Nassau Cruise Excursion for Swimming with Pigs: What Fits Your Port Call

Duration on the ticket is only half the story; where you board matters just as much once you're racing back to the ship. The Swimming Pigs and Snorkel Tour w/ Lunch & Beach Club is the flexible one here, running anywhere from 2.5 to 4 hours depending on the date, with cruise-port pick-up built in.

The 2-hour safari boards right before the entrance to Señor Frog's, which is the closest boarding point to the cruise berths on this list and the one I'd pick if my ship's call was under six hours. The other three either pick you up at the port directly or sit a short walk from Woodes Rodgers Walk, so none of them require a long taxi ride to start the day. Compare that to boats on other Nassau tours that meet at Montagu Beach or the Paradise Island Ferry Terminal, both of which need a taxi rather than a walk; none of the four here put you in that position.

This is the part cruise passengers skip and regret, and it matters more than the couple of dollars separating the full price breakdown. Independent excursions, including every tour on this page, are not covered by a cruise line's guarantee to wait for you if you're running late. The ship sails on its schedule with you aboard or not.

The gangway usually closes about 30 minutes before the ship sails, so a 4 PM departure means the gangway shuts around 3:30 PM, not 4:00. Work backward from that number, not from your excursion's stated return time, and add a margin for Nassau traffic near the port.

The full-day catamaran publishes its own warning worth borrowing here even though it's not one of the four boats compared on this page: avoid long tours in March, April, July and August, and especially on Sundays in those months, because port and road traffic run heaviest. The same caution applies to any 4-hour tour booked on a peak sailing day. If your ship calls on one of those months, the 2-hour Swim with Pigs Safari is the safer bet over anything longer.

Booking the ship's own shore excursion costs more but comes with a wait guarantee if the tour itself runs late through no fault of yours. Booking independently, the way every tour on this page is sold, costs less and gives you a wider choice of boats and boarding points, but the ship will not hold the gangway for you if you're late getting back, no matter whose fault the delay turns out to be.

Royal Caribbean and NCL both sell their own pig trips out of Nassau at a premium over the independent boats here, and CocoCay, Royal Caribbean's private island, runs its own separate pig excursion that has sold for about $109 to $200 per person depending on demand, sometimes selling out before the ship leaves port. None of that is this page's fight to settle; if peace of mind about the gangway matters more to you than the price gap, the ship's own excursion buys that peace of mind. If you're comfortable managing your own schedule and want a better price, the four boats above do the same swim for $120 to $150.

Two separate warnings apply here and it's worth keeping them straight.

• Peak months: March, April, July and August see the heaviest port and road traffic; avoid long tours these months if your call is on the shorter side
• Sundays specifically inside those months carry an extra caution from the catamaran operator, worth applying to any longer tour
• Winter cold fronts, November through April, can cancel a boat outright rather than just delay it; every operator here rebooks or refunds for weather
• Hurricane season, June through November, is the other seasonal risk; full detail on that lives at which months the boats actually sail

None of this means skip the trip in July. It means pick the shorter boat that month and treat a longer catamaran-style day as a shoulder-season plan instead. The operators themselves publish these warnings because a missed gangway costs them a refund request and costs you a scramble at the port, so it's worth taking their own caution seriously rather than assuming a warning printed on a booking page is boilerplate.

Not suitable for

• Pregnant travellers, excluded on all four boats
• Guests with heart problems, excluded on the beach club trip
• Anyone planning to bring pets, though assistance dogs are allowed on the beach club trip

What to bring

• Your cruise card or ID and a watch you trust, since phone signal near the dock can be spotty
• Cash for tips and for lunch on the safari, which doesn't include a meal
• A towel, since it's rarely part of the included list
• Reef-safe sunscreen and a swimsuit worn under your clothes to save time
• A printed or screenshotted copy of your booking confirmation and the tour operator's phone number, useful if a tender back to the ship runs behind

Not allowed

• Large bags or luggage on the safari boat
• Weapons, sharp objects or chewing gum on the cheapest boat
• Pets other than assistance dogs on the beach club trip

The Port-Day Checklist We Give Visiting Friends

Everything on this list has cost somebody on one of these boats an hour, a fee or a photograph. None of it takes any effort the night before.

• Write down your all-aboard time, not your sailing time. The gangway shuts before the ship moves.
• Screenshot the meeting point and the operator's phone number, since port wifi is unreliable and several boats load from the same pier.
• Take small US bills for tips and the beach bar, and cash if your boat collects a landing fee on the sand.
• Wear the swimsuit under your clothes. Changing space on board is a washroom the size of a phone box.
• Pack a towel. Almost every listing puts towels under what to bring rather than what is included.
• Leave the large bag on the ship. Coolers, strollers and oversize luggage are refused on most boats.
• Eat something before boarding, because lunch on a short run may be a snack or nothing at all.
• Reef-safe sunscreen on before you leave the terminal, since an open boat gives no shade on the crossing.

The math that matters here isn't the price, it's the clock. Pick a boat that boards close to the berths, treat the stated return time as optimistic, and work backward from when the gangway actually closes rather than when your ship is scheduled to sail. Do that and any of these four boats gets you back with room to spare.

I grew up watching cruise ships come and go from Eastern Road, and the pattern hasn't changed in years: the passengers who miss the gangway are almost never on a tour that ran unusually late, they're the ones who booked a trip too long for the hours they actually had and hoped the margins would work out. Pick your boat by the clock first and the price second, and the day tends to take care of itself. I've laid out the boats that fit a port call on the homepage alongside the rest of the fleet if none of these four quite match your schedule.