I'm leaving for Atlantis in 3 weeks and am starting to stress about how to keep busy. DH, me and the kids (7,5 and 3) will be there for 7 nights and I'm not reallyy a lay on the beach all day kid of person.

I know - why are we going there? It's a corporate incentive trip and we didn't get a choice.

So, I'm hoping for ideas on day trips, excursions, good places to eat (either in Atlantis or out), etc. so I don't lose my mind by the third day.

We will have the kids with us a lot but alos figure on using the kids club so we can go snorkeling, etc.

The only thing we're planning on doing so far is the Dolphin Encounter - the only question is to swim with the dolphins or just do the close encounter.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any suggestions and Happy New Year.

We went to Atlantis in November, 2006 with my 3 sons, 11,9,9. I was worried about how to fill 4 days, 5 nights.

The pools are fantastic. My kids spent 3 of the 4 days mostly in the pools. Besides the big water slides, there is a labyrinth of small pools and waterslides perfect for little kids. We found that we enjoyed the pools best first thing in the morning. They get pretty crowded as it gets later. There are lagoons with sharks, rays, and other types of fish for the kids to look at. There is a ceramics studio that has adult and kid activities.

The beach at the hotel is pretty, white sand and aquamarine, warm water. But the water gets deep fast, and it seemed choppy when we were there. It might not be the best beach for little kids. But I am sure there are other beaches nearby.

The dolphin experience was great. I don’t think you’ll have the option of doing the swim with kids as young as yours. The “experience” was just fine. My kids weren’t even interested in going. But they absolutely loved it. If the hotel tells you they are sold out, call the Dolphin Experience number directly.

There is a botanical garden and zoo called Ardastra. We never got to go, but it looked fun. You can check it out at www.ardastra.com . We also never got to the Pirate Museum in Nassau, but it also looked like my kids would have enjoyed it.

I have read some negative reviews of Atlantis, but we enjoyed it. We stated in the Royal Towers. The rooms were large and attractive. But I think if I went back, I would not pay the premium for them again. I would stay at the Coral Towers. I walked into some of those rooms and they were just fine. The rooms are a little smaller, but there were more families there. In the Royal Towers, there were more couples, and it felt more like Las Vegas. We had some “honeymooning” neighbors on the balconies engaging in some spicy conversations easily heard in our rooms.

Across the street from Atlantis is Anthony's Caribbean Grille if you want to eat off site. Also, down the road is the Hurricane Hole shopping Center. There is a market where you can pick up soda, water, snacks, etc. to take back to your room for the children. There is also a small straw market right by the shopping center.

Sorry, I hit the post button before I was done.

We are tourists, not travelers, so you can take all of my comments with that grain of salt.

Other than the dolphin encounter, we stayed at the resort. We ate at the buffet restaurants and the poolside places. My kids are actually pretty good in restaurants, but dining was pretty expensive, and I am lazy. I did not want to bring dressy clothes, and the really nice places have definite dress codes and are probably not suited to young children. The food was good, not great. My picky, chicken finger-eating kids found plenty to satisfy them. My husband and I found the food acceptable.

The resort has quite a few activities in the hotel. They have a daily newsetter to let you know what is available for that day. I would have enjoyed another day or two

Thanks so much for the suggestions. The ceramics studio sounds great and will hopefully fill some time. Do you remember if that was included or an addtional charge?

Also, we don't mind dressing up on vacation or not, either way is fine. Question on the menus at the casual places - ,my kids don't really like to eat typical kid food and prefer adult offerings. Do they have healthier, interesting kids meals or is it just the chicken fingers and a burger variety?

My problem is they'll eat this if we are and they have no choice, but if we're eating real food they'll eat ours and leave the fast food.

The problem with creating adventurous eaters I guess - they want salmon and steak not burgers and chicken.

Again, thanks for the help and anymore suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know about the kids menu, but the casual places offer salads and grilled chicken, etc. The buffet can get expensive. There is a good place for breakfast at the Hurrican Hole shopping center. It's called the News Stand and it's just a short walk. We are not big breakfast eaters and usually bring granolas bars or something like that with us and then have a nice lunch and dinner. If you want to eat at the nicer restaurants at Atlantis, you might want to make reservations in advance.

There's plenty of inside and outsite eateries and plenty of things to explore.
For food: There's Anthony's Grill, Zio Gigis, News Cafe and even Quizno's nearby. Domino's pizza delivers to the lobby for those nites you just don't want to be bothered.
Of course there are PLENTY of good options in Nassau. Worth the cab fare.

