Birthday Celebration in the Bahamas

We are back from our first family vacation in over two years and it was everything I wanted for my 35th birthday! This may be a longer post, so if you want to see pretty pictures of paradise with some commentary sprinkled through – then I hope you enjoy!

Let’s talk logistics first! Everyone traveling to the Bahamas needs a passport and at this time you also need a Health Visa regardless of age, you also have to pay for this, but for Sophia and Mason their visas were free. Under 2 are exempt from needing any testing and over the age of 2 a rapid test is needed – these tests also cannot be done more than 3 days prior to travel. They check your health visa prior to boarding the plane, upon arrival to the Bahamas and at the hotel – at least they did at Atlantis. We also had to test coming back to the US and our hotel had 2 tests included with our room and we paid $20 for an extra test. You have to fill out an attestation form with your airline prior to coming back and this rapid test needs to be done no more than one day before travel. Okay – lets get to the fun part!

Wednesday and Sunday were basically travel days for us. We had a direct flight (3.5 hours) to the Bahamas from Boston and after getting through customs and our shuttle to the hotel, we arrived at the Atlantis at 4:30 PM and promptly changed into bathing suits! Since it was a long day, we didn’t want to chance a restaurant, so we ordered room service and called it a night!

There are a few properties to choose from at Atlantis and we opted for the Reef Tower Suites. Our suite, while only one room, was actually incredibly spacious. I also requested a full size crib that they brought up free of charge. Our room had a full kitchen, stove included with fridge, dishwasher, pots & pans – anything you would need to cook in the room. There is a grocery store that you could go to get supplies, which would be great for a longer stay. The view from our room was everything and we had a wraparound balcony which was amazing. There was a little divider that separated the bedroom from the living room, so Gary and I would go to the balcony after getting the kids down and relax then watched TV on the iPad with our headphones while the kids slept and we had no problems. The couch is also a pullout, so totally doable with older kids. Sophia shared the king sized bed with us – she was in heaven!

Waking up in paradise on my birthday! I got up before everyone and went outside to sit on the balcony and revel that I was going to be celebrating in this spot! Breakfast time! Mosaic is a great breakfast buffet option. I also loved that we were able to get fruit for the day and cereal for Sophia for the next morning. We did the buffet for breakfast twice and then the cereal and fruit was great for the other days when we just had Starbucks or needed to snack on something healthy. I also brought a ton of snacks from home so we didn’t have to find that type of food on the island.

Most days we started at the Splasher’s pool for kids and after lunch would venture to the beach. One thing to note is that all the slides and attractions don’t open until 10:00 AM, which I thought was so strange since kids are up early! There are slides that Sophia was too little to try (48 inches was the cut off) but she wasn’t bothered by it. There are SO many pools that we never once felt crowded.

After lunch we went over to the main Atlantis Tower to explore. This is where the casino, shops and other attractions are. I didn’t realize how close it was to the Reef so we took the shuttle (free) which was 5 minutes, but we could have walked through the properties. We went through “The Dig” which is a tunnel through marine life exhibits – it’s an aquarium adventure and free!

I recommend making reservations for all the restaurants just to ensure you get the time you want and don’t have to worry about waiting. We eat pretty early, so never had issues with our 5:00 PM reservations! For my birthday we ate at Fish, which was located near the Cove tower and is one of the more upscale restaurants. The food, service and ambiance was top notch! It’s always a crapshoot on how the kids will act at dinner and both of them were great. Funny story: as we were taking the family photo a bird basically crash dived down and we thought had broken it’s neck – thankfully it wasn’t dead because that would have been a seriously terrible omen!

The next day we did a repeat of our first morning. Breakfast and straight to the pool! Gary and I decided to do one of the Mayan slides and it was so much fun! All the slides in Aquaventure are included with your stay, you just need to get a wristband daily. I wanted a little 1:1 time with Sophia, so after lunch she and I went down to the beach while Mason took a nap in the room. I cannot get over how crystal blue the water was – it was gorgeous!

For dinner we went to Marine Village and ate at Frankie Gone Bananas – super family friendly. The food was okay – quick, which I appreciate. Service was great and had very island-y vibes. Sophia wanted some ice cream after dinner so we stopped in and had a little dance party outside! My maxi skirt is nearly 7 years old from Target and I love it so much! Paired it with a new top from Amazon – got it in white too!

On our final full day we did a little exploring before heading to the pool and that’s when we realized that we never needed to take the shuttle to the main Atlantis Tower – it was only a 15 minute walk through the outdoor areas! There are plenty of fast options for food near the pools and beaches – takes no more than 7 minutes to get wraps, salads, burgers – really anything quick you want to eat for lunch. Some days we opted to bring it back to our room to relax and eat lunch, other days we ate near our chairs at the pool. They also served delicious dole whip that we got a lot of and snow cones!

For dinner we went to Olive’s which a Todd English restaurant and we have a few of his restaurants here in Boston that we love, so were excited to try this one out. On the walk back to our room we got to witness a beautiful sunset and it was the perfect end to the day. Sophia had a few meltdowns throughout the day so it reminded me to just stop and be grateful for the hard days as well.

Our trip was exactly what I was hoping for – time away somewhere new with amazing weather! I say trip because everyone knows it’s not a vacation with kids – it’s parenting in a different location! That first trip can be daunting with all the things you need to pack, worrying about schedules and how they will adjust but we can only get better at it if we keep with it, so I am already looking forward to the next adventure!

As I was posting about our stay I had so may people saying they were planning a visit in the next few months so I really hope this is helpful!