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Be sure to take the #10, which stays on Bay Street, and not the #10A, which goes through side streets and takes forever. Our feeling is that you have limited time in Nassau; make the most of it and take cabs. It’s a small town and very few places will cost more than $4/person to get to in a cab.
A day in Nassau, Bahamas: What to do while your cruise is in port
Cruise ships visiting Nassau dock at the Prince George Wharf within short walking distance of Bay Street and the downtown district. Passengers who are booked on excursions arranged by the cruise line will find providers staged in areas leading from the dock. Private operators, including those who booked tours with guests separate from the cruise line, will be found beyond the first group. Bahamas Cruise Excursions recommends excursions for your visit to Nassau based on the arrival times, departure time of your cruise ship as well as the length of your visit out our Island.
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Ride along the island’s historic (and historically dubious) airstrip and wheel your way to the observation tower for an elevated view of Disney’s Private Island. Hitting a feeling of disappointment we quickly identified another Disney family who at least seemed to know where they were going ( a complete lack of maps was definitely an issue for us in Nassau). Unfortunately, the best any of our fellow Disney cruisers could do was Junkanoo Beach. Those of us brave enough to get that far literally grabbed some souvenir sand, dipped our toes lightly in questionable waters, and tried to avoid offensive phone conversations and chain smoking. Yes, we’re generalizing, but this is an honest account of our experience.
Making A Grand Entrance
From lazy lounging on the beach to action-packed water adventures, cruise ship shore excursions in the Bahamas are packed with fun in the sun and sea. Most people who miss their ship departure are not on an excursion at all. They just get sidetracked while shopping or sightseeing (or drinking), often within walking distance of the ship.
I only book a Disney cruise if it's going to the company's private island, Castaway Cay
While boarding, a crew member announces your name to all those in the Grand Hall, and clapping ensues. While this occurs on every Disney Cruise Line ship, the Grand Hall’s opulent setting made me feel like I was being formally welcomed to Cinderella’s castle at sea. At a resort like Atlantis or the One & Only Ocean Club, just go to the bell stand out front and ask for a taxi. For other locations, go the Viator.com home page and search for the name of the port. Our Disney Cruise Line Facebook group is a great place for fun tips and friendly discussion. Craft Cottage Bahamas is the premier showcase for locally made home décor, glassware, jewelry, soaps, clothing and artwork in Nassau.
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Firmly and politely saying “no thanks” is generally enough to get them to leave you alone. If you ever feel unsafe, during the day there are tourist police stationed at intersections near the port, who wear white helmets, white shirts and black pants. Disney Cruise Line hand picks just the right shore excursions (Disney Cruise Line calls them port adventures) to allow the guest to experience a representative selection of what each port has to offer. Read on to see what Disney typically offers for Bahamian Shore Excursions. About a 15-minute walk or a brief taxi ride from the cruise port, Graycliff Hotel is in a historic mansion whose extensive grounds were once an 18th-century pirate's headquarters. A visitor can spend an entire day exploring the property, which features one of the world's largest private collections, chocolate-making and cigar-rolling facilities, art galleries and craft shops.
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I was completely mesmerized watching the action-packed encounters and stunning views of places like Endor and Tatooine. The viewport’s scenes blur as the ship periodically “jumps” to a new location via hyperspace, and it’s hard to get bored. Even the Royal Towers lobby is off-limits if you don’t have a wristband or the paperwork you need to get a wristband. At the cruise terminal, the shuttles to Paradise Island are easy to get, but be aware that they are not organized into a well-behaved line. There is a large, chaotic area inside the cruise terminal gates with shuttle vans, van hawkers, drivers, etc. all trying to get the attention of cruise passengers.
Disney Cruise Line Port Excursions – Discounts & Tips
Bay Street also features a proliferation of high-end, designer stores selling luxury goods including apparel, jewelry, cosmetics and fragrances. Check first with a local or with a frequent Bahamas visitor (like a travel advisor) to determine which stall is the best for the day. With 25 years in the same location, McKenzie, a former conch fisherman turned restaurateur, is a local celebrity among Potter Cay purveyors, with a shack positioned as the first on the bridge's west end.
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It's a fun outing if you haven't done it before and it doesn't take away too much of your beach time on the island. Want to see Caribbean reef sharks without putting your toes in the water? This excursion takes you on a glass-bottom boat ride to waters where Caribbean reef sharks have been fed.
Stingray City Bahamas is located among the Berry Islands, home to Royal Caribbean's Perfect Day at CocoCay and Norwegian's Great Stirrup Cay. You'll be taken on a short speedboat ride to a shallow sandy spot in a location where stingrays congregate. Your guide will provide fish to feed the rays, which swoop in and suck the fish from your hand.
Later, as we shared dinner with our partner dining family on the Rotational Dining on a Disney Cruise schedule, they too said they just popped off the ship for an hour and then got right back on again. Very experienced cruisers, they didn’t even seem phased that they spent the day on the ship. Or rather, spend all this cruise money to the Bahamas, to not enjoy port. In general, this goes against my natural belief which would be something like “We paid to be in the Bahamas, why are we just staying on the boat? It’s definitely a new way of thinking for us as we usually travel to see stuff, do stuff, and try stuff. They still have movies, trivia, bingo, drinks, food, games, and everything you would want on a laid-back vacation.
Something to be aware of is that if your phone connects to the local cell towers or to local Wi-Fi, it may reset its clock to local time, which might not match ship time. Make sure you know whether your all-aboard is in local time or ship’s time, and also know what time zone your watch or phone is set to. Allow 30 minutes to get through port security, plus 30 minutes for each transportation leg you have to take, in addition to estimated travel time, just in case.
Usually these vendors are concentrated right around the cruise terminal and a few other big tourist hot spots and if you get a block or two away it gets much better. If you’re not an adventurous traveler, you may want to book a Disney port excursion the first time you visit a port just to get the lay of the land, so to speak. That said, it’s pretty easy to go it alone in most of these ports, either by booking your own port adventures or just wandering. Every day in each of these ports, 3,000-18,000 cruise passengers flood the streets, so the ports are pretty good at providing services and infrastructure to travelers. And because they don’t want to risk the lucrative flow of tourism dollars, most of these places will have plenty of security in the major tourist areas. If you stay in tourist-oriented areas with lots of foot traffic during daylight hours, you may encounter vendors who are pushier than you might be used to, but safety should not be a major problem.
Disney will hold the ship to allow straggling tours to return — or pay for you to catch up to the ship at the next port-of-call. Shore excursions are operated by outside companies which contract with Disney. And it’s true many of them offer a substantially similar experience — often at a lower price — when booked independently.
