Balmoral Island beach day - Nassau

[jackdis]

Hi! Has anyone done this excursion? Any thoughts, feedback, info. would be appreciated. Also, are the "cabanas" mentioned first come, first served? One member of our group would need shade. Are umbrellas plentiful?

 

We just came back from Half Moon Cay. Ahhhhhhh.........amazing!!! I think that has ruined me for any other beach. :)

 

Thanks!

[jackdis]

Just a little bump up in case anyone has been recently. Thanks!!

[Fick293]

My wife and kids did the Balmoral Island excursion in August when we cruised on the Dream. Overall we enjoyed the excursion. It's a little pricey but it's nice to have the island to yourself. The boat ride over to the island is a little long, about 30 min., but not horrible. When we went there was a catamaran and a double decked boat. We were on the catamaran and there was plenty of room, the other boat looked a little cramped.

 

Once on the island there are plenty of chairs and there are umbrellas every few chairs or so. You should have no problem finding an umbrella. We did not use the cabanas. The beach is beautiful. Crystal clear water and being a "private" island, very uncrowded. The bar is nice but expensive, more expensive than the ship. You can get in trouble since you use your sail and sign card on the island. We brought with a few bottles of water that we carried onto the ship and that saved us a few buck from the bar. We did not try the food.

 

There are dolphin encounters and stingrays on the island. There is a DJ playing music and playing games. They try to up-sell the dolphins and stingrays but nothing pushy, just making several announcements over the speakers. The pool looked nice but we did not use it.

 

From reading other posts about the island, it is a better excursion when only offered on 1 Carnival ship that is in port. If there is more than 1 Carnival ship in port, Carnival has offered this excursion on 2 ships on the same day which would make the island a little more crowded. When we were there, we were fortunate enough to be the only Carnival ship in port.

 

I hope this helps a little. Enjoy your cruise!

[TwinDani]

I just did this excursion last week. I wanted to go to blue lagoon island but not enough people booked it. From the recommendation from the excursion desk we did this. We were told it takes 20 minutes or less to get there. Well it took 45 minutes. The staff on the island were not friendly to us. The beach was rocky and we found sea glass and fish hooks. The pool area was nice but we went for the beach. We were told by the desk and the staff on the island we would have plenty of time in Nassau to shop well we got back at 3:15 and had to be back to the ship at 3:30. The dock that we used on the way back was so unsafe and scary. We had to either climb over a wall holding a child or walk on a slab of concrete about 3 feet wide as step over a rope. It was so unsafe. People were in wheel chairs I don't even know how they handled that. My mom was with us and she felt so scared because she couldn't climb over the wall. When we went back to the excursions desk the manager slipped and said that the island isn't fully complete and that was why it was the way it was.

[JaniceB]

Hmmm, I was hoping it would be more complete by now.