Nassau Travel Guide

Nassau is either about relaxation or shopping. If you want to switch sunbathing from the ship's lido deck to the sand, take a taxi to four-mile-long Cable Beach. To get a feel for the city, step aboard a horse-drawn surrey just beyond the ship's wharf, in Rawson's Square. Also in the Square are pitchmen for diving, fishing and boating excursions - who tend to emphasize the rum-soaked nature of their voyages.

Within walking distance from the wharf are also museums, examples of 18th and 19th century British Colonial architecture and, of course, the shopping. It begins at the bustling 'straw market', where some locals create straw goods and carve wood on the spot. Most passengers have been briefed aboard ship about the duty-free stores on Bay Street, bordering Rawson Square.

On neighboring Paradise Island is the extravagant resort Atlantis, which conducts property tours (for a fee) and also sells admission to its 34-acre water park, full of slides, waterfalls and breathtaking underwater walkways through the world's largest outdoor aquarium.

Highlights:
• Straw Market
• Bay Street
• Pompey Museum, on the slave trade
• Ardastra Gardens, with flamingos, parrots, monkeys and jaguars
• The Queen's Staircase, a 102-foot climb up limestone steps
• Forts Charlotte and Fincastle
• Atlantis