Day 4: Tuesday 3/27 Part 1 Atlantis Aquaventure
Day 4 started with breakfast at Tritons. We had been eating breakfast at Beach Blanket Buffet and I must say that I wish we had eaten at Tritons for breakfast every day. I really wanted to try that pineapple tower thing Ive read so much about, but a plate of French toast, Belgian waffles, and pancakes caught my eye. Then we scurried off to Wavebands to check in for our excursion to Atlantis. We booked the Atlantis Aquaventure excursion through Disney and I was very excited because I had read so much about this I couldnt wait to ride all the waterslides!
We checked in and received our Pumba stickers, then waited for a bit for everyone else to check in. At this point a CM set up a cart with things like sunscreen, cameras, towels, all that sort of stuff. I never wear sunscreen I love baking in the sun but for some reason, I felt like we should buy some sunscreen. Best money spent on this cruise!! (Well, almost!) We bought that spray-on sport sunscreen in the blue bottle I swear by this stuff now (just bought two bottles for my upcoming trip to Universal Orlando). We used it several times while we were at Atlantis and Im so glad we did we would have been miserable lobsters if we hadnt. OK, public service announcement over.
We walked off the ship with our excursion group (the purple Pumbas) and received our wrist bands from the Atlantis employees. One person gives you the wrist band then you walk a little bit more and another person puts the wrist band on you. Then we were walked through the cruise terminal building in Nassau and out to a street where multiple buses were waiting. This excursion advertises a 25-minute bus ride to Atlantis, well this seemed to only take 10. Thank goodness, because I dont think my heart could have taken much more. I was sitting next to a window and the traffic was making me a little queasy I swear there were three lanes of cars on a two lane road. Grumpy found this to be quite fun, however. We were dropped off right in front of the building where the fancy-schmancy shops are and waited for our tour guide to take us inside. We were told to be sure to get back on the buses with the logo of a black bird flying into the sun, so I snapped a picture in case we had trouble remembering later on.
Our tour guide led us through the casino, then by the entrance of The Dig, and then to the Royal Baths Pool, which is near the Mayan Tower. She showed us where we could get some towels, then we were on our own. A note about the tour: the excursion info on the
DCL website mentions a guided tour through The Dig; this is optional. If you want a guided tour, youll have to go to The Dig entrance and ask one of the employees about a tour. Ill go into more details about The Dig in a bit, but we preferred to explore it at our own pace. We just walked in and started looking around. No one approached us about a tour, which was fine with me, but I just wanted to mention that you may have to ask for a guided tour if you want it.
Heres a picture of the Royal Towers:
See that bridge between the two towers? Youll find different stories about this on the Internet, but our guide told us that the bridge is actually a large suite that runs $44,000 a NIGHT and it has a 4-night minimum! Its called the Michael Jackson suite because he was the first person to stay there.
I spent a great deal of time researching the Atlantis website and reading posts on the DIS before our cruise, so I knew exactly what I wanted to do: hit the waterslides at the Mayan Temple first, head over to the Power Tower waterslides, play in some of the pools, go to The Dig, then relax on one of the beaches. I also wanted to explore the resort and visit all of the lagoons.
Here is a link to the Atlantis map:
http://www.atlantis.com/content/pdf/map.pdf. Youll get a fold-up version of this when you arrive, which is very helpful in navigating the resort.
This is the Mayan Temple:
The pool is Ripples Kids Pool; there is larger pool on the other side of the Mayan Temple. There are five waterslides here, but two of them are the same; theyre the Challenger Slides.
Two people can race each other on these slides; there are clocks at the bottom to see who was fastest. Grumpy rode this, but I was a little leery. He said it was fun, but not thrilling. Im one of those folks that prefer to gently swish through a tangled slide on an inner tube. Grumpy likes the speed slides with sharp drops. Rides that make me feel like Im going to die just arent fun for me, though.
This was Grumpys favorite slide:
This is the Leap of Faith, which is described as a 60 ft. almost-vertical drop from the top of the Mayan Temple, propelling riders at a tremendous speed through a clear acrylic tunnel submerged in a shark-filled lagoon. Grumpy rode this several times. I rode the Serpent Slide, which is a winding (sometimes completely in the dark) tube slide that ends in the same shark-filled lagoon as the Leap of Faith.
See the tunnel under the sharks? That's where you ride through s-l-o-w-l-y on the Serpent Slide this is also where I realized Im a wee bit claustrophobic
. Theres another tunnel right next to this one, which is where Grumpy glided through at the end of the Leap of Faith. Both slides exit into the same area:
There is another body slide at the Mayan Temple called the Jungle Slide, but neither one of us rode this one. This is another kids pool, Splashers, located near the Mayan Temple:
We walked over to the Power Tower, which houses the new waterslides at Atlantis.
I dont have any pics of the waterslides inside the Power Tower (sorry!
