ATLANTIS BEACHES

The water at the Bahamas was amazingly beautiful!! I love love love the beach/ocean and because we were staying at a resort with a water park, I didn't get to spend half as much time in that gorgeous water as I wanted to.

Here are some late evening shots we made on our last night there.....

I hate every picture of myself and after seeing these, I have already lost 6lbs (that's how much I hate pictures of myself).....

Atlantis has 3 beaches, one of which had big waves and one that called The Cove that was built to be very calm (I didn't take a picture of that one though)

LOL! Landon loved to get "washed up" on the beach!

Those 4 own my heart!!! I just love my family!!!

ATLANTIS AMENITIES

Atlantis properties is very expansive. It is located on Paradise Island which is just over a bridge from New Providence Island where Nassau is located. You could easily never leave the Atlantis property because it has everything there...BUT it is pretty expensive. We caught a bus to a grocery store in Nassau and bought breakfast and lunch items. To buy a soft drink at a restaurant for all 5 of us would cost $20 so we drank a lot of water and that became a running joke between us and the kids! Anyway, at Atlantis, they have scheduled activities daily like beach competitions such as coconut bowling and Landon won that for his division one day! They also have a movie theater that shows 3 movies a day (recent releases) and that, I thoroughly enjoyed. They do BINGO every day which was a hoot and Haven loved that! After Bingo, they did arts and crafts for the children. They also have a small shopping area called Marina Village which had some restaurants in it as well. The kid's favorite spot was Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Parlor ($20 for all of us to get one scoop!!)......

One night they had a small taste of what a Bahamian Festival of Junkanoo is like. Similar to Mardi Gras, the people are dressed in very colorful, decorative costumes and play really LOUD music....Landon enjoyed dancing with them (he's such a card!!!!)

To get to the water park and beach, you have to catch an Atlantis bus that transports people around their properties, and then walk through a hotel. The hotel lobby's were very exquisite and beautiful (although I didn't take any pictures of them!) and we had to walk through their casino quite frequently to get from Point A to Point B (so to speak). This was my first time to be in a casino and it has some beautiful sculptures that I did manage to take pictures of....

One night we had walked thru the casino to get to the movie theater and when we came out, there was a limo in front of the hotel. The limo driver gave us and another family a complimentary ride back to Harborside and the other lady in the limo said that she thought this was probably for Tiger Woods because she had just seen him in the casino. Hate we miss that opp!

They have a place in Marina Village where some men are playing the steel drums and they let the kids play their homemade musical instruments and put on costumes if they like. Haven enjoyed that...

But we couldn't get her to put on a colorful hat and mask....she's just a simple girl and settled on a staw hat!

We also met this guy on stilts at Marina Village

Atlantis also has a teen club called Club Rush for 13-17 year olds nightly where they can go and dance,play video games and meet one another.....but of course, Mason is a little too introverted to do something like that alone so he never went. They have several different programs for children that are not complimentary that are sort of a creative babysitting service where they learn to cook, make pottery, and play games. They have a pre-teen club for ages 9-12 but Landon didn't participate in that either. Other amenities are tons of restaurants, tennis courts, dolphin/sea lion encounters, golf course, fitness clubs, a shop similar to Build-A-Bear, and a Speedway for kids to race cars. Landon and Haven raced a car but were not very good at it and got really frustrated!....

I just had to add on these last two pics just because they are just so adorable!

The DIG at ATLANTIS

As you walk around Atlantis, there are many areas of the lagoon where you see things like this.....

You can see big fish, stingrays, hammerhead sharks, and even some sea turtles. However, you can go underneath these areas to what's called The Dig, and walk through the underground world of Atlantis. Landon loved this area and we had to visit it pretty often. Here's some pictures of the kids in The Dig.....

Below is a conch that comes out of his shell when you pick him up. Conch is a popular island delicacy....(and yes we tried some fried Conch..not too bad)

Landon's touching a starfish....

Look at this grouper!!








It was just like walking through an underground aquarium and the kids loved it. One time when we went through, we were in a tunnel where the water is above and around you. There was this sting ray that was almost lying on the tunnel and an Atlantis guide was in there at the time and she noticed that the sting ray was giving birth!!! The guide was so excited because she had never seen that before so we felt pretty privileged to get to witness that as well. We didn't have our camera with us that day. After the baby was born, the staff had to dive into the tank to find the baby to place it in a safe place to prevent sharks from eating it. It was a really neat experience!

Atlantis Water Parks

Atlantis has 11 pools, 9 slides, a children's water playground, and a mile long river ride over waves, rapids, and tunnels. So these are pictures from different areas around Atlantis that included water.....

Oh and look what else we found at Atlantis.....

This is Tim Tebow who now plays for the Denver Broncos. He is one of the most popular NCAA football players in NCAA history and is known for his outstanding stand for Christ. He is such a wonderful role model for upcoming Christian athletes. He's so nice too!

This was the "Leap of Faith"....Mason is going down

Landon on the "Leap of Faith" (you won't see a pic of Lori on it....not young and courageous anymore!!!)

This is Landon and I coming out of another slide that ends up going thru a shark tank. Actually we are the people tank.

Here is Mason in the tunnel...notice the shark lying on top

This is our view going thru the tunnel....

Landon and I in the tunnel.....

This next picture shows Haven at her favorite spot at Atlantis!! She loved this slide and could have stayed on it all day!! She was too short to ride any of the inter tube slides but she sure had fun on all the small slides!

Below we are in the pool that the slide Haven is on in the previous picture empties in to.

Let me say that I loved how Atlantis provides towels and life vests for the kids. It is so convenient! Also, women walk around the chairs, taking your order for lunch or drinks. They have pop music playing at some of the pools and live bands playing at some of the others.

This is the kids standing in front of the tunnel that you come down around the sharks

This is the Lagoon area that you can rent snorkeling equipment, kayaks, and water bikes at.

Below is the Power Tower that holds 4 water slides. I actually did go down the "Abyss" which was just like "Leap of Faith" but was enclosed and you ended up in a cave with more fish aquariums around.

This was my favorite! It is like a lazy river, but with rapids and waves in some spots. Very relaxing......

Haven outside of the lagoon....

I'm realizing there are lots of pictures I didn't get of all the water areas but I'm sure Cathy has some. She plans to put her pics on a disc to share with me and we used her camera a lot because it was smaller. So anyway, here's all the pics of the Atlantis pool areas....I will post beach pics next!