Poop Deck and Conch Fritters are both very family friendly as are any of the local restaurants at Arawak Cay's Fish Fry.

As for things to do.. there's 3 forts, with cannons sill standing, pirates museum, ardastra zoo, snorkeling, Mini Submarines, the DIGS, glass bottom boat rides, dolphins, sea lions and stingrays etc. The Atlantis has movies, computers, kids clubs, shark feedings etc. There's a newsletter every day telling you the times and places of things to do in the resort. Here's a link to your tour desk.. this may be helpful.
www.majesticholidays.com

BTW.. if you are thinking of the dolphin Encounter.. you may need to book up to 2/3 months in advance.. depending on the time of year.
www.dolphinencounters.com

Scubagirl - thank you so much for the info and the link. I am a planner at heart and without knowinng what there will be do I'm going insane - now I can start to really plan.

Schmerl - thanks for the food info , we have breakfast included but will need a quick bite to eat at lunch for the kids and the NewsStand sounds like it could work for that.

We were at the Atlantis a couple of years ago and stayed at the Royal Towers and had the gourmet dining plan. The buffets were great for breakfast, but for dinners, they were very mediocre. The gourmet restaurants are much better. My kids at the time were 10 and 11 and like kid food, but also like adult entrees as well. They had no trouble enjoying steak and pastas, etc...
Our favorite was the Bahamian Club (steaks) and Villa D Este (italian food). We did not like the 5 Twins which has changed names, but also has a no kids policy. They allowed our girls who were close enough I guess. Still the food was not great and we were pretty much ignored there.
I understand Fathoms has a great atmosphere and good fish.
We were there for 4 nights and 5 days. One more day would have been perfect. It seems you spend two days traveling and there really wasn't the time to get into the island mode.
We enjoyed the Atlantis pools/slides and beaches. There are two beaches on property that are better for kids than the Atlantic beach the other poster mentioned. The beach on the Atlantic is open to the public and is not technically part of the Atlantis. I was on it for two minutes and someone offer to sell me drugs. Nice? It would not have discouraged me from going back to the beach(although I did not like that), but the water was very rough. There is a beach that seems protected, but has waves and it is private. There is also a beach/lagoon where you can rent paddle boats, etc.. very calm water. (My brother's kids were smaller and liked that one.)
Anyway, you will find things to do. It is a big place. The city of Nassau was not very nice (my opinion), but I am sure there are things to do there as well. Have fun!

we went a couple of years ago to atlantis for 10 days w/ kids then aged 5,6,10. we missed our flight b/c 5 yr old was crying b/c he didn't want to leave atlantis. awesome slides/aquariums. went into town a couple of days and even tho crowded and everyone trying to sell you stuff it was interesting. dolphin experience was worth it. you're basically in a small pool w/ one dolphin and one trainer and about 6 customers. my kids enjoyed. my kids are picky eaters so when we went to town we got local produce to bring back to the room for snacks (mangoes, star fruit). this is the one vacation where we really didn't leave the resort all that much b/c my kids didn't want to. your 3 year old might be a little bored b/c he'll be too small for most of the slides so buy sand toys. i get bored "sitting around" too so we always went off site to dinner which took a couple of hours. Given your kids age, i would suggest Disney cruise for your next vaca!

There was a charge for the ceramics studio, but it looked like fun. Sucba girl is correct about getting the dolpin encounter booked asap. It is fairly expensive, and you'll probably spend more for the pictures and video once you get there. It isn't isn't easy to take your own pictures there. But my kids and husband loved it.

Thanks for the suggestions and reviews. I guess I'll book the Dolphin Encounter tommorow to make sure we get in. which one did you do - swim with the dolphins or close encounter?

And jubie2jax, you bring up the part that concerns me most -the slides as a big part of the entertainment factor. Both my 3 year old and 5 year old are too small for them and my DD who more than tall enough wouldn't go down one of those slides if her life depended on it LOL She looked at them on the website and informed me of that quickly. Way too scary/high for her - she's not a thrill ride kind of girl.

So that leaves a week of very little to do. I'm wishing I had declined the trip since I'm not looking forward to it but it's a business thing and it would look bad.

Sooo - how much time can you really spend in the Dig / Aquariums? My kids will find them interesting and DH too but I can't imagine it will hold their attention for long.

So my plan is to spend part of each day doing something interesting - the pirate museum, Ardastra Gardens/Zoo, the Dolphin Encounter, Snorkeling (with the kids in kids club) and if I find something for the last couple of days,I'll be set.

