Nassau Cruise Port Guide

Cruise Port Overview: What to Expect

Nassau is the easiest port in the Caribbean to walk out of. Ships tie up at Prince George Wharf, which sits at the bottom of the town rather than outside it, and the terminal gate opens onto Bay Street. There is no tender, no shuttle and no transfer to buy. Bay Street is about five minutes on foot and the Straw Market about three.

The wharf takes up to six ships at once, which is the other thing to understand about it. On a heavy day there can be twenty thousand people ashore in a town of this size, and it shows — in the queues, in the traffic on Bay Street, and in how busy the beaches are by eleven o’clock. The terminal itself, Festival Place, has tourist information, free Wi-Fi, toilets, a taxi dispatch desk and local stalls, and it is a sensible place to get your bearings before you step out.

The mistake most passengers make here is trying to do the town, a beach and an excursion in the same day. Nassau is small but it is hot, and the ferry or taxi legs eat more time than they look. Pick one shape of day — history on foot, a beach, or a boat — and you will come back having enjoyed it. Consider booking guided excursions in advance if you want the boat option, because the good ones do fill on heavy days.

Getting From the Port to Town

Walking covers more of Nassau than people expect. From the terminal gate: Bay Street in five minutes, the Straw Market in three, the Queen’s Staircase and Fort Fincastle in about ten, and Junkanoo Beach about fifteen minutes west along the waterfront. That is most of a port day without getting into anything at all.

Taxis wait outside the terminal and Bahamian taxi fares are set by the government by zone, not negotiated. The published rate covers two passengers, with an additional charge for each person beyond that, so a family of four is not paying the number on the board. Ask the driver to confirm the fare and the number of passengers before you get in — not to haggle, but so there is no argument at the other end. Use the dispatch desk in Festival Place if you would rather not pick a car yourself.

For Paradise Island and Atlantis, the water taxi from the wharf is the sensible option: it crosses the harbour in about ten minutes and lands you on the other side without touching the bridge traffic, which on a heavy ship day can take far longer than the crossing.

Jitneys — the local minibuses — run west along the coast towards Cable Beach and are genuinely cheap, but they are a local service rather than a tourist one: flag them down, pay the driver on the way off, and know your stop.

One correction to something you will read elsewhere: you do not need to find an ATM or change money. The Bahamian dollar is fixed at par with the US dollar and the two circulate side by side. US notes are accepted everywhere in Nassau and you will often get change in a mixture of both. Do not take a cash advance on the ship for this.

If you are flying in or out around this call, or you simply want the transport settled rather than taking your chances at the rank, a pre-booked private transfer puts a named driver at an agreed place and time. It is worth more here than at a port where you are only ashore for the day.

The Must-Do Experience: Start Here

Go up the hill first, before the heat and before the other five ships have emptied.

The Queen’s Staircase is about ten minutes from the terminal, tucked into a limestone gorge off Elizabeth Avenue. Sixty-six steps were cut by hand out of solid rock in the late eighteenth century by enslaved labourers, as an escape route from Fort Fincastle down to Bay Street, and they were later named for Queen Victoria. It is cool, green and shaded at the bottom, with water running down the rock face, and it is the one place in central Nassau that feels nothing like a cruise port.

At the top is Fort Fincastle, built in 1793 and shaped, unmistakably, like the bow of a paddle steamer. It never fired on an enemy. What it gives you is the lie of the land: the harbour, the wharf with your own ship on it, Paradise Island across the water and the town spread out below. Half an hour up here at the start of the day and the rest of Nassau makes sense.

Go early and go up the hill on foot while it is still cool. By midday that climb is work.

History Culture and the Top Sights

Nassau really was a pirate republic, and not for very long. Between roughly 1706 and 1718 the town had no functioning government at all and was run by its own captains — Blackbeard, Charles Vane, Benjamin Hornigold, Anne Bonny and Mary Read among them. It ended in 1718 when Woodes Rogers arrived as the first royal governor with a pardon in one hand and a rope in the other. The island’s motto afterwards was Expulsis Piratis, Restituta Commercia: pirates expelled, commerce restored. It is still on the older buildings.

The Pirates of Nassau museum, on the corner of King and George Streets a few minutes up from Bay Street, tells that story properly rather than as a theme park, with a full-size reconstructed ship inside. It is indoors and air-conditioned, which on a Nassau afternoon is not a small thing.

Government House, pink and white on Mount Fitzwilliam with a statue of Columbus on the steps, is the other side of the same story. Parliament Square on Bay Street, a set of pink colonial buildings round a statue of Queen Victoria, is where the country is still governed.

West of the centre, Fort Charlotte is the biggest of the three Nassau forts, an eighteenth-century work with a dry moat, dungeons and tunnels cut into the rock. Like Fincastle it never saw action. It is too far to walk comfortably in the heat — take a taxi or a jitney.

