Norwegian Cruise Line was the first to open a private stop in the Bahamas with Great Stirrup Cay nearly 50 years ago. While it has enhanced the island over the years, major improvements including its first pool and a dock are expected to open as early as November.
Construction continues on the 1,500-foot-long dock that will allow ships to avoid the tedious process of having to tender passengers by smaller boats to get onshore.
NCL President David Herrera, who referred to the island as just “GSC” said the pier will solve the problem ships have had when weather makes seas too rough for passengers to come ashore.
“We will never miss GSC again,” he said Sunday during the christening ceremony for the line’s new ship Norwegian Aqua.
When completed, it will be able to handle two of NCL’s largest ships at once, including the new class of ships that can each hold 5,100 passengers coming in 2030.
“We’re looking at it strategically, so we’re going to try and match the capacity of the island in our phased development with the ships that we’re deploying to the island,” said Tom Roesser, a product development and strategy manager for NCL during a tour of the island on Tuesday. “So we’re not going to stress the island too fast, too quickly.”
While the dock news dropped last year, NCL revealed several other enhancements this week coming to the island as well.
That includes a 28,476-square-foot pool with an 1,898-person capacity that will be available just a short walk once passengers get off the ship.
“Is that thing to scale, that thing is huge,” Herrera said when detailing the new features coming. “We are building a massive and heated pool with dozens of cabanas, miles of loungers, music, DJ, food and a swim-up bar. It’s going to be fantastic.”
Pools on private islands are not that common. Great Stirrup Cay is located adjacent Little Stirrup Cay, which Royal Caribbean leased and renamed Coco Cay, now rebranded as Perfect Day at CocoCay. It has its own massive pool plus a water park, which has a wave pool, and other bells and whistles. Carnival Cruise Line’s new private Bahamas destination Celebration Key along the southern coast of Grand Bahama Island will also feature a pool.
But you won’t find a pool, at least for now, on both Disney’s Castaway Cay and Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point, nor on MSC’s Ocean Cay, Princess Cruises’ Princess Cays or Holland America’s Half Moon Cay. At least not yet.
Herrera said the pool will be family-friendly with a zero-entry area and a separate splash pad will be constructed for kids as well.
“Of course, there’s going to be a bar for the responsible parents right next to the kids splash area,” he said.
The line is constructing a walkway from the pier to the pool area that will then be adjacent to what is currently the welcome stop for the line’s existing amenities. Although a welcome area with trams running to the rest of the island will be located at the end of the pier as well.
Each tram will have the capacity to transport 107 riders, so at peak times, passengers will only be waiting 3-5 minutes, Roesser said.
The pool, kids splash area, pier and new welcome area are the first phase of the announced improvements. Others include adding spaces that mirror popular spaces found on NCL’s ships.
One would be themed to Horizon Park, a family-oriented socialization and game area.
“It’s going to offer a variety of shaded seating options so families sort of can rest and relax and recharge and socialize together,” Roesser said. “And there’s also going to be a variety of lawn games. So corn hole, giant Jenga, Connect Four, games of that type.”
A second themed area will be for the adults-only Vibe area, with a more chill area with villas, day beds and loungers, available at an extra cost.
“We felt like we needed to provide greater options for our guests, and right now there really isn’t an adults-only section on the island,” he said. “We know that concept is very popular on our ships. It’s something that certain aspects of our consumer demographic really value, and so it’s a matter of trying to tailor to that segment on the island just as well as we do on our ships.”
For now, NCL has developed 50 of the island’s 270 acres, and by the time planned developments are in place, that will still be less than half of the large island. A good portion of the island is set aside as environmentally protected land.
“GSC is beautiful today. It’s always been one of our highest-rated destinations,” Herrera said. “Everything that makes GSC special is going to continue to be a part of our private island, but we’re just going to offer more.”
Not having a pier has been a thorn in NCL’s side as its competitors rolled them out over the years.
When asked why NCL had not built it sooner, Herrera said, “I wish we would have. I absolutely wish we would have.”
“We had plans to build a pier prior to COVID, and those were sidelined. So this has been in the works for a while, and when we did it, we wanted to make sure that we did it right,” he said.
He teased more amenity announcements coming soon.
“I’m so excited about what we announced and about what we’re going to announce in the next few months that I absolutely think that our guests who love GSC before are going to love GSC even more,” he said. “Great Stirrup Cay is about to get greater.”
