Atlantis, Paradise Island, The Bahamas

Pardon me I’m sure at times I’ll ramble in my posts; I’ll try not to but I get excited when I start thinking and writing about Atlantis.  Anyway, I’m going to weigh in with my personal experiences about researching, booking and enjoying the wonderful world of Atlantis.  I have to say I actually got excited when I heard Martha Stewart was also there April 2008 she stayed at The Cove for two days while filming for her TV show on NBC and Fine Living.

Anyway, I digress.  I’ll start at the beginning we went on a typical 4 day / 3 night vacation package including our hotel and airfare and we added at the time what was called the “Gourmet Meal Plan”.  It was so damn much fun plus I won money the first night – I put $3.50 in a “Tabasco Sauce” themed slot machine and I won $1,200.00 which since we had scored a deal on our vacation package MORE than paid for my trip.  Feel the love… for Atlantis.  My friend and I stayed in a “terrace promo. rate room” and our airfare, was on American Airlines (which I loved because I have a chunk of old TWA miles sitting in my AA Advantage [frequent flyer] account.

A very nice, professional woman checked us in and she gave us a wonderful room for our rate, I could actually sit on my bed and see a sliver of the Atlantic ocean beyond the tops of the palm trees.  We were on the ocean side of the Royal Towers.  We really enjoyed staying in the Royal Towers our room was large, spacious, clean, well appointed, loved that we had a flat panel TV and high-speed internet as both my friend can go away on these mini-holidays but absolutely have to have broadband internet so we can stay on top of our business activities.

I had read that you’re better off selecting and making your dinner reservations sooner rather than later while you’re still at home.  So, I did that.  We selected FATHOMS, NOBU, and CAFE MARTINIQUE breakfast and dinner daily are included in the Gourmet Meal Plan.  First night was Fathoms which is really fun because it has a wall of glass looking into one of the huge aquariums that is part of the marine habitat at Atlantis.  So, you’re sitting and having dinner of great food while enjoying this amazing view of manta ray and other incredible marine life swimming by the floor to ceiling, wall to wall of glass.  Simply spectacular.  The other thing I want to comment on is this, both my friend and I have had the pleasure to interact with tons of the staff at Atlantis and we always get great service.  People are always friendly and helpful so we don’t understand all these reviews you see on the ‘net about the rude, inattentive staff — not our experience.  We went the first time October 2006, returned October 2007 and just went again April 2008.  I’ve also just made our reservations with casino marketing to return this October 2008, we’re trying  The Cove this trip and my brother is traveling with us.

Anyway, this resort although a mega-resort never seems huge to us.  We enjoy the walks because there’s always interesting, beautiful things to look at along the way.  To repeat, this was a three night trip, four day trip.  We arrived in mid-afternoon on a Sunday and I had done some online research since we planned to go off resort for lunch; we wanted to eat, hopefully where the locals eat.  My friend and I both love food and especially were excited to try the Bahamian seafoods, Conch and Grouper.  Yum!

We went to The Green Parrot which is on Paradise Island a short walk from Atlantis, its on the Harbour overlooking Nassau harbour.

We love this place.  It’s one of these open air yet covered bars with tables around also and you’re right at the edge of the harbour so you have all the interesting things to watch in the harbour as well as the people around the bar.  Great food, great drinks, my Mai Tai seemed to be bottomless, every time I turned around it seemed to be topped off again.  I didn’t mind I was on holiday in this amazing, tropical paradise.  When in Rome as the saying goes…