Port of Nassau Requirements – My Experience

My most recent conference was cruising on the Independence of the Seas with Royal Caribbean. The first day of the cruise was a port in Nassau. I have cruised many times and had Nassau as a port of call at least three times before and I have never gotten off the ship. As a side note — as much as I love cruising, I’ve only had the opportunity to cruise for business, so I often feel the need to skip the port of call to catch up on work.

My travel colleague was very interested in visiting the port to see if she could find some perfume that is no longer available. After we cleaned up the tradeshow with the advisors for the morning, we grabbed a quick bite on the ship and decided to walk into the port to explore for her perfume treasure.

The ship’s app advised that we would need a photo ID and our vaccination cards to enter Nassau. We were also advised that we would be required to wear masks while there. We grabbed what we needed and began our journey. It was a good long walk to get off the pier from our ship.

There is much construction going on right now as well around the pier. I had just heard someone from the Bahamas Tourism Board speak last week and share that they had torn down the whole port and were rebuilding. We got past the construction and found shops and local makers displaying their goods. There were more than a few vendors offering samples to lure us into their stores for purchases, but we politely declined. I’m pretty sure one woman swore at me with a smile in another language, but it is what it is.

We did not need to show anything to enter the streets and did not need to wear masks. Of course, there were some tourists that were wearing masks but everywhere we went there were no requirements and no one asked to see our vaccination cards.

After finding the perfume treasure, we headed back for the ship. We showed our cruise card and our passports, and we were on our way back to the pier to board the ship. Boarding the ship, perfume does not need to be taken by crew until departure but does need to be scanned like everything else to go through the ship’s security.

Have you had a different experience or anything to add to this port?