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destination · Nassau
Nassau in 2026: a record 12.5 million Bahamas visitors, 86.5 per cent of them cruise passengers, and a Level 2 US advisory naming the city
Review of Nassau
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Share your experienceThe Bahamas had the biggest year in its history in 2025: a record 12.5 million visitors, up 11.4 per cent year on year and more than 70 per cent above 2019. Almost all of that growth is cruise. Sea arrivals passed 10.6 million, up 14 per cent and close to double the 2019 figure, and cruise passengers accounted for 86.5 per cent of all arrivals. Stopover visitors, the people who actually sleep in the country, numbered just over 1.8 million, about two thirds of them in Nassau and Paradise Island. Nassau is where that lands. The cruise port expected as many as 6.5 million passengers in 2025, a 15 per cent increase on 2024, with around 150 ship calls in April alone, and on 11 March it set a single-day record of more than 30,500 guests ashore. A city of Nassau's size receiving 30,500 day visitors is a specific kind of experience: Bay Street and the straw market become a queue, prices in the port district are set for people who will be gone by 17:00, and by early evening the same streets are close to empty. The other thing to be straight about is the US State Department advisory. The Bahamas sits at Level 2, exercise increased caution, the second-lowest of four levels, so this is not a country Americans are being told to avoid. But the advisory names Nassau and Freeport as the places where crime is concentrated, including armed robbery and sexual assault, and it is worth reading rather than dismissing. In practice this means the ordinary rules of a mid-sized city apply harder than most cruise passengers expect: stay in populated areas, do not walk unfamiliar neighbourhoods after dark, and treat water sports operators and jet ski rentals with real caution. The economics deserve honesty too. The cruise model means an increasing share of what a visitor spends never reaches Nassau at all. Royal Caribbean's Royal Beach Club Paradise Island opened in December 2025 on a 17-acre site at the western end of Paradise Island, with separate paid admission sold exclusively to Royal Caribbean passengers, which is the clearest possible statement of where the industry wants the day to happen. What still works is what always worked. The water around New Providence and the Exumas is some of the clearest in the Caribbean, the diving and the boat trips are excellent, and if you stay overnight, which fewer than one in seven visitors does, you get the version of Nassau that exists after the ships leave: Junkanoo culture, the food at Arawak Cay, and beaches on the eastern end of the island that are nothing like the port.
What was great
The water is the reason: some of the clearest in the Caribbean, with excellent diving, boat trips and day sails, and the Exumas within reach. Stay overnight and you get the city the day visitors never see, because after the ships leave in the late afternoon Bay Street empties out. Junkanoo is a real living culture rather than a performance for arrivals, the fish fry at Arawak Cay is where locals actually eat, and the eastern beaches on New Providence bear no resemblance to the port district.
What nearly ruined the trip
Nassau is built around a cruise flow that peaked at more than 30,500 guests ashore in a single day in March 2025, with the port expecting up to 6.5 million passengers across the year. Cruise made up 86.5 per cent of the country's record 12.5 million arrivals in 2025, while stopover visitors numbered only 1.8 million, so the whole port district is priced and staffed for people leaving before dinner. The US State Department keeps the Bahamas at Level 2 and names Nassau and Freeport as where violent crime concentrates. And the industry is steadily internalising the spend, with Royal Caribbean's members-only Royal Beach Club opening on Paradise Island in December 2025.
Safety
★★★☆☆ MixedValue for money
★★☆☆☆ OverpricedComments
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