Nassau Cruise Port to Atlantis, Cable Beach and Baha Mar: Bridges, Jitneys and Resort Days

Somewhere between the gangway and the first row of straw hats on the pier, a lot of cruise passengers in Nassau start wondering how to reach the big resorts. Atlantis lies across the harbor on Paradise Island, while Cable Beach and Baha Mar stretch along the northern shore of New Providence to the west of town. They are two different directions and two different kinds of day.

How far is Atlantis from the Nassau cruise port?

Atlantis is close enough to be a port-day outing, but it sits on a separate island, so the trip means crossing Nassau Harbour by bridge. Paradise Island is joined to New Providence by two bridges, the first built in 1966 and the second in the late 1990s. That is the whole geography of the question: the cruise port is on New Providence, the resort is across the water.

Nassau has the country’s largest and busiest cruise port, so you will not be the only one heading for the bridge. The town side of the harbor is busy and fast-paced, with straw markets, jewelry shops and colonial buildings in pastel shades, and the contrast with the resort island is part of the fun.

What Atlantis holds

Atlantis Paradise Island is an ocean-themed casino resort that covers 154 acres. The Royal Towers, the hotel that gave the resort its famous silhouette, opened on December 11, 1998. Several hotel towers now share the grounds with restaurants, pools, a walk-in aquarium and the casino.

The marine habitat is the part many visitors come for. It houses more than 65,000 aquatic animals from 250 species, among them dolphins, sharks, sawfish and stingrays. Aquaventure, the waterpark, brings slides and river rides, and a long stretch of white sand runs along the resort’s edge, about five miles of it.

Day passes for guests who are not staying at the resort give access to the waterpark, Dolphin Cay, the marine habitat, the pools and the beaches, and they can be booked online. A pass covers the resort’s own attractions, so it suits a cruise day built around one place rather than a bit of everything.

Beyond the resort gates

Paradise Island has more than the resort. Cabbage Beach runs about 1.3 miles east from Atlantis along the north shore, and the public reaches it by a path that heads north from Casino Drive along the east side of the RIU resort. It is a long, open beach where the resort’s towers fade behind you as you go.

Quieter and greener are the Versailles Gardens and the French Cloister, a 15-minute walk from Atlantis. They belong to the One and Only Ocean Club, but visitors are not unwelcome. Terraces, statues and clipped hedges make a good pause between the waterpark crowds and the casino lights.

On Friday and Saturday evenings, a Junkanoo Rush plays out at Marina Village, with cowbells, drums and costumes. It is the island’s own small taste of the festival that fills Nassau’s streets around Christmas, and it is worth knowing about if your ship stays late.

How far are Cable Beach and Baha Mar?

Cable Beach lies west of Nassau on the northern coast of New Providence, so it is a ride along the shore rather than a hop over a bridge. The strip is a beach, a resort district and a neighborhood all at once, and Baha Mar occupies a big part of it.

Cable Beach

The beach runs for two and a half miles of pale sand. Its name comes from an 1892 submarine telegraph cable that linked Jupiter, Florida, to Goodman’s Bay, a bit of history that most people on the sand never think about. Tourism arrived here early, in the 1940s, and by the 1950s the area had become a center for hotel building.

Pompey Market, a craft market on Cable Beach, is the place for straw work, wood carvings and souvenirs away from the downtown bustle. A stroll between the market and the sand gives you a sense of the neighborhood that the resort towers alone do not.

Baha Mar

Baha Mar is a resort complex of 1,000 acres on New Providence. It opened in April 2017 and is owned by Hong Kong-based Chow Tai Fook Enterprises. Three hotels share the property, a Grand Hyatt, SLS Baha Mar and the Rosewood, with a total of 2,200 rooms, and the complex also includes 284 private residences.

Golfers will notice the Tournament Players Club course designed by Jack Nicklaus. For everyone else, the draw is the scale: a resort town of restaurants, pools and lobbies that feels quite different from the island-in-a-harbor setting of Atlantis. It makes for a cruise day with a very different mood, more spread out and more relaxed.

A useful way to choose is by what you want from the day. Atlantis is built around the aquarium and the waterpark. Cable Beach and Baha Mar suit a long beach afternoon with a market stop and a resort lunch.

What are the ways to get there?

For Atlantis you cross one of the two harbor bridges, and for Cable Beach and Baha Mar you travel west along New Providence’s northern shore.

The jitney and its limits

Jitneys are the small public buses that run around Nassau. They are part of local street life, and riding one is a way to see the island beyond the cruise port.

If you are planning a late return to the ship, factor that in. The hours of the jitney service and of Fort Fincastle’s daily tours, a popular stop on the way around town, are listed here.

Planning the day around the resorts

A day at Atlantis is easiest to plan if the pass is arranged ahead, since day passes for non-resort guests can be booked online. Dining at the resort can be reserved up to 90 days before arrival, subject to availability, which suits anyone who wants a sit-down lunch rather than a quick bite.

Cable Beach and Baha Mar ask for less planning. The beach itself is a long public stretch, and the resort’s restaurants and shops sit just behind it. Walking the sand from one end to the other makes for a gentle outing after a morning on the ship.

Whichever way you go, leave time to look around town as well. Fort Fincastle, Pompey Market and the straw market are on the list of things that cruise passengers often pick up on the way back to the pier.

Good to know before you go

The U.S. State Department rates the Bahamas Level 2, “Exercise increased caution”, and says most crime occurs in Nassau on New Providence and in Freeport on Grand Bahama.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30, so a cruise in those months can mean a changed itinerary or a gray, windy day on the island. Cuban cigars are a common souvenir pitch around Nassau, but most sold there are counterfeit, so buy only from dedicated tobacconists with a good reputation. Keep an eye on the clock if you head out toward Cable Beach, because the jitney stops early in the evening.