This was our first visit to the Atlantis. It was the week before and through July 4th, 2008. I took my wife, daughter and son-in-law and two grandsons.

I would say that the Atlantis is a cross between SeaWorld (but many times the size and one of the largest aquariums in the world), a large Las Vegas resort (with expensive shops and crowds of people), and run by local people, some with an attitude. The property is absolutely beautiful. Be prepared for a LOT of walking, especially if you're at the Beach Tower, and that can be tough in the summer heat.

If you get a chance to do the Swim with the Dolphins thing, it's awesome. Expensive, but well worth it. The people who run it and the trainers are awesome.

If you like water rides, the longer lazy river ride is great. I did it about a dozen times. The Aquventure and Mayan Temple slides are all great. The only problem is that all of this is near the Royal Tower and it's a good walk from the Beach tower. You can take a shuttle, but it's faster walking. If you're going with a family or other people, get some of those inexpensive Motorola two way radios so you can find each other if you split up. They came in very handy on a few occasions.

If you need to use the internet, all of their literature and the room book will tell you that you can do dial up in your room for some expensive fee, or you can access their wireless network in the lobby for $10 a day. One of the concierges told me that you can do a high speed ethernet connection right in your room (in the corner by the window) for $10 a day. You sign up each day and you don't have to run down to the lobby to access the web.

On the downside, the pricing is crazy. If you want to sit on a beach (with people constantly coming up to you asking you to buy peanuts, coconut drinks, clothing, shell jewelry, etc) and want an umbrella to shade you from the sun, it's $30 per umbrella per day. If you try to adjust the umbrella, the guy who owns them will come up and yell at you for doing that. Only he can touch them (it's a private concession). At 5 PM he takes the umbrellas down. Want a bottle of water while on the beach, it's $8 and change. One day I bought a couple of little trays of chicken fingers, a hot dog, a fruit tray and a few sodas. It came to $75.

All of the food, and I mean everything, is expensive and has a 15% gratuity added on (and there's always a line for you to put in an extra tip). Want a slice of pizza, with no waiter service? There's a 15% gratuity added. We thought to ourselves before we went that with 23 restaurants, there must be some cheap ones. Sorry, but there aren't. Want a MEDIUM cheese pizza? $22 plus gratuity. The breakfast buffet is $25 and actually pretty good. The dinner buffet is $52 and good, but not great. The dinner buffet for four adults and two young children was close to $250. The buffets are very crowded. I ordered an omelet, but when I realized that the lady who was making them was using the same utensil for raw eggs and finished omelets, I passed and went with the scrambled eggs.

I heard several people say that the first day there, you are shocked by the food prices, the second day it's a little more acceptable, and then you just give in. They know they've got you locked in and they take advantage of it.

The shopping area across the street from the Beach and Coral towers is actually part of the Atlantis. We ate at "Murray's Deli" one night. My sandwich was terrible. I tried to return it. The waitress looked at me like "that isn't going to happen". She takes my plate and returns without it and says that her manager won't take it off the bill because I ate part of it. I asked to speak to the manager. She came out with a real attitude and implied that I was trying to get out of paying for the sandwich. I argued with her but was limited in what I could say because my grandchildren were there. I paid the bill (had no choice) and asked for the rest of my sandwich back. They brought it in a doggy bag and i looked like they took it out of the garbage.,That pretty much ruined my evening. I was upset and went to the front desk at the Corral Tower and talked to the Manager. She agreed that the restaurant manager was wrong and I told me that I would hear from the manager of all the restaurants. I never did but I didn't want to waste my time pursuing it. You know the old saying that if you treat someone well, they'll tell a few people, and if you treat someone badly, they'll tell a hundred people. That's what I'm doing.

Many of the people who work there are friendly and helpful, but many are not. I'm a very friendly person but I was picking up a lot of negativity from many of the waiters, store clerks, etc. They don't need to be friendly or provide service when they automatically get their 15% tip. It's like communism. There is no incentive. They work VERY SLOWLY.

There is a food plan that you can buy, but I hear that it's not that great a deal, and is very restricted.

One night we went into Nassau for a dinner at a restaurant recommended by one of the concierges. It is the Twin Brothers restaurant in the "Fish Fry" area. The prices were reasonable, the service was very slow, and three of us who ate the coleslaw all got sick. By the way, before you get into a taxi, look inside it. There are old, junkie taxis with no seat belts and there are new ones that are much safer. We went into Nassau several times. For 6 people it's $24 to $30 plus a tip, each way. Downtown Nassau is nothing to get excited about. We were there ten years ago on a cruise, and it has gone downhill since.

One more thing. When you leave to come back to the US, it will take you three hours to get through the airport. I'm not kidding. First you wait in line to get your boarding passes. Then you go through security. Then you wait a LONG TIME for US customs, then you go through security again.

Would I go back to the Atlantis? I don't think so. It is definitely not a relaxing place. There are way too many people For that kind of money, you can do much better on a cruise. However, if you really want to stay there, book at the Comfort Suites right next door to the Beach Tower. It's a fraction of the price and you get to use everything at Atlantis. If you just want to be in or near Nassau, go to the Sheraton or one of the other hotels on the other side of New Providence island. The beaches are nicer, the prices are a lot less and I heard that they are pretty nice.

I have to agree that this is a very beautiful place, the different aquariums are awesome, and I'm glad my family and I experienced it. But it is a place that once you've been there, you're probably better off going somewhere else the next trip.

