I told David I wanted to see how crazy it was at the Dining Pavilion, where free food was provided off the ship. When dining you can see the wild chickens about. I thanked him as we headed back to the shoreline. It was a cool experience and I was glad I had come across him.
I headed back after seeing him and told David to bring Andrew out and the fish surrounded us all. He was feeding them and lots of striped yellow fish came up to him. As I went further I noticed a young man with fish food. I followed along a rocky shoreline and came across a large school of fish.
With David back, I decided to try my hand at what I could see. She said she had been there before, but they allowed you to go further out then and she had come across a stingray. He reported that he saw some colorful fish, but nothing else and a lady with snorkeling gear had found a conch shell. The type of fish we saw at Half Moon Cay. While I played with him, David went out to deeper water closer to where people were snorkeling to look for aquatic life. The downside with all the lounge chairs was the lack of a lot of sand space. We made little sandcastles and ponds that the waves kept casting away. My first activity with Andrew was to play in the sand.
On the plus side, we easily found a few lounge chairs on the beach and it was not crowded. It was still a little cool when we arrived at the beach. If you look at Google Maps it is listed at Little San Salvador Island. Tenders are the boats that you use to go from the cruise ship to the shore when there is not a large pier available for docking. We took our time and headed out on a tender that worked best for us. The required age for the encounter is six, so we made it mostly a beach day with a chance to see the stingrays from the shoreline. The best part today we hope will be viewing the stingrays! We had gone here previously on another Holland America Cruise and participated in the Stingray Encounter. It is filled with a variety of island activities including stingray encounters, glass-bottom boat viewing, snorkeling or just hanging out on the beach and swimming in the pristine Caribbean Sea. Though the project is locally controversial, Disney hopes to complete the new facility and bring it online in the early 2020s.Half Moon Cay, Holland America’s private oasis, was our first port. The $250 million-plus project is currently in the environmental impact assessment phase, and Disney is already consulting with local businessowners about ways that they may benefit from construction work. Disney recently reached an agreement with the government of the Bahamas for a development at Lighthouse Point on the island of Eleuthera, about 110 nm to the southeast of Castaway Cay, where it has plans to build a second private cruise port. are up double digits versus the same time last year," he said in an earnings call in May.ĭisney Cruise Line operates a private resort called Castaway Cay, located near Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, and it is now looking to build a second. "I have to say that all that love from our guests is turning in a nice return for our shareholders too. The new "Perfect Day at Coco Cay" is very popular with RCCL's customers, and it is generating returns, according to CEO Richard Fain. Number-two cruise operator Royal Caribbean recently finished revamping its Coco Cay site with a $250 million overhaul, including the tallest waterslide in North America, 12 smaller waterslides, a wave pool, a 1,600-foot zipline, a helium balloon ride and a luxury resort area. The enhancements at Half Moon Cay parallel the major investments that Carnival's competitors are making at their own private island resorts. The pier is part of an $80 million expansion of the facility, which serves vessels in the Carnival Cruise Line and Carnival-owned Holland America fleets. The new pier at Half Moon Cay was announced in a report from the Central Bank of the Bahamas and was first publicized by Cruise Radio. Among the latest developments is a new berthing pier for Half Moon Cay, which will allow cruisers to access the Carnival-operated site without tendering for the first time. Cruise line private islands have become an important mainstay of the Caribbean cruise industry, and the leading operators continue to invest in new sites and new improvements.