The thing that is genuinely Bahamian, and that most guides reduce to the name of a beach, is Junkanoo. It is the national festival, paraded through Bay Street in the small hours of Boxing Day and New Year’s Day — costumes built over months, goatskin drums, cowbells and brass. If your cruise falls over Christmas or New Year, that is the reason to be in Nassau. At any other time of year the Educulture Junkanoo Museum in a restored house off Bay Street will show you the costumes up close.

Beyond the Centre: Day Trips and Alternatives

If you want a beach and nothing else, the nearest is Junkanoo Beach, fifteen minutes on foot west of the terminal. It is public, free, busy on ship days and perfectly good for a swim and a drink. It is not a picture-postcard beach and nobody should pretend otherwise, but you can be in the water twenty minutes after leaving the gangway.

Cable Beach, a few miles west, is the long stretch of proper white sand with the resorts along it. Jitney or taxi.

Paradise Island is the water taxi across the harbour. Cabbage Beach on its north shore is the best beach within reach of the port and there is public access to it. Be clear about Atlantis, though: the resort’s water park and beaches are for guests and for people on specific day packages, and general walk-up access is not reliably available. You can walk through the public areas and see The Dig, the aquarium beneath the resort, but do not step off the ship assuming you can buy your way onto the slides.

Arawak Cay — everyone calls it the Fish Fry — is a strip of brightly painted Bahamian food shacks about twenty-five minutes’ walk west past Junkanoo Beach, or a short taxi. Conch salad made in front of you, cracked conch, fried snapper. It is where Nassau eats and it is the single best-value thing in the town.

For the water, the Exuma day trips to the swimming pigs leave by small plane or fast boat and eat the whole day. On a short call they are a risk; on a long one they are the best thing you will do in the Bahamas.

Shore Excursion or Going It Alone

Nassau is one of the few ports where going it alone needs almost no planning. You walk off into the middle of town, taxi fares are set rather than negotiated, the currency is the same as the one in your pocket, and everything speaks English. For the forts, the staircase, Bay Street, Junkanoo Beach and the Fish Fry, there is nothing a tour adds.

Where the ship’s excursion earns its money is anything on the water or off the island: the Exuma trips, the reef and dive boats, the swimming-pig flights and the day resorts on Blue Lagoon and Rose Island. Those run to fixed schedules, and if the weather turns or a boat comes back late, you want the ship’s problem to be the ship’s problem rather than yours.

The middle ground is booking the same boat directly with the operator. Nassau has plenty of long-established independents and they collect from the wharf. Do it before you sail rather than on the dockside — and ignore any advice to sort it out the night before, because the night before you are at sea.

Practical Tips: Money, Weather and Timing

Money first, because it is the thing most guides get wrong. The Bahamian dollar is pegged one-to-one with the US dollar and both circulate. US cash is accepted everywhere and cards are taken almost everywhere. There is no exchange to do, no rate to worry about, and no reason to draw expensive cash on the ship. Small notes are useful for the Fish Fry, the straw vendors and the jitney.

Nassau is hot and humid most of the year and the town has very little shade. Do the hill and the forts in the morning, the indoor things or the water in the afternoon. Carry water. The sun here is stronger than a British holidaymaker’s instincts allow for, particularly on a boat.

Hurricane season runs June to November, with the highest risk in September and October. In practice that means itinerary changes rather than danger — lines route around storms — but if a captain swaps Nassau for another island at short notice, that is why.

Bargaining at the Straw Market is expected and good-natured; bargaining in a shop is not. Be aware that a fair number of "straw" goods are imported rather than woven locally, so if that matters to you, ask.

Crime in Nassau is real but concentrated well away from where passengers go. The waterfront, Bay Street, the forts and Paradise Island are ordinary. Use the same sense you would in any city, keep to the busy streets, and do not wander into residential Over-the-Hill areas at night looking for authenticity.

Drive on the left, but most cars are left-hand drive — look both ways twice before stepping off a kerb.

Your Port Day: A Sample Itinerary

Ship alongside early in the morning, all aboard in the late afternoon.

Off early and straight up the hill while it is cool: ten minutes to the Queen’s Staircase, then Fort Fincastle at the top for the view over the harbour. Back down through the lanes to Parliament Square and the pink colonial buildings, then the Pirates of Nassau museum for an hour out of the sun.

Walk west along the waterfront — fifteen minutes to Junkanoo Beach, another ten past it to Arawak Cay — and have conch salad and a Kalik at the Fish Fry where the town eats rather than on Bay Street.

Afternoon in the water: back to the wharf and the water taxi to Paradise Island, ten minutes across, and a couple of hours on Cabbage Beach. Last water taxi back in good time — check the return times when you buy, not afterwards.

On a short call, cut it to the staircase, the fort and Junkanoo Beach, and you have still had a proper day.

If the beach is the whole point of Nassau for you, skip the town altogether: water taxi across first thing, Cabbage Beach before the coaches arrive, and back for lunch at the Fish Fry.

Ships In Nassau

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