Paradise Island. . . More Like Meh Island

Exploring the Most Touristy Island in the Bahamas

While the Bahamas do have some gems of activities, after visiting a few times, I started running out of new things to do and places to explore.  The last time I visited this island nation via Nassau there was one gaping gap in activities I had not yet touched, Paradise Island.  With nothing better to do, we decided to go for a stroll around Paradise Island and see what all the fuss was about.  

The famous pink Atlantis Hotel is the largest attraction on Paradise Island.

Paradise Island is connected to Nassau via a bridge, and to get onto the island you basically have to be a tourist or working on it.  There's a big check point on the bridge ensuring this.  It's famous for the giant pink hotel Atlantis, boasting one of the best (and most expensive) water parks in the world.  It has slides that literally go through aquariums, but it also costs more than a one day ticket to Disney, which is saying something.  Since one of the reasons I can afford to travel so much is by being picky about what I spend my money on we decided to pass on the water park and just walk around the island.

A giant Chihuly art piece decorates the Atlantis casino.

While it is feasible to walk to Paradise Island from downtown Nassau, other forms of transport are advisable when it's super hot out, which is usually is.  The two main options are taking a ferry or a taxi.  They cost the same price.  We took the ferry, later regretting we did not take the taxi.  The ferry waits for the entire ship to fill, which could take thirty minutes whereas a taxi takes only your group.  Also the ferry only unloads passengers at the ferry dock on Paradise Island whereas a taxi can drop passengers off wherever.  This translated into more walking for us, but being young and fit a little extra exercise did not bother us too much.  

Atlantis like pst hotels on Paradise Island charges and arm and a leg to use its private beach.

We had two main goals of what we wanted to see on Paradise Island, the inside of Atlantis and the mythical free beach.  Atlantis was only a few blocks walk from the ferry dock, and it was our first stop.  Non hotel guests are limited to the casino, that is unless they decided almost one hundred dollars is worth beach access on the property.  The casino was okay.  There are some famous art pieces, including a giant Chihuly blown glass chandelier.  In all there was not a lot to write home about, other than the nice cold air conditioning that gave us a break from the oppressive heat outdoors.  I think the A/C was the best part of Atlantis we saw. 

This signs pointing to the public beach is so washed out, we could barely read it.

Moving on we kept looking for the supposedly free beach on Paradise Island.  Cruise ships refuse to acknowledge its existence, since it would mean they would loose out on charging and arm and a leg for beach access at one of the resorts they partner with, but David had done some research online and assured me it existed.  After walking for a while we saw a super washed out sign pointing towards public beach access.  It would be easy to miss.  The taxi after taxi passing us on the road though ensured we were headed in the right direction.

The entrance to the only free beach!

After a few more blocks we found about fifty taxis parked next to a gravel road with fences on both sides.  We had found the public beach.  Since we are not really big beach people and we got free drinks back at our accommodations we just wanted to check it out, not lounge around all day drinking Kalik beer, beer of the Bahamas.  What we found at the end of the gravel road was a super busy and crowded stretch of sand.  We stood and gawked for a few minutes, then headed back. It was like every other beach in the Caribbean, super cowed and full of peddlers.  In all walking around Paradise Island was a means to kill a few hours, but I don't think I'll be back.  We used the rest of the time in Nassau to explore sections of the ship that were usually crowded when at sea, which turned out to be a much better use of our time.  

The free beach was crowded to say the least.  At least it exists.