RIU Palace Paradise Island and RIU Bahamas: Cabbage Beach, Location and Life Around Atlantis

On Friday and Saturday evenings the drums and cowbells of a Junkanoo Rush carry across Marina Village on Paradise Island, and the people drifting toward the sound come from every hotel on the island. Among them are guests of the RIU Palace, the only RIU in the Bahamas, set beside the public path to Cabbage Beach. It is a resort for travelers who want a big-name hotel with the beach, the Atlantis crowds and the harbor all close at hand.

What RIU resorts are in the Bahamas?

RIU runs a single hotel in the Bahamas, the RIU Palace Paradise Island, and the company counts the country as one destination. There is no RIU on Grand Bahama, in the Exumas or on any other island, so a search for RIU Bahamas always leads to the same address on Paradise Island.

The RIU Palace on Paradise Island

The resort stands on the island’s north side, just off Casino Drive. Its best-known neighbor is the Atlantis resort, which gives the island its reputation, but the RIU has its own setting. A path beside the hotel’s east flank runs north to Cabbage Beach, and that small detail shapes how a stay here feels: the sand is a short walk from the property rather than a shuttle ride away.

Guests who like to keep a resort base and still wander will find the location suits that habit. Beach in the morning, a stroll to the marina in the evening, a wander through the gardens on a cooler day: all of it starts from one front door.

Why one hotel is enough to plan around

Because the RIU has just the one property here, there is no choice of island or category to untangle. You pick the dates, you pick the room, and the rest of the planning is about the island itself. Paradise Island is compact and has plenty of company in the form of big resorts, a marina village, a golf course and a long beach, so the stay is built from what surrounds the hotel.

Travelers who prefer a quieter, smaller island setting would look elsewhere in the Bahamas, since this is a resort island with a lively edge. Those who like a busy, polished stretch of coast with entertainment close by will recognize what they are getting.

Paradise Island in a few lines

Paradise Island is best known for Atlantis, with its water park rides, pools, beach, restaurants, walk-in aquarium and casinos. Film fans may also know it from the James Bond movies Thunderball and Casino Royale, which were partly shot here. The island has a glossy, resort-town character, and the RIU sits comfortably inside it.

What is included?

What comes with a stay at the RIU Palace is first of all its position: a public beach path at the side of the hotel, a marina village with live Bahamian music in the evenings and the Atlantis attractions on the same island. The pieces below are the things around the resort that you can plan an easygoing vacation on.

Cabbage Beach, steps from the hotel

Cabbage Beach runs about 1.3 miles east from the Atlantis along the island’s north shore, a long ribbon of pale sand with resort life at one end and quieter stretches farther along. Public access is by the path that heads north from Casino Drive along the east side of the RIU, which is how most people on foot reach it.

By Bahamian law every beach on Paradise Island is public property. The one caution is that the manicured lawns of neighboring properties are private, and staff will let you know quickly if you step onto them. Keep to the sand and you have the whole shoreline to walk, with long views and a sound of surf in the background.

Friday and Saturday nights at Marina Village

A Junkanoo Rush plays out at Marina Village on Friday and Saturday evenings. Junkanoo is the Bahamas’ great street tradition, with goatskin drums, cowbells, whistles and costumes of crepe paper and cardboard, and even a short rush gives you the rhythm and color of the real parades.

The village sits on the harbor side of the island, with restaurants and shops around the water. It makes a natural evening outing after a day on the sand, and you can drift in without any plan, eat something Bahamian such as conch fritters or cracked conch if a menu offers it, and listen for the drums.

The Atlantis next door

Atlantis is the island’s headline act, and its attractions are what many people have in mind when they picture Paradise Island. The resort holds a water park, pools, a beach, restaurants, a walk-in aquarium and casinos. One of its signature experiences is walking with sharks for ten minutes on the floor of the tank where the Leap of Faith slide ends.

At the top end, the Bridge Suite that spans the Royal Towers costs $25,000 per night, a figure that says something about the island’s appetite for spectacle. You do not need to stay there to enjoy the scene. Wandering the public areas gives a sense of why the resort has become the island’s landmark.

The Versailles Gardens and French Cloister

For a calmer hour, the Versailles Gardens and French Cloister are about a 15-minute walk from the Atlantis. The gardens belong to the One and Only Ocean Club, yet they don’t mind visitors, and the terraces, statues and old stonework feel a world apart from the water slides.

Go in the cooler part of the day, when the stone is warm and the paths are shaded by greenery. It is a good pause between the beach and the evening at the marina, and it suits anyone who wants a quiet garden after a loud day.

Where are they?

The RIU Palace is on Paradise Island, a resort island facing the city of Nassau across Nassau Harbour, and its position on the north side puts it close to Cabbage Beach and the Atlantis. Nassau itself is a city on New Providence, a separate island from Paradise Island.

Two bridges to New Providence

Paradise Island is joined to New Providence by two bridges across Nassau Harbour. The first was built in 1966 by Resorts International, and the second followed in the late 1990s. They are the reason the island feels so close to Nassau’s harbor front and its older streets, while still reading as a resort enclave of its own.

Seen from the bridge, the harbor shows cruise ships, working boats and the rooflines of both islands. That view, with the resorts on one side and the city on the other, is a fair picture of the setting around the RIU.

An island that used to have an airfield

Paradise Island once had its own airport, which closed in 1999. The airfield and runway have since been replaced by an 18-hole golf course, so what was once a landing strip is now fairways. It is a neat clue to how the island changed, from a place you flew into to a place built around its hotels and a marina.

Golf is one more thing to do without leaving the island. For travelers who do not play, the course is simply a green stretch in the middle of a busy resort area.

The island’s weather and the feel of the year

Paradise Island’s winters are mild, with January afternoons topping out around 77°F. Summer nights stay warm, and in August the lows hover around 75°F. That gentle range means the beach path, the gardens and the marina are comfortable places to be in the evening in any month.

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 trip in the later months falls inside it and is worth planning around with flexible dates. Most beach time, evening strolls and garden visits cost nothing, and the public beaches stay open to everyone, so the spending on a stay here goes mostly to the hotel, meals and the Atlantis attractions you choose.

Sources

RIU Hotels, Bahamas (https://www.riu.com/en/hotels/bahamas/), checked October 10, 2026
Wikipedia, Paradise Island (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Island), checked October 10, 2026
Wikivoyage, Paradise Island travel guide (https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Paradise_Island), checked October 10, 2026
U.S. Department of State, The Bahamas Travel Advisory, Level 2 (https://travel.state.gov/), checked October 10, 2026
NOAA National Hurricane Center, Climatology (https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/), checked October 10, 2026