Nassau - excursion recommendation with small children

[shillee]

I am interested in getting information on what to do in Nassau for our day there.
We will have a 3 & 5 year old. I don't think we want to do anything like a dolphin encounter as those seem extremely pricey and we are thinking we will do that at Discovery Cove for a full day instead in Orlando.

For those with young kids who were cruising, what did you do in Nassau? We are open to options of booking through Disney or perhaps doing something on our own. We won't have car seats so renting a car is not an option for us.

 

[elainyaeq]

our cruise is Oct 25, and we are waiting for the actual day we port there, weather depending, if the weather is nice we thought about walking over to the BC Hilton for a day pass for the pool and beach!

 

[budamacdvcr]

Or, another option is to stay on the ship and enjoy all it has to offer and the less crowded kids pools area. If you are on the Dream with a 3 or 4 night you may want to consider this or get off the ship for a shorter period of time to do some close to port sightseeing and then get back on the ship early to enjoy it.

 

[kcashner]

IMHO, Discovery Cove was better than anything with dolphins on any island.. Well worth the day in Orlando.

In Nassau with little ones, I'd recommend staying on the ship and enjoying it without 4000 of your newest, closest friends. If you get off the ship, keep a tight grip on the kids; the hair braiding ladies are out in force and on our last trip were becoming aggressive again. (for a time, DCL and the government had worked to get the touching, aggressiveness to disappear). They will reach out and put a hand on your daughter's head with "Oh, pretty hair. I make nice braids for you?" addressed to the child. Sorry, my opinion is "Don't touch my kid and don't talk to my kid without my permission."

 

[WicketsMom]

I'm doing the dolphin swim at Blue Lagoon with my five year old son. He is not tall enough for any of the slides at Atlantis so that was out for us. I've been to Nassau before and not really a shopper so that was out for us. He has swam with dolphins twice before (at Grand Cayman and Cozumel) and thoroughly enjoyed it both times. It is expensive but worth it!

Discovery Cove has a minimum age of six to be able to swim with the dolphins. We are waiting until he is old enough before we try that.

 

[revmommy]

I can't speak to the 3 year old, but my then 6 year old loved the Junkanoo exhibit and there were younger children on our tour that seemed to enjoy it as well. A husband and wife run this in her childhood home. She is a retired educator and really seemed to engage the younger ones. Not only do they get to try on costumes, they also get to play cowbells and other percussion instruments, and sample local soda flavors that have been developed by one of the large cola companies for the Junkanoo.

While we are skipping any excursions in Nassau on our next cruise, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this excursion with children if you have never been to Nassau.

 

[mybeachbabies]

We did the Dolphin Encounter at Blue Lagoon and then spent the rest of the afternoon on their beach. We had a great time. If you don't want to do the dolphin encounter, Disney offers a Beach Day excursion to Blue Lagoon so you can just enjoy the beach for the day. You will all meet in the theater, then walk from the ship to the large Blue Lagoon catamaran boat. You may or may not pass some vendors depending on where they were able to dock the Blue Lagoon boat. On the way there, we walked by the vendors. They didn't bother us at all. On the way back they were able to dock really close to the Dream and we didn't have to walk by all the vendors.

We very much enjoyed the excursion. The beach is nice and the water is very calm. Great for young kids to build sand castles or play in the water.

 

[Kbrush]

My 8yr old and I adored Blue Lagoon! We liked it much more than Castaway Cay. Why?

1. Because it was not at all crowded. You could get a chair or hammock right by the water and not have to be packed in with tons of other people. Who wants to lounge around looking at the backs of beach chairs? With kids in tow at CC we could not move fast enough to score chairs in the first rows on CC

2. it had inflatable bouncers in the water to play in (extra fee) that were in shallow enough water that little kids could enjoy them (waist height on a 5'3" parent at deepest point, one was anchored waist height on my 8 yr old) My daughter loved them!! She did not like the slide at CC because it exited too high above the water and she said the landing hurt and was scary because it was dark and deep.

3. You actually knew you were in the Bahamas. The place is run by locals, served up super yummy conch fritters and cinch salad, has real coconuts to eat and drink, steel drum band etc. CC is just Disney and so-so american BBQ fare. Place is laid back and a little worn around the edges in a thoroughly natural and pleasant way.

4. The sea lion encounter was well run and it was fun to be able to watch the dolphin swims. There was a nice touch tank near the sea lions.

5. The boat trip out was fun. You got to see the port and surrounding houses a bit. The water was so clear you could almost see the bottom

6. Not great snorkeling, bottom is white sand and some eel grass, but enough fish to be interesting.

The cons were:
1) Took a long time to get sea lion photos. Do not wait till last minute to collect them!

2) Not enough time for beach if don't arrive early. We could happily have stayed all day.

3) Extra charge for inflatable bouncers area even if you have booked expensive seal lion/dolphin

4) Have to buy food and drink tickets at bar then go to cafeteria next door. Not a long walk but you need to go back and forth to see menu, order from bar, get food, back to bar if want anything else, back to cafeteria etc. The seagulls stole all of our conch fritters while my back was turned necessitating additional bar to cafeteria trips

But all in all I liked BL enough to wish flights from NYC to Nassau were cheap enough to go back for a short trip.

 

[shillee]

I know we will want to do 'something' when we are in Nassau. DH & I were there in 2003 on our cruise. He went scuba diving, I went to the spa and then we just took a taxi over to Atlantis and walked around on our own. I remember it not being the best compared to other stops we had.

We are actually booked for a B2B for a total of 9 nights out of Miami so we will only have stops at Cozumel/Key West/Nassau and then 2 stops at CC. Then we have our sea days already.

I will have to look into the options below but if anyone else has any other feedback, I am happy to take it

With the kids being so small (the 3 year old will have just turned 3 when we cruise and she is small for her age) I know we are restricted on some things we can do and we won't do something that both girls can't do as the youngest would throw a HUGE fit!

Good to know about Discovery Cove. It is on our list so we will have to wait a few years to go (which is fine).

I will look into Blue Lagoon and Junkanoo. Would you do them through Disney or on your own?