then 12 yr old son get scuba certified at the resort, and hubbie and I took him out for some real scuba diving and we had a ball.

I just did a search and believe the discussion board I used was:

http://thebahamasguide.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=4