Port Rating:

The port itself seems to expensive though, with parking around $15/day and charges for pick-up/drop-offs for passengers, which was a definite downside.

Port Rating:

If you want to explore the island you must take a taxi/shuttle, rent a car or book an excursion at this port.

We took a shuttle ($10/person/round-trip) to Lucaya which houses a nice white sand beach and swim zone, plus bars, restaurants, casino and shopping.

*Important! Check with the people boarding the shuttle with you about a pick-up time... you could get stuck coming back to the ship early (like we did) or paying much more for a separate ride because of it!

It was too cloudy/cold/windy in Feb. to stay at the beach so we went to Rum Runners, sampled the local beers (Sands & Kalik), listened to music (they had 3 different acts during our afternoon there) and ate Conch Fritters (from a stand by the marina). There were plenty of little cafes, bars and restaurants in Lucaya Marketplace. We settled on Rum Runners because it had the best prices on beers we'd seen and a corner bar that faced the square (and the music).

On the taxi ride to Lucaya (about 15 minutes) you travel through parts of the city of Freeport. There's still a lot of damage from the 2006-ish hurricanes in this area.

We also wandered around the shops a bit (but we're more lookers than buyers) but it seemed like they had a good variety of crafted goods (especially straw items) and of course jewelry and liquors. There were peddlers on the beach, but they were respectful of a "no, thanks" and didn't badger.

Port Rating:

There's shopping/restaurants/bars directly at the port, so if that's what you want there's a few blocks of it. You have to go through a building to get to the street and there's lots of yelling for attention to sell you excursions, etc. which I found off-putting.

We took a taxi/shuttle over to Atlantis/Paradise Island ($4/person/one-way). Again, because it was cloudy/cold we didn't go to a beach, we ended up getting passes to Atlantis' Aquarium ($39.95/person) and whole day walking around the huge resort.

The parts of the Atlantis hotel we seen and the casino are extremely elaborate and definitely a sight to see in my opinion. Although the aquariums were extremely well done and spread out over the massive resort, the price was a little high for my tastes. But, considering the weather, it was the best value for an interesting activity.

That $39.95/person price got us access to the entire grounds of Atlantis resort and I'm pretty sure we walked all of it. However, it didn't give us access to any of the pools. (We were okay with that, since the weather wasn't really good enough for it).

We left the Atlantis resort of lunch across the street at the marina (Green Parrot). This place is kind of tucked out of the way, but sports a square bar over looking some amazing yachts. The drinks were strong and the food portions were huge.

For our first time at Nassau, I think Atlantis is definitely a sight to see. The place is huge and very elaborate and was fun to walk around.