by NICOLE CARDINALI Staff Writer
My family and I took a vacation to the Atlantis Paradise Island Resort in the Bahamas for five days during the summer of 2012.
The resort is located on Nassau Paradise Island and takes up about a third of it. It is approximately 30 minutes from the small Nassau airport, making travel very easy.
The Atlantis hotel itself is a huge modern-looking building surrounded by turquoise water. There were different towers, each differently decorated. We stayed in a Harborside suite, one of the least expensive and dressy resorts there with more children.
There are stores for shopping, tours into other parts of the Bahamas, casinos, golf courses, and spa resorts. This part of the resort made my parents seem less annoying when they were not hovering over my two brothers, his friend, and me.
At Atlantis, I went snorkeling in the clear water, swam with dolphins, went to the teen club Crush, toured their marine center, and went to their water park.
The snorkeling was a great experience because of all of the different types of fish that I have never even heard.
My favorite part of the trip was swimming with the dolphins. Dolphins are my favorite animal and they were so cute, sweet, and well-trained.
Although Crush was a really cool looking teen club, I honestly did not have fun or enjoy myself at all. I was one of the youngest people in there, which made me feel really uncomfortable, so I wound up leaving really quickly.
The huge slides kept my little brother entertained for the five days we were there. After a plethora of begging, he dragged me on the Mayan Temple slide, a fast slide with clear tubes inside a shark sanctuary.
“My favorite slide was definitely the Mayan Temple. It was really scary as I was doing it, but after the slide was over, I wanted to go on it again,” said freshman Gerard Marretta.
Other slides we went on included Seagrapes, the Dig/ Ruin, Hibiscus, Stingray, and Predator Lagoons. Many of these consist of clear tubes that bring you under marine animal sanctuaries and out into a pool.
Atlantis is home to more than 50,000 marine animals they rescued. Since I love marine animals, touring all the sanctuaries and aquariums kept me very busy. Atlantis also preserves endangered coral reefs found around the resort.
On the fourth day, we all went parasailing for the first time. The water is so clean that you can see the bottom of the ocean, even from the sky.
“I thought Atlantis was beautiful. The water was so clear and it seemed so tropical,” said freshman Gianna Marretta.
My brother, his friend, my parents, and I used our beach pass every day. My little brother swam in one of the 12 nearby pools.
The beach was different from a beach in New Jersey because it was much cleaner. The water and sand had no pollution, and everything was so pure. The sun was so bright that even with 80 SPF sunscreen, we still got burnt.
After we burnt ourselves in the sun, we ate at some of the 21 amazing restaurants. Since Atlantis is a fancy hotel, most of the restaurants indoors required dress clothes. There was so much food to choose from, including Japanese and Italian. Any cuisine we wanted, Atlantis had a restaurant for it.
Quickly, the vacation ran out and we were already begging to come back soon.
Would you consider going to the Atlantis Resort?