Having recently spent four days at Atlantis — the massive resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas — I now know what finished off the legendary ancient civilization. They ate themselves to death.
For breakfast, you could easily cram enough muffins, omelettes, fruit, bacon, bagels, cereal, yogurt, and doughnuts into your piehole to carry you well past the lunch hour. For dinner, the shock of paying more than $50 per entree was softened by the knowledge that, on a per pound basis, the meal was actually quite a bargain. (The $18 tropical drinks at the poolside bar, on the other hand, were highway robbery, pure and simple. Ogling the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, several of whom were also poolside? Priceless.)
The Atlantis is perhaps best known for its Mayan Temple water slides, one of which, the aptly named Leap of Faith, “offers the daring and adventurous a 60 ft. almost-vertical drop from the top of the Mayan Temple, propelling riders at a tremendous speed through a clear acrylic tunnel submerged in a shark-filled lagoon.” Unlike a roller coaster, there is no build-up of anticipation on the Leap of Faith. There is no uphill. You lie down, cross your arms and legs, and — WHOOSH! — a tenth of a second later, you are hurtling down the slide at about 700 miles an hour. The sharks are a non-factor. You are moving way too fast — and there is way too much water shooting into your eyes and up your nose — to even notice them. The slide comes to an ubrupt, almost-violent end and I saw people who hydroplaned across the “landing area” pool for a good 15-20 feet. A young boy — maybe 10 or 12 years old — summed it up best when he splashed down, stood up, looked around, laughed, and said simply, “Shit!”
The Atlantis also features Dolphin Cay, home to more than 30 Atlantic bottlenose dolphins. For a fee roughly comparable to the AIG bailout, you can have a “Shallow Water Interaction” with these truly magnificent creatures. An affable Bahamian named Hartmann was the guide for our group, which included a German dad with a huge handlebar moustache, who clearly did not understand Hartmann’s instructions to avoid stroking Jackie the Dolphin’s genitals as she swam by us on her tummy. (“You did it again, sir!” Hartmann called out as Jackie passed us by for the second time.) We each got to kiss Jackie and pose for a photo with her and it was all so benign that you almost forget that you are kneeling in three feet of water with a seven-foot-long, four-hundred-pound fish. Jackie finally got a chance to strut her stuff when Hartmann signalled her to begin a series of leaps out of the water. Jackie’s final leap took place about 100 feet away from us, but I swear to God about half a second later she popped up out of the water right in front of our faces. Nice work, Jackie!
All in all, I’d say that Atlantis is a heck of a lot of fun for young kids — and big kids like me, too.
