Cruises around the Bahamas — page 34

Four days off in February will get you to the Bahamas and back.

Bahamas cruises come in two quite different forms. The first one is a short run from Florida, three or five nights — a long weekend, the kind a company books for a team trip or two friendly families share. The second one is a leg of a longer Caribbean route, where Nassau happens to be one of the ports along the way.

This page is about the first of them, because that is the one a package brochure cannot match. Below we set out where the ships leave from, what you actually see over those few days, how to match the length to your holiday, and what the fare covers and what it does not. The seller is a Polish agency: Biznes i Turystyka, phone +48 576 977 555, answered in Polish between 9:00–18:00.

Where the ships leave from

Almost every short itinerary starts in one of three ports: Miami, Port Canaveral near Orlando, and Baltimore on the Maryland shore.

Miami is the default choice. In our offer it has the most departures, a wide choice of lines and a short run from the airport to the quay. Port Canaveral makes sense when you want to add a few days at the theme parks. Baltimore follows a different logic: it lies well north of the archipelago, so the first days go on the passage itself and the whole trip grows longer.

From Poland the journey takes one or two connections, out of Warsaw and out of Kraków. Always take a night before embarkation. The ship will not wait for a late aircraft, and with two connections a delay on the first leg eats the entire margin.

Check-in closes two to three hours before departure, and being at the port well ahead of that limit is the safe reading of it. The five-hour figure belongs only to a transfer arranged by the cruise line and has nothing to do with the port itself.

What you will see

Everyone sees Nassau: the capital of the archipelago, forts above the bay, the straw market and a beach within a short ride of the pier. Freeport on Grand Bahama is quieter and less crowded with souvenir shops.

The real difference lies elsewhere — in the lines’ private islands. Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve and Great Stirrup Cay belong to the lines and admit their passengers only. It works like this: the ship comes alongside, you go down to the beach for the whole day, the meal is part of the fare, and there is no transfer, no guide and no second party off a coach.

Other lines have their own places in the Bahamas too. Disney Cruise Line calls at Castaway Cay and at Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point on Eleuthera. Royal Caribbean has Perfect Day at CocoCay and Princess Cruises the beach at Princess Cays, also on Eleuthera, while Holland America Line and Carnival ships stop at RelaxAway, Half Moon Cay. Which of these islands makes it into the programme depends on the line and the route, so we check it alongside the departure port when you choose a cruise.

This is the part of the offer a package brochure cannot replace, because a line’s private island is not sold separately.

How long it takes

There are four lengths on offer: three, five, seven and ten nights. The choice is not really about budget but about how many stops you want and how many days at sea you can take.

Three nights mean one or two ports and two days of sailing — a sensible trial if nobody in the group has sailed before and you do not know how they take the motion. Five nights add a private island and one day at sea; most company trips settle on this one. Seven- and ten-night routes already run beyond the archipelago, to Turks and Caicos or further.

For a group we book the cabins as one package so that they fall close together, and we arrange Polish-speaking assistance on board to order, once a group comes together.

Winter school holidays in Poland fall in a different week in each region, so the dates are worth checking against your own calendar. A short cruise is a near-date purchase.

A short cruise has one drawback worth knowing in advance: the daily programme is dense and leaves no spare day. If you prefer a calmer pace and long stretches out of sight of land, look at long ocean sailings instead.

What the fare covers and what it does not

The fare covers your cabin, full board in the main restaurant and the buffet, the entertainment programme and the passage between ports. Full board and all inclusive are two different things: drinks other than water, coffee and tea, speciality restaurants, shore excursions, the spa and the internet are all charged separately.

Add three items to the budget that are easy to forget on a short cruise: the flight from Poland, the night before embarkation and the shipboard account. On American itineraries the account is held in dollars and gratuities are often added automatically — ask about this before you sign, because lines handle it differently.

A balcony cabin works differently here than on the ocean. On three nights you spend little time in it and the supplement works less hard; from five nights up, and when a group sails together and spends part of the day in the cabin, it pays for itself as usual.

Who sells this and who is responsible

The organiser is Piotr Skupiewski, trading as Biznes i Turystyka Piotr Skupiewski, with its registered office at ul. Łukowa 41, 32-823 Szczepanów, Poland; NIP: 869-114-83-81, REGON: 850455159.

The organiser is entered in the Central Register of Tour Operators and Entrepreneurs Facilitating the Purchase of Linked Travel Arrangements (CEOTiPUNPUT). It holds an insurance guarantee, UNIQA nr 3800003856, valid from 5 May 2026 to 4 May 2027. The sum guaranteed is PLN 379,404.00.

The contract is concluded in euros or US dollars, depending on the booking. Payment can be made by transfer in euros or in zloty. Payments made through the payment link are settled in zloty. We do not offer instalment payments.

Call +48 576 977 555; the line is answered in Polish between 9:00–18:00.

Once the booking is paid we do not disappear. At Center Cruises we handle all of it in Polish, from the online check-in and the travel documents, through a change of cabin number or grade, to questions about the full payment and contact with the line. Online check-in on its own does not release you from registering at the port, and we say so up front. We do that during office hours. We know what that is worth: most of the calls we take come from people who bought their cruise elsewhere and have nobody to ask.