Staniel Cay is small (5km^2) and remote (75 miles away from Nassau), and gives a feeling of a private island. We booked a tour with Staniel Cay Adventures, which makes a one-day visit possible. There are a lot of private jets arriving here every day. Although the island has a population of less than 118 full-time residents according to the wiki, there are vacation houses where the rich people from USA flying in with their family and friends from time to time. One of the locals was talking to me at the airport while she was waiting for a US family “I work for a vacation villa here, and the family came in 6 times last year with their private jet”. Wow! You can also come here by yourself by booking the regional airlines, finding the resorts, hotels and lodges on this island, and then ordering tours to go out to the nearby islands.

Bahamas airlines — the names sound relax and local, do they? 🙂 I heard from the local that FlamingoAir is often delayed when flying back from Staniel Cay.

It’s my first time to take small airlines of 20ish people. It’s quite exciting!

The views from the airplane are gorgeous. It’s almost like we were taking a helicopter tour of the Bahamas islands—crystal clear water, harmonic green blue, white sand bars, beautiful curves of the coast …

Staniel Cay airport is very windy. With so much cross-wind, the pilot lands the aircraft on one wheel. It took about half an hour to arrive here from Nassau; however, when we went back, the high-wing plane flies much lower and slower, and it detoured towards the big island of Bahamas, so the flight almost took close to 2 hours.

Sitting in the terminal, you embrace the warm island winds in the face.

This raw island has a lot of nature and local stuffs.

The dock is 5-minutes walk away from the airport. Our guide picked us up at the airport and our boat was already waiting.

Atlantis is a luxurious resort on the paradise island in Bahamas. Their water park is ranked among the 10 top in the world according to some critiques :). It is surely my favorite water park I have visited so far. To access it, you don’t have to live in the resort, and you will just need to buy an Atlantis day pass by calling 1-800-285-2684 or visiting their website. The ticket costs about 300 dollars for an adult and $250 for a kid. It can be canceled a few days prior.

The water park is very big and has beautiful views. We stored everything in the lock and just worked around bare feet. Even during the holidays, it is not busy at all and with very good lines (1-2 minutes wait for the most of the rides). Their rides are very novel and comfy. It is fun and feels good. Here are their highlights:

Beautiful views:

Rapid river: it is a one-mile long “river”. Unlike lazy rivers in most of the water parks, the rapid river takes you to sections of rapids, caves and some tide waves. It has 9 entries/exists.

Slides: there are two big buildings for water slides, a total of 8 or 9 courses. Our favorite of course is to slide into the shark tanks in a dark tube. There are also jungle slides, challengers, the leap of faith (almost 90 degree drop) and the surge. There are two slides which will lead you into the shark tanks. When you come down from the surge slide, you will then enter the rapid river and it will carry you to the entry of the surge so you can continue.

Pools: The park has different themes. Some have waterfalls and some have Jacuzzi. In December, it is still chill when you come out of the slides, so we dipped in the hot Jacuzzi pools from time to time. Of course, another fun place is to play water falls.

It probably need a whole day to explore the entire water park. We started mid-morning and did not finish all the slides at 5pm when the park is closed. There are towels and showers in the park. So you pretty does not need to bring things but sunscreens and maybe some cash/credit card for food.