STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

yes, we went there (on paradise island) in sept. for a friend's bday.  for the price, it was pretty good.  we paid $150 per person per night (all inclusive).  the rooms were generic and clean, with mini-bar included that they would restock every day. 

the food was okay -- what you would expect at an all-inclusive.  there were huge breakfast and lunch buffets, available for most of the day, with everything you could want, and enough resonably healthy stuff that you could eat well and not feel gross (lots of salad options, fruit, etc -- everything seemed fresh too).  for dinner there was a buffet with a different "theme" each night and 3 restaurants that you could make reservations for -- "gourmet", japanese, and steakhouse.  you had to go to the lobby to make the res. b/w 9am and 11 am.  there were 2 seatings which i remember being at weird times -- too early and too late.  i wasn't blown away by anything i ate at the restaurants.  i  remember that the night we did "gourmet", the buffet was japanese and it looked really good -- tons of sushi rolls.

the pool was pretty good -- there were always plenty of chairs and umbrellas (we were there off season though).  it was nice too that the beach was just a few steps down from the pool area. 

there was a whole schedule of planned activites during the day-- dance classes, yoga, aerobics, bingo.  we got caught by the pool on bingo day and forced to participate by TJ, the super flamboyant while somewhat bitchy dj/activity coordinator.  he made us all tell him where we were from and then used the info we had provided to make fun of us for the rest of the game.  entertaining, but i'm not really a "group activity" person and if i hadn't have already had a few cocktails i would not have enjoyed it so much.

the drinks were for the most part pretty bad.  we finally discovered at the end of the trip that one of the buffets had stella artois on tap, which was by far the most palitable thing there.

at night they had stuff going on too -- karoke night, "club" night, a band played one night (they were horrible). 

things we didn't like were that stuff closed early -- around 11 or 12 at the latest and after that there was no way you could get food or drinks -- even if you wanted to pay for it.  we started taking stuff from the buffet to our rooms around 10 pm so we would have something later if we wanted it. 

the place was pretty small, so you saw the same people over and over, everywhere.  this could be nice or go horribly wrong, which was the case when we were drunk one night and started talking to this kid, who then became our BFF.  when we sobered up, he pretty annoying but we would see him at the pool, at every meal, etc.

for the most part, the crowd was adult.  i don't think i saw any families with small kids.

let me know if there's anything else you want to know.  i'll post some pics too.

OMG could you be the nicest person EVER!! Thank you so much for the review!

I have a question...we are thinking about going with the baby in April (she'll be 7 months old) Do you think it is ok to bring her - we would be going with 2 other couples (who don't have kids) Do you think we would have fun? I could entertain her all day without a problem - and night time we will be low key - but I dont know - is it a place for her?

Thank you soooooo much for all of your wonderful information and feedback.

We decided last night to give it a whirl. We are going with 2 other couples that we are good friends with, so we figure that will make the trip for us since we know we will have fun with them.  We are only going for 5 nights - so it's not THAT long...I am hoping Talia will be ok with the trip - I am sure she will adjust. We are going to Florida in June as well so if this trip is a bomb at least we have another to look forward to...wish us luck!

We're back! Thank you so much again for your feedback - it was right on. We had a nice time...there was a decent amount of people there and quite a lot of kids which was nice.

We actually spent a lot of time at the Atlantis. My husband loved the casino (And won $750!) and Talia loved the aqaurium. We did a lot of walking in the market place there  - and went to the straw market one day too.

The hotel was nice enough. - I think if we would have gone for a full week we would have been super bored - but overall it was nice, we had a good time together - a good time with our friends and Talia was VERY good which made the whole trip worthwhile.