Half Moon Cay is beautiful!! It is a great beach with white powder sand and plenty of chairs. We walked down the beach a little way and found a spot with chairs in the shade by Cabana #3. As we planned to spend most of the day swimming we liked the idea of having a shady place to rest and get out of the sun when needed. It kept the shade the entire day. 

The swimming area is roped off so you cannot swim out very far but there is still plenty of space and it didn't feel crowded at all. There is no coral but a few small fish do swim around if you bring snorkel gear or goggles. (My kids found they prefered using their swim goggles instead of the snorkle gear which we brought with us.) Ours was the only ship tendered there for the day. Many shore excursions are offered, the parasailing looked the most fun to me! I heard passengers on board in the evening saying you could walk all the way around the island and there are small, more secluded beaches on the other side.

Lunch is served in an outdoor pavilion and is the same basic fare as onboard ship. We ate in the covered areas and all came away with multiple mosquito bites. If you choose you can take your lunch back to the beach but please, please, please throw our your garbage right away or the seagulls swarm like mad!

The main beach area was mostly empty by 3pm and we felt like we had the beach to ourselves. We caught the last tender at 4:15pm.

We loved Half Moon Cay.

Half Moon Cay

Nassau is crazy busy!! Be prepared to be ambushed by sales, taxis, etc. as soon as you leave the port. There are plenty of taxis available to wherever you want to go, $4.00 pp standard. 

We walked around the shops in town but found they are all full of the same things, everything is imported from China no matter what the locals say. The Straw Market is big and full of the standard souvenirs, make sure you bargain for anything you might want to buy as nothing is actually native although they will sware otherwise. We did find some hand painted Christmas bulbs at The Linen Store which were nice and most likely painted by a local artist.

We ate lunch on the ship and then caught a taxi and ferry out to Blue Lagoon.

BLUE LAGOON: this is the only shore excursion we did during the cruise and I booked it straight with Blue Lagoon online before we sailed: swim with dolphins. 

Blue Lagoon is a private island that you can get to by ferry. I had done a fair amount of research prior to our cruise and I knew I wanted to have our swim with dolphins here. I only wish I had known how much more there was to do on the island! We should have spent our whole day there. There are several interactive options available, swimming with the dolphins being the most expensive. There are hanging hammocks in the shade, a touch and feel tank, a small beach for swimming, two inflated obstacle courses (one on land, one in water) and plenty of things to keep you busy all day. My 10 yr old loved the water obstacle course, $15 for the entire day admits you into both inflated courses.

Our swim with the dolphins was unbelievably fun, worth every penny. My timid 5 yr old was very nervous and even frightened of the dolphins but with help and encouragement did just fine. You get to spend the majority of the time in the water with the dolphins, even interacting with them one on one. The final event is the dolphin foot push. The experience is very worth the time and money involved and I would highly recommend spending your day at Blue Lagoon. The return ferry will deliver cruise passengers directly to the port so you will not need a taxi ride back to the ship.

A very important side note: the 4pm ferry WILL NOT get you back to port until almost 5pm so if you are supposed to be onboard ship by 4:30pm catch the earlier ferry! You have been warned :)

Nassau

Freeport is the complete opposite of Nassau. The dock area is very quiet and fairly sparse. There are a few shops and a small straw market offering basically the same goods (imported from China) as Nassau but slightly more expensive. If you intend to get off the ship here, have a plan ahead of time; arrange a tour or book a shore excursion. The taxis are very expensive, $16.00 pp/ one way. I had planned to rent a car (very easy to find within the small shopping area) for about $70/day and spend the day snorkeling at deadman's reef on the northwest side of the island. After seeing the crazy driving in Nassau I was very afraid of what we'd find in Freeport. I was relieved to find that the traffic was normal and looked perfectly safe for driving, just remember to drive on the left side!

In the end, everyone in our party decided to spend the day onboard; playing ping pong, golf, and spending most of the afternoon on the watersides.

I'm sad to have missed the coral reefs but the day was calm and enjoyable nonetheless.

Freeport

As it was just myself with no baggage I slipped onto the first shuttle with no problem and was back at the embarkation building in about 30 mins.After the first night they were so disappointed they only reluctantly went back a second time and then refused to return at all.

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