Princess Cays is Princess cruise line's private resort on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas.
Eleuthera is located 60 miles east of Nassau and is surrounded by clusters of cays and sand bars. Princess Cays is one of those cays located 30 miles from Rock Sound in South Eleuthera. In addition to Princess cruises, Carnival cruise line also visits this private resort. Being a tender port, you'll access the resort via a tender boat. This means that in the event of rough seas or bad weather, you may miss this port.
It's about a 10 minute ride from the cruise ship to the dock in Princess Cays. The longest part truly is waiting for your tender boat to fill up. Once docked at Love Boat Marina (what a cute name!), you'll step off the tender boat onto a pier.
The main resort is to your left, however, there is a quieter area if you go to the right which is seen from the tender boat on your way in. This is the South side of the island. If you pre-booked an excursion reserving a clamshell, you may get one assigned in this area called Little Bay, or in the main resort area on the North side.
To access the South side of the island, you'll need to go up a staircase, over a bridge, down another staircase and then follow the path to the beach. Without needing to be said, the South side is not at all wheelchair friendly.
You can get some nice pictures on the staircases and up on the bridge. Make sure to look down into the water! The water is clear and you might even spot some fish.
While up on the bridge you can see the narrow part of the channel that separates the North and South parts of the island and the Service Bridge.
You'll walk down a sandy path and find the Reef Runner Bar, Sea Breeze Grill, basketball and volleyball courts and numerous lounge chairs on the beach. I'm not certain if any food is served at the Sea Breeze Grill so most likely you'll have to walk to the North side in order to eat lunch.
If you don't want to spend the extra money on a bungalow (or they were sold out when you went to book), this area is a good alternative to get away from the crowds. We had a Dreams Studio photoshoot booked which is how we discovered it. Our photographer knew exactly where to go in order to capture photos on an essentially private beach (in the morning at least).
An added bonus are the numerous seashells found on the South side and of course, the view of your ship! I found a conch shell right in the sand and we found a lounge chair covered in various shells and even sand dollars (left by a local)! We grabbed a few with the intention of bringing them home. Later I noticed a fishy smell and asked my son to bring them back to the water. As he was walking down to the water, one of them actually started crawling out and touched his arm!
Tip: If you intend to bring any seashells back onboard, they must be clean and not have any smell to them. Otherwise they will be confiscate by security when you get back onboard.
There was some seaweed on the beach when we visited in November 2022 at Little Bay. I did not notice any seaweed on the main resort beaches however those beaches aren't as open and wide as Little Bay.
If being secluded is your thing, you can walk to the opposite side of Little Bay and get a lounge chair at the Lagoon Lookout.
The main part of the resort (North side) begins with the tourism info desk, first aid station, restrooms, lockers and a shop. If you booked a Bungalow, you'll also find the shuttle stop here. Princess Cays has a sidewalk that takes you from the pier at Love Boat Marina all the way through the Adult Sanctuary Bungalow area. The main resort property is very stroller and wheelchair friendly! I wish I had known this prior to visiting as I would have brought our stroller. We booked a Bungalow (picked the furthest one out) and the walk to the lunch buffet and back felt like miles with a 1 and 2 year old! 😅
If you want to get a picture with the Welcome to Princess Cays sign as soon as you get to the island, you'll want to walk to the left towards the security area from the First Aid area.
Princess Cays features a kids' area called Pelican's Perch complete with foam building blocks, lounge chairs, a playground with slides and a 2' deep pool! Do note that children must be potty trained to enter the pool. Absolutely no swim diapers allowed!
The Grill Crazy BBQ Pavilion is where the main lunch buffet is served. It has 4 buffet lines (all same food) which helps minimize having long lines. The buffet consists of hot dogs, hamburgers, salads, fruits, chips and salsa, and desserts. There's also a self-serve station at the end where you can get water, tea and lemonade complimentary. Any other beverage must be purchased from a bar. If you purchased the drink package, it does not work on the island.
My only complaint was the huge amounts of smoke in buffet line #1. This was due to the design of the structure with the ceiling being so low and the grills inside with fans blowing the smoke to the exterior. You can see the smoke in the second picture below. I have asthma so it made it quite hard for me to breathe. I didn't notice it bothering others though. It looked like the middle lines had less smoke, so if smoke bothers you, I'd recommend getting in buffet line #2 or 3.
There are many picnic tables outside in the pavilion where you can eat, but you can just as easily take your food back to the beach where you left your belongings. It's not a very large resort. Since we had a Bungalow for the day, we took our food back there and ate. We noticed a lot of people doing the same.
Next to Grill Crazy is the Crow's Nest Overlook. We didn't get a chance to climb it, but I can imagine you'd get some nice views of the island as it goes up 2 stories.
There are plenty of blue lounge chairs throughout the resort property in addition to the private bungalow areas.
The sand is white and the water clear. The beach is made up of several lagoons so the water is relatively calm with no big waves.
Princess Cays has quite a few rocky areas and large rocks in the water so definitely bring your water shoes!
If you're into snorkeling, you'll definitely want to bring your snorkeling gear as well as there are so many fish to see! I also spotted a few crabs on the rocks and we had a school of squid swim past us.
You may want to bring bug spray with you when visiting Princess Cays, especially if you plan on going to the South side. I kept swatting at bugs when we were on the beach at Little Bay. I didn't notice any when we were around our Bungalow on the North side of the island but read many complaints from others who were on the North side in our cruise group on Facebook.
Princess Cays is a nice relaxing day in a beautiful setting! I wasn't sure I would enjoy it as I've read so many negative reviews due to the rockiness of the beach and many comparing it to Half Moon Cay - a comparison that cannot be made. It's like comparing apples to bananas. Both are beautiful in their own ways.
I made sure to bring our water shoes and honestly thought that Princess Cays was beautiful! The rocks make the beach unique and my daughter loved swimming to them and jumping off.
If you'd like to read about our Bungalow experience and the Bungalow Beach, click here.