When Atlantis Paradise Island opened the first phase of its development, it was already being conceived as something substantially different from a conventional Caribbean resort. The vision of developer Sol Kerzner was not simply to build another luxury hotel surrounded by swimming pools. Atlantis was intended to immerse visitors in a fictional lost civilization, combining architecture, water, marine life, mythology, and entertainment into a single environment.

The property's eventual aquatic environment would encompass swimming pools, waterfalls, fountains, lagoons, marine habitats, and waterpark attractions on an enormous scale. In subsequent phases they eventually created the Mayan Temple and its five water slides alongside enormous marine exhibits. Among those slides was an attraction that would become almost synonymous with Atlantis itself. Leap of Faith takes riders to the top of a giant stepped pyramid, drops them 60 feet in an almost-vertical water slide, then sends them through a transparent tube running directly through a lagoon containing sharks. Making that idea work was anything but simple.

The Phase II development was a deliberate effort to make guests feel as though they were exploring a lost civilization. This included the Mayan Temple, the centerpiece housing the Leap of Faith water slide. The design team faced a familiar problem in waterpark construction: water slides generally require large amounts of structural steel, stairs, platforms, and support infrastructure. Those elements can become visually dominant. Rather than disguise those elements, Atlantis turned the structure into part of its architecture. Many water slide structures assume a pyramidal form as a support system. Incorporating this geometry, the team was able to transform the structure into a Myan pyramid, which added to the Atlantis feel. 

Placing the water slide through the shark tank was the conceptual leap that changed the project. The Leap of Faith and Serpent Slide were attractions that had never been attempted before. According to Allen Clawson of Cloward H2O, the idea originated as a “napkin sketch” during a meeting and ultimately became one of the world’s most recognizable projects. A rider would actually travel through the middle of the shark’s habitat. The rider travels inside a transparent slide/tunnel, while the sharks swim in the surrounding lagoon.

The Ride

Maximum speed of the rider is approximately 30 miles per hour with roughly 50 feet of the attraction traveling through the shark habitat, inside a transparent tube positioned approximately six feet above the bottom of the lagoon. 

The vertical descent is one of the attraction's defining characteristics. It is a 60-foot near-vertical, 85 degree, drop. That geometry creates a powerful acceleration under gravity. The rider remains in contact with the slide, with water flowing along the riding surface to reduce friction and provide the hydraulic conditions necessary for controlled movement. The team needed to convert the gravitational drop into a fast but controlled water slide trajectory, then safely redirect that trajectory into an underwater transparent structure. To do this, the direction of travel had to change progressively, which took carefully controlled geometry that also managed the resulting forces. 

The shark lagoon itself holds about half a million gallons of water. It’s about 21 feet deep, has a 90 foot long and 45-foot-wide L-shaped configuration. Functioning as a marine habitat, it contains a number of marine animals as well as multiple species of sharks, including Pacific blacktip, Caribbean reef, silky, blacknose, and nurse. 

Considerations for creating the ride included more than simply the physical structure and supports. The team had to think about the movement of the riders, water circulation, visibility, access for aquarium staff, cleaning and filtration, and long-term reliability of the submerged structure. These considerations were necessary for the slide as well as the aquarium. 

The most visually spectacular component of Leap of Faith is the transparent submerged tunnel where about 50 feet of the Leap of Faith’s route passed through the lagoon. The tube is approximately six feet above the tank bottom so that sharks can swim below the rider. The challenge was that the transparent material was buoyant. A submerged hollow structure containing air naturally experiences an upward buoyant force.

Water pushes upward on a submerged object with a force approximately equal to the weight of the water displaced by that object. A large hollow tunnel displaces a large volume of water and wants to float. It also needed to stay where it was without shifting. The solution was to fabricate three columns extending upward from the floor of the tank to support and stabilize the tube. The support columns help restrain its buoyancy and maintain its position underwater.

The engineering team had to consider both the slide and aquarium as two different hydraulic systems. In addition, Leap of Faith wasn’t the only Mayan Temple attraction to enter the shark habitat. The Serpent Slide, mentioned above, was designed as a slower, inner-tube experience where the rider begins inside a winding dark tunnel within the pyramid and eventually enters a transparent acrylic section about 90 feet long that passes through the center of the shark tank. While Leap of Faith provided an experience that included speed, fear, and sudden exposure, the Serpent Slide was more about immersion, observation, and marine life in general. 

Architecturally, the pyramid concealed and organized the structural components while simultaneously becoming one of the resort's most recognizable landmarks. The Mayan Temple allowed the team to build a single slide-and-stair structure accommodating five slides, rather than five separate structures. This was therefore an engineering and economic decision as well as a thematic one. One monumental architectural structure could contain the circulation systems, stairs and slides while simultaneously hiding the infrastructure that normally makes a waterpark look like a waterpark. The result was much closer to a theme-park attraction than a conventional recreational slide tower.

Cloward H2O's role is particularly significant here. The company was responsible for the piping and hydraulics associated with the Atlantis aquatic systems. The broader Atlantis marine facilities used extensive filtration and water-treatment infrastructure. The original installation used 32 large sand filters serving the marine exhibits, with a combined filtration capacity of approximately three million gallons per hour. The resort also maintained a dedicated water laboratory and performed regular chemical and biological testing. The aquarium had to stay healthy while the ride operated. 

Cloward H2O’s approaches aquatic projects without a rigid “cookbook.” Different aquatic environments have different engineering requirements, and the firm instead tries to understand what the client is actually trying to accomplish. That philosophy is visible in Leap of Faith.

For information: 

Cloward H2O

Atlantis

Read more about water parks >>>