My MIL just booked a 12-person family trip for July 2020 to Atlantis in Bahamas.
If anyone has been, I'm looking for any tips on food and drinks savings / purchases while there.
We are staying in the Beach Tower, which I know is about 10-15 minute walk from the water park.
I've been visiting Atlantis for spring break for nearly 15 years.
There's an older thread with tips for budgeting:
https://www.disboards.com/threads/tips-for-doing-atlantis-paradise-island-for-less.3060977/. Most of the advice there still applies.
1. I love the area over by the Beach tower. The river pool and lazy river are great to return to once you've had your fill of the slides and carziness of the Aquventure area. My SIL has been coming with us for years, and she usually stays in the Beach.
2. There's no 'perfect' location at Atlantis. If you're close to Aquventure, you're far from the marina village and other nightime dining and entertainment locations. Once you get your bearings, its only a 5-10 minute walk along the beach walkways to get to Aquventure.
3. I find food to be similarly priced to WDW. An excerpt from the thread above: Atlantis is known for having expensive food. Very true, but the problem isn't so much everything's is expensive as it is that there are only a few places that are inexpensive. At dinner time, the only counter-service type place is the pizzeria. Yeah, its not glamorous , but it's on the marina and decent & filling. Throw in a night at
Margaritaville and you can feed your family for much less than the $75+ a person places that are the fine dining venues. Throw in a nicer family style meal at Carmines or Vergil's, and you can stretch one dinner into two.
4. The lunch venues all have value meals that run $12- $15 a person for a burger fries, and a drink. Many of the places have pizza, and you can get a whole pizza for your group...we did that this year several times. Yes, its $50 or something, but it serves 5 or 6.
5. Breakfast buffets are expensive, but the lobby bars are set-up with muffin and juice type continental breakfast type stuff that are expansive for what they are, but cheaper than a sit-down/buffet restaurant. There's also a Starbucks in the lower lobby of the Coral tower, and a Dunkin Donuts in a small shopping plaza across the street from the marina village.....a 5-10 minute walk from the Beach tower.
Bottom line: if you want/need to eat cheap at Atlantis, you can. You just have to research ahead of time.
I'm happy to answer other questions.
