4 Best Sights in Paradise Island, New Providence and Paradise Islands

From near-vertical slides that plunge through shark tanks to a quarter-mile-long lazy river ride, this 141-acre water park allows you to both unwind and get your adrenaline pumping. Spend the day going from ride to ride, or relax under an umbrella on the white sand of three unique beaches or by one of 14 swimming pools. Three pools are designed especially for the youngest of guests, including Poseidon's Playzone, a Maya-theme water playground. Day passes for non-resort guests are limited, so be sure to plan well ahead.

With luxury shops, a glitzy casino, and seemingly unlimited choices for dining and drinks (40 restaurants, bars, and lounges), Atlantis is as much a tourist attraction as a resort hotel. At Dolphin Cay, you can interact with dolphins, sea lions, and stingrays. The 63-acre Aquaventure water park provides thrilling waterslides and high-intensity rapids as well as a lazy-river tube ride through the sprawling grounds. Celebrity sightings are frequent at both Nobu restaurant and Aura nightclub. The on-site comedy club, Jokers Wild, brings top comedians to the stage. Many of the resort's facilities, including the restaurants and casino, are open to nonguests, but the leisure and sports facilities are open only to resort guests and those who purchase a day pass. Atlantis has the world's largest man-made marine habitat, consisting of 11 lagoons. To see it, take the guided Discover Atlantis tour, which begins near the main lobby at an exhibition called The Dig. This wonderful series of walk-through aquariums, themed around the lost continent and its re-created ruins, brings you face-to-face with sharks, manta rays, and innumerable forms of exotic sea life.

Walk the road beneath the Paradise Island bridges to Potter's Cay to watch sloops bringing in and selling loads of fish and conch. Along the road to the cay are dozens of stands where you can watch the conch being extracted from its glistening pink shell, straight from the sea. If you don't have the know-how to handle the tasty conch's preparation—getting the diffident creature out of its shell requires boring a hole at the right spot to sever the muscle that keeps it entrenched—you can enjoy a conch salad on the spot, as fresh as it comes, and take notes for future attempts. Empty shells are sold as souvenirs. Many locals and hotel chefs come here to purchase the fresh catches; you can also find vegetables, herbs, and such condiments as fiery Bahamian peppers preserved in lime juice, as well as locally grown pineapples, papayas, and bananas. Join in on a raucous game of dominoes outside many of the stalls. Some stalls are closed on Sunday. There's also a police station and dockmaster's office, where you can book an inexpensive trip on a mail boat headed to The Family Islands. Be aware that these boats are built for cargo, not passenger comfort, and it's a rough ride even on calm seas.

Fountains and statues of luminaries and legends (Napoléon and Josephine, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, David Livingstone, Hercules, and Mephistopheles) adorn Versailles Gardens, the terraced lawn at The Ocean Club, formerly the private hideaway of A&P supermarket heir Huntington Hartford. At the top of the gardens stand the Cloisters, the remains of a stone monastery built by Augustinian monks in France in the 13th century. They were imported to the United States in the 1920s by newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst. (The cloister is one of four to have ever been removed from French soil.) Forty years later, Hartford bought the Cloisters and had them rebuilt on their present commanding site. At the center is a graceful, contemporary white marble statue called Silence, by Scottish sculptor William Reid Dick. Nearly every day, tourists take or renew wedding vows under the delicately wrought gazebo overlooking Nassau Harbour. The garden is owned by The Ocean Club Four Seasons Resort.