How Much Does It Cost to Swim With Pigs in Nassau? (2026)
Four ways to reach a pig beach from Nassau, priced from $129 to about $900, with what each one includes and what it quietly leaves out.
There are two honest answers to this, and they are $129 and about $900. One is a four-hour boat ride from downtown Nassau to a pig colony on Rose Island. The other is a full day out to Big Major Cay in the Exumas, where the pigs became famous in the first place. Most people asking the question want the first number and do not realise the second exists.
How much does it cost to swim with pigs in Nassau?
Booked direct, the Nassau-area price ladder starts at $129 for the swimming pigs and private beach club escape and runs to $195 for the four-stop three-island speedboat day. Carnival sells its own version at $159.99 an adult. Going to the original Exuma pigs instead costs roughly $260 to $900 depending on whether you sail or fly.
The gap between $129 and $195 is not a quality ladder. It is a difference in how much of the day is filled. The cheaper trip is one crossing to one island with the pigs, lunch and a beach club afterwards. The dearer one strings together four stops, including wild sea turtles, and feeds you a jerk BBQ lunch with a rum punch on the way. Where the colonies actually are, and which operator runs which beach, is set out in our guide to the pig colonies closest to Nassau.
What do the two Nassau pig boats include for the money?
The $129 trip is a 45-passenger boat from the Lukka Kairi hub in downtown Nassau, running four hours with the pig encounter, feeding, a Bahamian lunch with one soft drink, snorkel gear, paddleboards and beach-club access. The $195 trip is a speedboat with four stops and a cooked lunch aboard.
Both leave in the morning, both run four hours, and both put you back downtown well inside a normal cruise window. What separates them is the itinerary. The cheaper boat runs past Paradise Island and the Pearl Island lighthouse, makes a 10-minute Green Turtle Cay stop when the weather allows, then settles at Rose Island for the pigs and the beach. The four-stop speedboat day adds Green Cay for wild sea turtles and about an hour of reef snorkelling at Pearl Island before it reaches the pigs at all.
| Way to reach the pigs | Price per person | Hours | What is included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Swimming pigs and private beach club escape, direct | $129 | 4 | Boat, pig encounter and feeding, Bahamian lunch plus a soft drink, snorkel gear, paddleboards, beach club |
| Three-island speedboat tour, direct | $195 | 4 | Speedboat, Green Cay turtles, Pearl Island reef snorkelling, Rose Island pigs, jerk BBQ lunch, one rum punch |
| Carnival swimming pigs and beach club excursion | $159.99 adult, $148.99 child | ship day | Lunch, beach club, and the ship-waits guarantee |
| Rose Island full-day adventure, direct | $139 | 4 | Reef snorkelling, a Green Cay turtle stop, the 007 Beach Club and aviary. No pig stop is listed |
| Exuma day trip by boat | about $260 to $440 | 8 to 12 | Roughly three hours of speedboat each way to Big Major Cay |
| Exuma day trip by air | about $715 to $900 | 8 to 12 | A 30-minute flight to Staniel Cay, then a boat to the beach |
The Rose Island row is in the table because people book it expecting pigs. At $139 it sits between the two pig trips on price, but the published itinerary is reef, turtles and a beach club with hammocks and an aviary. Book it for the snorkelling, not the livestock.
The Nassau boats compared in this guide
Swimming Pigs & Private Beach Club Escape from Nassau
Four hours from the Lukka Kairi hub. The cheapest boat that actually reaches a pig colony, with lunch and beach-club time after the encounter.
Nassau 3 Islands Tour with Snorkeling, Pig Beach, Turtles & Lunch
The $195 speedboat day: Green Cay turtles, Pearl Island reef time, then the pigs, with a jerk BBQ lunch and one rum punch.
Rose Island Full-Day Adventure from Nassau – Snorkel, Turtles & Private Beach
Reef snorkelling, a Green Cay turtle stop and the 007 Beach Club. Book it for the water time; there is no pig stop on the published itinerary.
Nassau Cultural Trolley Tour – Historic Sites & Bahamian Vibes
A two-hour land loop if the pig stop is not the day you want. Downtown historic sites, no boat required.
Is the cruise ship's swimming pigs excursion cheaper?
No. Carnival's Swimming Pigs and Sun Cay Beach Club with Lunch is $159.99 for an adult and $148.99 for a child, against $129 direct for a comparable four-hour trip. The site's published figure is that the ship's desk generally runs 40 to 60 percent above direct rates, and the pigs are one of the closer gaps rather than one of the wider ones.
What the extra buys is the guarantee that the ship waits for its own excursions. That matters more on a tight port call than on a normal one, and the trade-off is worth thinking through rather than dismissing. The current line-up is published on Carnival's Nassau shore excursions page, and it is worth checking against the direct rate before you commit. We weigh the wider question in our piece on buying excursions at the ship's desk.
What does it cost to see the original Exuma pigs?
Roughly $260 to $440 by boat, or about $715 to $900 flying, for a day of eight to twelve hours. Big Major Cay is about 129 km from Nassau, which is close to three hours of speedboat in each direction or a 30-minute flight to Staniel Cay.
That is the trip most photographs on the internet actually show, and it is a serious day out rather than a shore excursion. It is not realistic on a standard cruise call, and it costs two to seven times the Nassau-area price for an encounter that is not fundamentally different once you are in the water. If you are travelling on your own schedule and the original beach matters to you, the Exuma day trip in detail covers the logistics, and how far the Exuma pigs really are settles the distance question on its own.
What is not included in the price?
On both Nassau pig trips the exclusions are the same short list: towels, alcohol, action cameras, gratuities and sunscreen. Lunch is included on both. Hotel pickup is not, unless you choose it as a paid option on the three-island tour.
None of that is a hidden fee in the way some Nassau tours carry hidden fees, but it does move the real number. Budget for a tip, bring your own towel from the ship or the hotel, and expect to pay at the bar if you want a Kalik with lunch rather than the included soft drink. The full picture of what every tour on this site costs once the extras are counted sits in the full price list for Nassau tours.
What is the cheapest way to swim with pigs in Nassau?
The $129 swimming pigs and private beach club escape is the cheapest route we can find that actually reaches a pig colony, and there is no free version. The colonies sit on Rose Island, Pearl Island and Athol Island, all of which need a boat, and there is no scheduled public ferry to any of them.
Chartering privately is the only other way, and it is far dearer: a half-day private boat out of Nassau runs roughly $700 to $1,200 for four to six hours, which only makes sense split across six or more people. The official Bahamas swimming pigs page is the place to check which colonies are open to visitors before you price anything. So the honest ranking is $129 direct, then $159.99 on a Carnival ship, then $195 for the fuller speedboat day, then several hundred dollars for a charter or an Exuma run. Before you spend any of it, read whether the pig stop is worth it, because the encounter is a short slice of a long day. The rest of the nine Nassau tours we list are there for the days when it is not the thing you want most. Prices are current rather than fixed, so check the live listing before you count on one.