Custom Weekends: Indulge Your Water Sign

Turns out my visit to the Cove — the resort-within-a-resort located on Paradise Island — was a bit too late. Had I shown up in May during its lavish grand opening, I could have judged for myself how Aerosmith, Lindsay Lohan, Tyra Banks and other celebrities ad nauseam looked in their bathing suits. Designed by Jeffrey Beers and David Rockwell, and located within the well-known Atlantis resort, the Cove boasts 600 suites — each with an unobstructed view of the ocean, marble bathroom floors, two plasma-screen TVs and a BOSE entertainment system. But while it’s easy to indulge your bad self in your suite’s lavishness, the truly over-the-top draw is the resort’s life aquatic.

Called Aquaventure, the seven-month-old, 63-acre, 20-million-gallon waterscape includes a mile-long river, tidal pools, waves, currents, rapids and surges — plus waterfalls, water holes, and four I-might-just-wet-my-pants waterslides that drop from a 120-foot Power Tower. Aquaventure even conveys guests via in-the-water escalators, so you don’t — ever — have to get out of your inner tube. Or your bikini: The swim-up bar positions chaise lounges and daybeds in the middle of mingle-friendly shallow pools. Then there’s (swim-with-the) Dolphin Cay, with 20 bottlenoses. And oh yeah, the ocean: that glittering aqua Caribbean clear enough for you to evaluate your pedicure, or Tyra’s.