Shore Excursions- Blue Lagoon Nassau, Bahamas

On our recent Carnival Conquest trip, the ship had originally planned a stop in Half Moon Caye. However, due to weather, the ship was re-directed to the beautiful Nassau, Bahamas. Since the ship was re-directed, we decided to explore a new shore excursion for us. We purchased the Dolphin Encounter, Beach Day, Waterpark and Lunch pass for the Blue Lagoon Beach in Nassau.

The dolphin experience was on my wife’s bucket list, so how can you turn down swimming with the dolphins! So, we decided that the three of us would do this excursion and make a day out of it.

When you arrive at the port, you meet right on the pier and wait for the tour conductors. They do not give you much information, but provide you with a wristband to wear, make you sign the release forms, and depending on what you purchased provide you with a second wristband and/or lunch tickets. They have many different bookable excursions, and you all end up meshed into one group on the pier. Anything blue lagoon stands together.

Finally, you are taken over to a smaller pier where there are several boats. You are placed into lines like you are about to ride a rollercoaster at an amusement park. You are placed onto these boats and driven out to the island. It takes about 25-30 minutes on the boat to get out there.

Upon arrival, you are brought into the island’s private cove. The boats park and all guests exit the boat onto the dock. There really wasn’t much information provided, it was more of a find it on your own kind of day.

After getting to the island, it was quickly realized that the “waterpark” wasn’t a waterpark at all. The “waterpark” was inflatable items in the water at the beach. The “waterpark” consisted of a trampoline, slide and a few other smaller floaties. This was the first questionable moment we had with Blue Lagoon.

We went over to the dolphin encounter at our assigned time, and we were placed into the water on a slimy platform. You were placed near the edge and the dolphin interacted with you based upon the trainer’s command. This whole experience was amazing! The dolphin was friendly and well trained. The dolphin smiled for photos and out of the water you went. The whole experience lasted about 10-15 minutes.

After the experience you go to the photo hut to purchase the photos, they took of you. You can purchase all photos taken of you for a flat price or pay per photo. We selected all our photos because they were a family of three and made the most sense for the number of photos. They do not give you photos on the spot. You are emailed a link to them within 48 hours after leaving the island. Unfortunately, this was problem number two for us. Some of the photos that promised (i.e.) the dolphin’s hug, were missing for certain people in our group. After contacting photo hut via email, we were told the photos weren’t taken and there was nothing they could do. They didn’t offer any sort of refund, compensation or resolution.

After this we decided to go eat lunch and then head back to the ship since we were over the island at this point. The food lines were interesting to say the least. They had a few food options, and overall it was a unique meal. We ate the food and left the food hut. Within 30 minutes, we started to feel ill. The food didn’t settle well with us. So, we decided to head back to the ship since we weren’t feeling well. The staff on the dock refused to allow us to leave the island. They wouldn’t let us wait on the dock for a ship and even when a ship arrived, they wouldn’t allow our bands to board the ship. They told us we had to wait for another ship since it was too early for our wristbands to return. We were now ill, stuck on the island and the staff didn’t seem to have a care in the world.

While the dolphin experience was unique and a bucket list item, we would not return to Blue Lagoon Beach, “Waterpark”, and dolphin experience again.