Cruise Port Pig Tours

Nassau is one of the busiest cruise ports in the world, and the swimming-pig catalogue splits on that fact more sharply than anything else. Some operators build their whole product around a port call. Others will not sell you a ticket at all.

Which tours refuse cruise passengers

Two do, and both are Exuma day trips: Powerboat Adventures at $329 and Born Free Charters at $489. Both list cruise-ship guests under “not suitable” in their own booking conditions.

They are right to. Big Major Cay is about 89 miles from Nassau. The day runs roughly 9am to 4:30pm before transfers, and an open-water crossing does not get faster because your ship is leaving. Two of the other Exuma operators will take you, but they are selling the same eight hours against the same all-aboard time.

If you are here for a port call, the Exumas are a trip for another holiday. Our Exuma page explains what you are giving up; the honest summary is forty minutes with the pigs at the end of four hours on a boat.

What actually fits a port day

Everything below is a Nassau-area tour visiting the Rose, Pearl or Athol island colonies, twenty to forty minutes from the harbour.

Swimming Pigs and Snorkel with Lunch and Beach Club — $119, 2 hours 30 minutes. The shortest trip on this site that still includes a beach stop, snorkelling, lunch and an open bar, and cruise-port pickup is in the price rather than an upgrade. If your window is tight this is the one. Our breakdown.

Pigs, Snorkel, Turtles and a Private Beach Club — $123, 4 hours. Leaves from the Paradise Island ferry terminal, which is a short taxi from the berths and removes the hardest part of a Nassau boat day. Reef snorkel, a turtle sanctuary stop, then two hours at a beach club with loungers, hammocks and restrooms. 1,473 reviews at 4.6. Our breakdown.

Rose Island water taxi — $67, 4 hours. Departs from Señor Frog’s on the downtown waterfront, walking distance from the berths, at 9:30am or 11:30am. Three hours on the island, and the pig beach entry fee is included. No snorkelling, no lunch. The cheapest option here by a distance, and the one that gives you the most time with the animals. Our breakdown.

The 3 Islands tour — $125, 4 hours. The most-booked pig tour from Nassau at 3,520 reviews, with an option that includes roundtrip transport if you would rather not find the dock yourself. Our breakdown.

Doing the arithmetic properly

Take your all-aboard time. Subtract one hour as genuine slack — for the walk back, the security queue and the fact that a boat running late is not your operator’s emergency. Subtract the tour’s stated duration. Subtract the transfer at each end if the tour does not collect you.

What remains is your margin. If it is negative, the tour does not fit, however much you want it to. Ships do not wait, and a missed departure in Nassau means arranging your own flight to the next port at your own cost.

A 2½-hour tour with cruise-port pickup needs roughly four hours of window. A four-hour tour leaving from Paradise Island needs closer to six.

The other thing to check before you compare prices

Whether feeding the pigs is included. On the 5½-hour catamaran the pig interaction — feeding them, swimming beside them, holding a piglet — is a $30-per-person add-on listed under exclusions. On the $67 water taxi the pig beach entry fee is inside the fare.

That single line can reverse which of two tours is cheaper. Full cost breakdown.

A note on the word “Pig Beach”

Several tours leaving the cruise port are sold as Pig Beach trips and visit a Nassau-area colony rather than the Exumas. One listing describes its stop as “Athol Island’s famous Pig Beach” in the operator’s own words.

None of that is dishonest — they are real swimming pigs on a real beach, and the photograph is identical. But if you have come specifically for Big Major Cay, know that no tour leaving the cruise port goes there. Pig Beach versus Rose Island lays out the difference, and our picks rank what is left. Every tour on this site cancels free up to 24 hours ahead — check availability.