A record number of passengers visited the Nassau Cruise Port on Sunday, June 12, which happened to be the one-year anniversary since cruising in Nassau resumed.
20,210 passengers in total visited the port on Sunday, marking the port’s biggest one-day passenger count since the cruise industry shutdown in 2020 and subsequent restart in 2021.
The passengers were from six ships: Norwegian Sky, Carnival Conquest, Carnival Magic, Carnival Freedom, Freedom of the Seas, and Independence of the Seas.
On June 12 of last year, Royal Caribbean’s Adventure of the Seas made its long-awaited return to Nassau, and was just the second cruise call made in North America and the Caribbean since the shutdown in March 2020.
After the long hiatus, calls to Nassau have increased in 2022, according to port CEO Mike Maura, Jr. ““We have welcomed 553 calls so far this year, which is 145 calls more than we received from June to December 2021,” he said. “This puts us on a healthy track to finish the year with over 1,100 calls. As of last Sunday, more than 1.8 million passengers have visited Nassau since June 2021 and the numbers continue to climb.”
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Nassau Cruise Port is scheduled to welcome over 4 million passengers next year, which is 200,000 more than it had in 2019.
“We have come a long way since March 2020, and we have much to celebrate as we complete the reimagining of the waterfront and bring even more passengers to little Nassau,” Maura continued. “We are making excellent progress on the construction with the Arrivals Terminal and Junkanoo Museum steadily rising above the port.”
Even after cruise ships began coming back to Nassau, the downtown remained quiet for months as businesses remained shuttered following the devastating hit they took during the pandemic. Now, the city is recovering.
“Downtown Nassau is still recovering from the COVID shut down, but most of the stores have reopened,” he added. “Hundreds of people are back at work, and on a six-ship day like last Sunday, the downtown core is as busy and vibrant as ever.”
