9.28.2013

DALE CHILUHY AT THE ATLANTIS CASINO

As I wrote in my last post we toured fantastic Atlantis during our port stop in Nassau, Bahamas. Part of the tour included a walk through the famous Atlantis Casino.

It is here that we saw four exquisite glass sculptures by the artist, Dale Chihuly, that were commissioned specifically for the casino by the owner of Atlantis, Sol Kerzner. Our tour guide informed us the glass sculptures are the only thing that you can photograph in the casino.

The gorgeous Temple of the Moon, consists of over 900 separate pieces of cobalt blue and opalescent white glass.
Its counterpart, Temple of the Sun, has more than 2,300 yellow, orange, and red elements radiating from a fiery globe atop a replica of a Mayan temple.
The magnificent Seaform chandelier is made up of over 900 sealife forms of jellyfish, anemones, squid, and seaweed in delicate shades highlighted with silver and gold. It took Chihuly only three weeks to create. Measuring approximately 10 feet by 12 feet, it hangs over the High Rollers area of the casino.
Dale Chihuly describes making the Crystal Gate sculpture: "Sol (Sol Kerzner, developer of the Atlantis resort) came to my Seattle studio many times over the following nine months, and after viewing the beginnings of the moon and the sun he told me about a crystal gate he planned at the entrance to the casino. He wanted to use real crystals, and the piece would be about six feet high. But then he decided that the scale wouldn't be monumental enough for the space, and asked me how I might do the piece in glass. Of all the pieces for Atlantis, the Crystal Gate was the most challenging and difficult. We redid it about five times before we could make glass and armature work together. Finally, I set about making an eighteen-foot-high Crystal Gate out of 3,100 hand-blown crystals."



 































Each one of these glass sculptures is valued at approximately $1,000,000.

For more information visit http://www.chihuly.com/.

All photos in this blog post were taken by me during our visit to Atlantis in May, 2013.

9.07.2013

FANTASTIC ATLANTIS

After visiting Grand Turk Island we had a day at sea before docking at our last stop, Nassau, Bahamas. 

Even though this was our third time in Nassau, we had never been to Atlantis. So for our shore excursion we hired a "taxi" for $4.00 each to drive us over the bridge to Paradise Island. I put the word "taxi" in quotation marks because our "taxi" ended up being a van crammed with 8 people and no air conditioning.  Thankfully it was only a 15-minute drive to Atlantis.

I've always wanted to visit the Marine Habitat so upon our arrival we purchased tickets that allowed us access to the lagoons, underwater ruins and even the famed casino. Tickets were $45 per person but given what we saw the price was well worth it.

A pool of stingrays...
Beautiful coral...



























with brilliant, blue fish darting in and out...
Schools of gorgeous, colorful fish...



Seahorses...



























A couple of hammerhead sharks...

And a manta ray with a 14-foot wing span...
We were told that she may soon be released out to the sea because she is just gotten too big.

Of course, we were also able to walk around the grounds...

Here are the Royal Towers...such an iconic view.
Near the Coral Towers...

The beautiful tropical foliage...



























Next post: our walk through the famous Atlantis casino.

All photos in this blog post were taken by me during our cruise in May, 2013.