One last question - what is there to do in the evening. I see the pools / beach close early. Do the Aquariums close also and if so what is there to do with the 8 and under set?

Thanks again for all the advice / suggestions.

If I remember well, they had evening movie showings at Atlantis.
I'm sure the newsletter will give you lots more choices than you think.

mom2three; You shouldn't have difficulty finding fun things to do at the Atlantis. I saw many young kids in floating down the plant-lined stream on mom's lap. The swimming pool there is fun to for the very little ones. I would as you not to support the Atlantis' dolpin business. Yes, I don't like the dolphin encounters because whenever a wild animal like a dolphin is fed, it looses its fear of humans. A good read for you is, "To Free A Dolphin" by Richard O'Barry.He was the original trainer of Flipper, which he now regrets doing. He travels all over the world, attempting to reclaim tamed dolphins which grow dependent upon humans for food. They have a bad go of it. In addition, just creating tourist meccas where dolphins are fed and played with on human terms creates a market for more wild dolphins to be captured for human entertainment. They are intelligent creatures, and like captured gorillas in the wilds, are emotionally scarred by the experience. They capture wild dolphins, taking them from their pods. Each pod uses a highly complex social system for survival. It takes over 3 years for a baby dolphin to fully understand the cooperative social interactions between "teenage" and adult dolphins, and to cooperate in finding food, protecting one another from sudden shark attacks, warding off other pods, etc. Many adult females are taken from the pods for dolphin encounters, leaving their babies helpless. Each act a heretofore wild dolphin does to amuse the tourists are not done for touchy-feely, "bonding" reasons..it's only done for food rewards because they can no longer survive by themselves in the ocean without the pod they were taken from. Captive wild dolphins live only about 5 years, compared to the 70+ years they are known to live in the wild. Tourists are mislead by the Dolphin industry, and tourist dollars will increase the enterprises more throughout the Caribbean. Tourists aren't mean, nasty, insensitive people; just uniformed. Before I began conducting reef fish surveys throughout the Bahamas archipelago, I frequented dolphin encounters. Thereafter, though, I found out the truth. It would be a great learning experience for your children to NOT support the dophin business, and possibly do research on their own and present a classroom paper on the cons of the dolphin operations. Interestingly, the wild pod of spotted dolphins off of the Bimini, Bahamas coastline do not accept scuba divers; the bubbles scare them off. The interactions are for snorkelers only, so maybe you can try that. Interestingly, years ago Mrs. Keefe of Bimini Underseas Adventures began a formal "dolphin encounter" for snorkelers only, since she noticed this wild pod gravitated toward their usual snorkeling tours of the Bimini Road area by the "Lost City of Atlantis" (Bimini Road). Since then, she's learned how to motor the boat around the area, so the spotted dolphins recognize the boat engine (their sonar is better than that of nuclear attack subs that ID soviet subs), using the same cruising speed of 9 mph (which dolphins cruise at), and the same triangular pattern which covers several miles in perimeter. If the pod is done feeding, taking care of its babies, and has all of its survival agenda for the day out of the way, it may approach the boat and interact with the snorkelers because it wants to, and for no other reason.
Unfortunately for most tourists (myself included years ago), supporting the dolphin/tourist industry is heartbreaking. Robert59

Scarboroughmom,

How was the weather in November? We're planning a trip for this Nov. and I'm concerned that it may be too cool for the pools. One weather report showed the average temperature as 75%. Did you find the water temp. confortable? Thanks for your help.

The weather was beautiful in November, warm enough to swim and sit around in a wet bathing suit. Both the pool water and the ocean water were very warm.

There is a nifty lazy river pool all of your kids should enjoy. There are other areas meant just for little kids as well.

We did the encounter, not the swim. I don't think that you can do the swim with kids as young as yours, but the encounter was great fun.

We have been to WDW 7 times in the last six years. My kids have a LOW threshold of boredom. Seven nights only means 6 full days. I planned the trip to Atlantis because we were stuck with a large credit on Jet Blue, and Nassau was one of the places they went. We all enjoyed our four days/5 nights there and would have liked a day or two longer. Relax, you're gonna have fun.

Thanks everyone - I'm starting to feel better about this trip finally. Not where I'd pick but it seems like we'll have fun. I just found the new mini waterpark for the little kids on their website and that should help alot. My DS 3 is already shreiking that he needs to go there NOW - LOL.

Do you think I should make reservations for the Dunes and any other restaurants now or can I wait until I'm there?

I would make reservations now. When we went several years ago I made reservations one month in advance. Not all the restuarants are open everyday and the most desirable times book quickly.