Junkanoo Beach in Nassau, Bahamas

During our 2017 Disney Cruise, while the ship was docked in Nassau, Bahamas, Laura and I made a visit to Junkanoo Beach, enjoying an afternoon there.

I’m sure there are different shore excursions to take cruise passengers to Junkanoo Beach, and there are plenty of taxi cab drivers waiting at the port to take you there, too. But paying for something like that is not necessary, as long as you don’t mind doing a little walking. We walked from the ship to the beach, and it took us about 30 minutes to get there. It would have taken us a little less time if there were not slower people walking along as well, actually. It is probably slightly more than a mile from the port to the beach, so you should definitely wear shoes for walking. And just remember, you have to walk back that same distance, too, so leave yourself a little bit of energy for that.

There are signs along the way to help guide you to the beach, although they are rather small, so you almost have to be looking for them. The distance to the beach is on the sign, but it is listed in meters instead of miles, so that can be a little confusing to us Americans. But as we walked along and saw some signs, the numbers kept getting smaller, so we knew that we were going in the right direction. Finally, we saw the sign in the photo above and knew that we were in the right place.

We really did not know what to expect before we arrived, but we were pleased with what we found. There was lots of sand and beautiful blue water, which of course are the main things that we look for in a beach. There was also a lifeguard and a restroom building, and those things are nice to have, too, although neither one of them is absolutely essential. Still, we felt better knowing both were there.

There were umbrellas and chairs for rent, but we did not bother with either of those, knowing we would not be out there long enough to justify the cost. If we had planned to spend more of the day there, that might have been different, however.

Also, the beach was not overrun with people. There were plenty of people there, of course, but there was also plenty of room for all of us. I don’t know what it was like earlier in the day, closer to the arrival time of the ships (you can see four of them in the photo above, and also a closer view in this earlier post), but I would guess there might still be a few more people there. This was around 2:00 PM, if you are curious.

Interestingly, Junkanoo beach featured long concrete walls that jutted out into the water. I would guess that those helped control erosion or something, but I am not certain. However, they did offer a nice place to walk out and get some photos. You can see in the previous photo that the lifeguard’s chair was on one of these walls, and for the above photo I walked out on that same wall to get this view of the beach. Even with the clouds that followed us all during our cruise, you can see that it was a great place to visit.

However, I should warn you that it was not entirely a family atmosphere there at Junkanoo Beach. There was what I was guessing was an excursion group from one of the cruise ships there, and they were having such things as relay races and a “twerking” contest, and the winners were rewarded with alcohol prizes, so you can imagine how that might go. We managed to mostly stay away from all of it, but it was hard not to hear it with all of the talking over the loudspeakers that they were doing. The good news for us water folks is that they were way up in the sand closer to the street, so that it did not affect our getting in the water any.

And here we are enjoying our time at Junkanoo Beach. Yes, we had already posted this photo in the first general post about our cruise, but I thought I would include it again here in its more proper context. As you can see, we did have a great time there, and we wished that we had been able to stay longer. But we wanted to make sure that we were on our ship when it sailed, so we were only there for a couple of hours. But it was enough fun that the walk back to the ship did not seem all that long, so that’s a good thing.

I think we would definitely go back there again if we happen to be in Nassau again. Nothing like a nice beach for us beach people.

“Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?” - Job 38:8-11

About the photos:

If I were to tell you all about the processing of these photos, I would start to sound like a broken record, because it is pretty much the same thing that I have been saying lately. But I will point out that turning up the white levels as I was loading the Raw file in Photoshop helped to take away a bit of the cloudy look that was present throughout the day, and throughout our cruise. Yes, it still looks cloudy, but it is a more pleasant cloudy look, I think.

Photos: Each photo is a single Raw exposure, processed in Photoshop. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10
Lens: Rokinon 7.5mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens
Date: June 9, 2017
Location: Junkanoo Beach, Nassau, Bahamas