); there are four different slides here. The Abyss (another one of Grumpys favorites) is similar to the Leap of Faith; I think its a little shorter and youre in the dark for part of this one. The Surge is a tube slide that starts in the same area as the Abyss. So Grumpy got in line for the Abyss and I grabbed a tube and got in line for the Surge. There is a bar right at the entrance to the Abyss and people would grab onto the bar, then sort of swing and jump into this pit of darkness screaming all the way down. It was a little freaky because you couldnt see them coming out, LOL! Im thinking a nice tube slide cant be that scary, so Im looking forward to riding the Surge. You start out on a platform and are moved forward on a conveyer belt to a track propelled by water. If you only take one thing from this trip report, remember to KEEP YOUR BUTT UP!!! I heard to do this from several different sources, but holy cannoli it is not a joke. This ride will tear you up if youre not careful. This was really a fun ride (much better the second time around) and its not to be missed. You swish around through a series of slides and rapids then eventually end up in The Current, which is a mile-long river ride with waterfalls, rapids, and stretches of smooth water. This is one of the coolest parts about this area because at this point, you can stay in your tube and ride The Current or stay in your tube and ride two other slides (without having to walk anywhere). The other two slides are the Drop and the Falls. I think the one I rode was the Drop, but all I remember was that it was really dark for a really long time and I kept my eyes closed during most of it (but I kept peeking and it was still dark really, it was!!)
This is the Grotto Pool, which is next to the Power Tower:
We decided to get something to eat after we were done riding the waterslides. Along the way we found some hammerhead sharks in what I *think* was the Predator Lagoon:
My only complaint about this excursion (and this is very minor) was the food. We were given vouchers for lunch that offered several different places we could eat. All of them offered things like burgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, pizza, and conch fritters. One of the places offered sandwich wraps and a chicken salad, but we were told by our tour guide that it was closed. The problem was that none of these places were on the guide map, so we ended up wasting a lot of time looking for them. Im sure theyre not that hard to find, but Grumpy was getting grumpy and I was really hungry! So we decided to eat at a full-service restaurant and just pay for it because I wanted to eat something Bahamian. Well time after time we discovered that the fancy-schmancy restaurants were only open for dinner. So again, we wasted a lot of time walking around looking for restaurants. Eventually we ended up at the Marina and we each had a slice of pizza
very Bahamian. Heres a shot of the marina:
After we ate, we didnt have a lot of time left, so I had to prioritize and chose to go to The Dig instead of going to the pools or relaxing on the beach. Here are some pics of the beach we didnt go to:
The Dig was absolutely my favorite part of Atlantis, so Im very glad we went here instead of the pools or beach.
The entrance to The Dig was like walking into a dark cavern with several paths and viewing areas. I could have spent several hours in here, but ended up only spending about 45 minutes. Each area has artifacts from the lost city of Atlantis.
Smalltooth Sawfish
Stingray and colorful fish:
Moray Eels these grossed me out. They looked like giant swimming bananas.
These starfish were in an open tank where you could touch them. There were also some large conch and a sea cucumber.
Mammoth Grouper this picture does not do this giant beast justice. Some of these guys looked like they could swallow a five-year old!
Lionfish:
Spiny Lobsters:
School of Jacks:
There were some Moon Jellyfish in a separate tank that were mesmerizing to watch. I didn't get a decent picture, but they were beautiful.
There is a gift shop inside The Dig that youll walk through; they have Atlantis t-shirts, post cards, as well as lots of candles and stuffed toys. Our time here was coming to an end, so we trekked through the casino and boutique areas to get out to the pick-up location. Several times people tried to usher us into a cab, but we politely declined. There were several buses waiting and we easily found the one with the right logo. The ride back to the cruise terminal took about 30 minutes due to traffic.
Closing thoughts about the Atlantis Aquaventure excursion: The waterslides at Atlantis were Grumpys favorite part of our cruise. I absolutely enjoyed this excursion and felt it was worth the cost, but I wanted more time here!! There just simply isnt enough time to do everything in one trip. There are so many beautiful things to see, but I felt like we didnt have enough time to spend REALLY looking at things. There are also so many things we didnt see at all, such as many of the lagoons and just touring the property itself. The landscaping is lush and worth a look. We didnt spend any time in the casino, but had to walk through it several times it looked massive to me, but I havent been to that many casinos. Grumpy noted that there are no real poker tables here. The beaches looked gorgeous, but we didnt spend any time at those. The architecture and décor in each building was amazing. I really wanted to spend more time just looking at that. I definitely want to go back, whether it will be on another cruise excursion or on a vacation just to Atlantis, I dont know. Someday
I have heard and read so much about these delectable delights and they did not disappoint. Now that theyre all gone (and no, I didnt eat them ALL!) I wish we would have bought more, but theres just no way we could have brought anything else home with us. 
, but he was so funny!!! I was laughing the whole time. He was just as smarmy as he was in the movies! Ill just say that I only bought one of the professional pics because the other one would have made Grumpy REALLY grumpy! 
I had such a HUGE crush on him
okay so maybe I still have a little tiny crush
. He was fabulous, made wonderful suggestions (I took him up on ALL of them!) and was just so good to us. We have been spoiled both times weve been to Palo and will always visit here at least once each time we cruise. Although Im not sure if Grumpy will be too excited about seeing Dalibor again
The beach was much less crowded today than on Monday. 
and Closing Thoughts
I don't want your TR to end!!! You've done a great job sharing your cruise w/ us... and your pics are awesome! Thanks so much!!
