A GREAT EUROPE TRIP PLANNER: Bahamas

Showing posts with label Bahamas. Show all posts

10.10.2015

SNAPPED FROM OUR BALCONY

I must have a balcony cabin when I cruise. These photos will tell you why. Each one was taken from the balcony of our cabin and show why a balcony is a must-have for me when cruising. I probably could have taken the same photo from one of the outside decks of the ships, but the intimacy of being on your own balcony makes it more special to me.

Belize: Our cruise ship was tendered off the coast of Belize City. I snapped this photo of the amazing turquoise water...it really is this color.

Honduras: We had already docked in Roatan; in the early morning sunrise from our balcony, we watched Carnival Glory turn 180 degrees and back into its place in front of our cruise ship.

Bahamas: As we sailed out of Nassau harbor, from our balcony we passed the lighthouse that greets visitors to Paradise Island with Atlantis in the distance.

Virgin Islands: On our last cruise we visited Charlotte Amalie for the first time. This was the view from our balcony.

St. Lucia: We also visited here last Spring for the first time. This view of the Castries Bay was captured from our balcony.

Puerto Rico: Leaving San Juan Harbor we sailed past Castillo San Felipe del Morro which we had actually toured earlier in the day. Standing on our balcony we were given a perfect view of the entire fortress and the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

Barbados: Prior to departing Bridgetown we watched the Jewel of the Seas sail off to its next port. We can't wait until we are in our balcony cabin on that ship in just a few weeks!

Thank you for visiting.

A Great Europe Trip Planner

All photos were taken by me. Unauthorized use is prohibited.

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...