We did this in 2014. It was a great plan.
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Glad you got a sale!
It’s always fun to ride something popular with a short wait. Waits were also low during early dinner if you’re not going to a show at that time.
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Would you believe it?
So - I remembered at 10AM that it was my day to book stuff.
Thankfully, all I wanted to book was something for Nassau day. We just wanted a beach.
So - I booked beach and lunch with this one.
Yay - right?
WELL - I was reading it to my DD11. She asked what the boat ride would be like.
nope. I cut and pasted “double decker ferry through Nassau harbor”
and got this photo…
And before I could close the image - she freaked out.
Here is the article.
Bahamas: Chaos Breaks Out as Double-Decker Ferry Sinks, Leaving One Dead (caribdaily.news)
No problem…
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So Atlantis then? And omgosh someone died!
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Possibly. Or we’ll stick with it? Or neither?
I’m heading to Dollywood for a few days and then the beach. I’ll probably look I to it more on Sunday.
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I watched one of the news stories. The person who died was a wheelchair bound woman with portable oxygen. Just absolutely horrible. On a Royal Caribbean excursion. 
I was coming to see how your fared for your bookings today!!
If we had done a beach day in Nassau that is probably the excursion I would’ve wanted to do, but yes, they have that black cloud with that incident over them.
I don’t expect anything I would say to sway you over such an important consideration, but I do know that the cruise lines and the Bahamian government kept the ferry to all excursions for Blue Lagoon closed for months to investigate and they only just started back up in mid-late March. When we went in February, one of the most common questions was “help, what do I do without Blue Lagoon being offered” because it was such a competitively priced and nice beach day.
I want to say there is a liner who has done Blue Lagoon on a non-DCL line, before the incident. I’ll look around and see if I can find that trip report.
It’s definitely unfortunate no matter what you decide to do since the options for Nassau are so limited if you’re only going through DCL. There is Atlantis and looking through the excursion list from what’s generally available in Nassau, there may also be Baha Mar. But both options are significantly higher in cost. So dang it!
If it were us we’d probably use Nassau to stay close the port if we wanted to get out and see a little bit, and then do a very full, island open to close day at Castaway Cay to get beach time in if we had wanted the beach time primarily.
And if you wanted to consider doing your own excursion, there’s Magaritaville and Senor Frogs where you can buy a resort day pass to enjoy the ameneties/beach (both would be around Junkanoo beach which I believe is a 15-20 min walk from the pier, but is mostly through the secure port area and immediate tourist vicinity, from what I understand. But I know you weren’t wanting to initially consider doing your own thing, so not sure if that would be something you would want to expore as a beach day option.
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Definitely cannot heart this. Yes it was truly such a tragedy.
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Found the fellow liner’s TP that went to Blue Lagoon. It was @motherofdaughtersthree & her report starts with the Blue Lagoon here
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Oh, how awful.
Hope you enjoy Dollywood. I’m sure you can look into it more and decide whether to move to plan b when you get back.
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Yes, it was me.
I heard about the tragedy too. Just terrifying and so sad.
I would 100% do the excursion again, even with the knowledge of the accident (just telling myself it was a freak thing and thinking it’s highly unlikely to happen again). It was a lot of fun! Gorgeous there.
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It probably will be a fine excursion.
Last March DH and I did a 3rd party resort for a day in Nassau and it was “fine” but the DJ was painfully loud. I could look at that again. But I’ll ask @motherofdaughtersthree more about Blue Lagoon. I’d forgotten she’d gone there! Thank you so much for looking for that and linking it!! You really are extremely thoughtful.
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Oh!! We were typing at the same time!
Thank you!
Can you tell me more about the lunch? It won’t make it break anything. But DH always likes food details.
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Hmmm…I’m afraid I may confuse it with the other beach day we did on the private island. One of them we didn’t make it to get food before they stopped serving food. I think that was the private island.
Terribly unreliable account here–but if this is the one I remember, it was barbecue, there might have been hamburgers and hot dogs. Serviceable food, but definitely nothing special. The line was a bit long, and we took our food back to our cabana to eat. There is a shelter there with tables, and they weren’t all full (meaning you can sit down and eat, we just didn’t). I’m about 85% that was on Blue Lagoon. It was fine–I know there’s better food on the ship of course, so that might have clouded our judgment.
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There’s the main beach, where the cabanas are and where all of the people are. If you walk behind the shelter place where they are serving food, there’s another beach. When we made it there, there was NO ONE ELSE. Lots of chairs too. I think the water might be more rough on that side, but not appreciably so. With a do-over, I would spend more time on that side, just for the views alone.
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Thanks.
Did you rent a cabana?
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We did. $60 if I remember–we did it on the island the day of. We got drink vouchers for some kind of punch drink (so good, nonalcoholic) and free towels (not good, those itchy microfiber things that stick together).
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Heh. Ok. Good to know.
We’ll bring ship towels!
The food says Hamburger (etc) and some sides. I will tell DH not to expect anything.
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The water on the side with the cabanas is sooo clear. You can watch fish without snorkles, and it’s very calm.
Hope you have a great time!
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Do you think it matters that the days of the trip don’t line up exactly? Like pattern of ports?
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