These people aren't kidding when they say it's expensive. It's outrageously expensive. A bag of chips in the sundries shop was over $7 and a bottle of water was $4 in the store, $5.75 in the room. If this gives you any indication, it was cheaper to eat breakfast at the Starbucks in the Marina Village than it was to grab an apple, a bagel and a cup of coffee in the hotel. We mainly ate at Murray's Delicatessan, which was yummy and not as insanely priced, and Johnny Rockets at the Marina Village. And the tacking on of the gratuity stinks because then the service was lax. We did have a few men and women who were exceptionally nice and attentive, but we had some doozies too, and I didn't like having to leave them the tip that was automatically tacked on there because they certainly didn't deserve it.

We stayed in the Beach Towers because they were the least expensive and we had a water view that was beautiful. The room itself was comparable to a Drury Inn, it was clean, but nothing remotely lavish about it. As someone else had mentioned on here, we left our room at 8am and came back around 2pm and our room still was not cleaned. We had to call for more towels. (They did arrive promptly.)

The fact that the pools open rather late, (9am), and close early, (7pm), is kind of strange for a family beach resort. The pools and slides are fun and my kids enjoyed it immensely, but once we were done swimming for the day and showered, there was really not much else to do with young kids. The Marina Village is a nice place to stroll through, but it's not a very long walk at all, so you're back at the hotel twiddling your thumbs in no time. There is an arcade that was fun but at $2 a game, it didn't take long to leave there either.

I would say 3 or 4 days at the most would be a perfect amount of time. We stayed 6 days and by day 4 we all were pretty bored with the place, aside from the swimming. LIke I said, it was a great experience but we won't go back. There are too many other beautiful places in this world to check out.

I don't want to totally blast this hotel!! We did have a wonderful time and enjoyed ourselves. But, everything at the hotel was way over priced, when you go on vacation you expected this to a little pricery then what your use to in the U.S.. This was just ridiculous though. My husband and I stay for 5 nights and spent a total price of $5000. Now, I'm not a cheap skate, but for that money I would expect to get more then what we actually got!! Good thing we heard about the meal plan options before we left, because for two adults for breakfast was $60 total. The food was good, but not that good. It wasn't like Wolff Gang Puck was cooking for us!! The $60 was including the 15% gratuity, but wait then they add an addtional $14.00 to your overall bill for more gratuity. Water was $6, mixed drinks $12-$14, beer $10 the list goes on and on!

Another thing, is that you would expect to get bugged constantly in town, buy this, buy that, etc.. you get my point. But not in the hotel lobbies. There are women in orange suits that linger in the lobbies trying to get you to go on a tour of the Harborside Villas and they will give you $125 per couple and it only will take 90 minutes out of your vacation. They will give you $75 voucher up front before you even go! WOW sounds great...right!! Think again. Like most people, we backed out and didn't go. We tore up our voucher becuase we didn't go and this way if it got lost no one else could use it and this way we wouldn't be charged for it! WRONG!!! At the end of our trip we went to check out and there was that $75 added to the bill, they would not remove it. We still had to pay $75 for nothing!! They will hustle you anywhere!! Even at a 5 star resort!

If you are like my husband and I, we love kids but when we go on vacation we don't want 10,000 screaming and crying kids around us! This place was so packed with people, I felt like at was all the mall on Christmas Eve for the biggest sale ever!! It was really bad!! I do recommend to go off season!!

Like I said in the beginning we did have a good time, but I will never go back to The Atlantis again, not even during off season!!

My husband and I (no kids - mid 40's) have stayed at Atlantis 12 times. 10 times at the Beach Towers; 2 times at Comfort Suites. Obviously we love the place and consider ourselves sort of experts on the place. We're already planning our next vist for Feb. of '09.

Comfort Suites is great and is the least expensive area to stay in at the Atlantis, and the only reason we don't stay there every time is because I have problems with my feet and can't walk long distances without being in a lot of pain. At Beach Towers, we're close to the pool and the beach.

There is plenty on here about the "good" with the resort - the gorgeous beach, the unbelievably beautiful landscaping, the fun slides, so I won't expound upon that since other reviewers have done an excellent job covering that.

I'll try to lay to rest potential visitors concerns about the "bad".

Yes ... it's pricey. Just realize that before you get there, that you'll be shelling out some bucks. Read some of the reviews here on TripAdvisor of other luxury resorts in different areas of the Caribean and everyone goes on and on about how expensive the food was. it's not just the Atlantis. That's just how it is with resorts such as these. Accept it and move on.

Try to bring snacks from home, esp. if you're coming with kids. We always bring snacks for beside the pool and at night, and this prevents us from having to buy lunch or if we want something to eat later at tnight.

If you want liquor, go across the street to the shopping center - exit through the Coral Towers lobby. It's much less expensive to buy your liquor/soda over there.

Most of the restaurants are expensive but if you eat at Marketplace (approx. $45 per adult for dinner; approx. $25 per adult for breakfast) you'll get plenty for your money. The food is nothing fancy but it's very tasty and lots to choose from. Murray's Deli is also reasonable and you get big portions.

We don't eat at any of the upscale restaurants - where you have to dress up, because we're on vacation and that just seems like work, to have to pack a bunch of dressy clothes and fuss to get dressed for dinner. It's the Bahamas !! Everything should be casual.

ONE BIG WARNING: the night before you check out, ask for a print out of your room expenses. Pretty much every time we've stayed at Atlantis, we end up with a charge for something we never ordered or did. Last time, it was about $50 in drinks at the disco (off the casino). We never stepped foot in that disco, let alone had drinks there. Just go the the front desk and explain the situation and they'll remove the charge.

Overall I want to say that Atlantis is like heaven on earth and I highly recommend it. Nothing is perfect and anyone who has nothing but complaints about the place is just being ultra picky and hyper sensitive.