Princess Cruises Drops Its Namesake Bahamas Beach Stop

Princess Cruises has pulled Princess Cays, its 40-acre Bahamas beach, from published itineraries after October 2026. The last sailing that still lists the stop is Regal Princess, leaving Fort Lauderdale on October 17, 2026.

Most of those beach days now go to RelaxAway, Half Moon Cay and to Celebration Key, private spots run by sister brands inside Carnival Corporation. Princess says the Eleuthera beach is not closing. The change is about which ships are sent where, and which docks can take them.

Princess Cays Vanishes From the Line’s Own Book

Princess told travel agents and booked guests in late August 2026 that fall calls at Princess Cays had been rewritten. A review of the line’s published Caribbean schedule shows the destination gone after October, with no Princess ship listed there for 2027 or 2028.

Six Princess ships that used the Eleuthera stop are being pointed at the sister beaches instead, among them Sun Princess, Caribbean Princess, Star Princess, Regal Princess, Enchanted Princess and Sky Princess. Remaining Princess Cays calls were still being stripped from individual ships in mid-September, including on Sun Princess.

Princess never issued a standalone announcement. The line confirmed the shift only after guests saw new port names in their bookings. Shore excursions, cabanas and beach rentals tied to Princess Cays are being canceled and refunded to the original form of payment, with no action required from the guest.

THE CALLS THAT MOVE THE BEACH DAY

1. 1992: Princess Cays opens as a private beach resort on the southern tip of Eleuthera.
2. December 1997: Holland America opens Half Moon Cay on Little San Salvador Island.
3. July 19, 2025: Carnival Cruise Line opens Celebration Key on Grand Bahama.
4. November 13, 2025: Princess adds Celebration Key to its Caribbean program, with Star Princess set for the first call.
5. June 1, 2026: RelaxAway’s new north pier opens at Half Moon Cay, and Carnival Sunrise is the first ship to dock.
6. Late August 2026: Princess notifies agents and guests that Princess Cays calls are being rewritten.
7. October 17, 2026: Regal Princess leaves Fort Lauderdale on the last published Princess sailing that still lists Princess Cays.
8. November 1, 2026: Star Princess is due to make the line’s first call at Celebration Key.

That sequence is the whole operational story. The namesake beach is still on the map. The line that gave it a name is not going there.

Where Those Beach Days Go Now

Princess told guests that the majority of the published fall calls have shifted to RelaxAway, Half Moon Cay, with some sailings sent to Celebration Key. Both stops sit inside Carnival Corporation. Neither one is Princess Cays, and neither one is reached the same way.

Half Moon Cay is a private island Holland America opened in 1997. Carnival spent 2026 splitting it. A new north pier, tram, beach grills and bars opened on June 1, 2026 under the RelaxAway name, built so Carnival’s largest ships can dock instead of tender. Holland America still tenders to the older south side. Princess is being folded into that shared island, not into a Princess-only beach.

Celebration Key is different again. It is not a private island. It is a purpose-built resort on Grand Bahama, with a cruise pier, lagoons and an adults-only club sold as an extra. Princess put it on the books in November 2025 as the newest stop in a Caribbean season of first Princess call on November 1, 2026, from Star Princess, then Regal Princess on November 9, 2026.

THREE BAHAMAS BEACH DAYS, THREE DOCKS

Jim Berra, Princess Cruises chief commercial officer, sold the Grand Bahama stop as more Caribbean, not as a substitute for Eleuthera. “Celebration Key is an extraordinary destination oasis and adding it to our itineraries gives guests even more ways to savor the Caribbean,” he said when the 2027-28 program was unveiled.

Carnival Built a Four-Ship Beach on Grand Bahama

Carnival Cruise Line opened Celebration Key as a $600 million destination on July 19, 2025, when Carnival Vista arrived with nearly 5,000 guests. Christine Duffy, Carnival’s president, called it the first phase of that outlay, with more to come. A separate $100 million pier extension was already under way that week.

That extension is now finished. Carnival Corporation said in June 2026 that Celebration Key can take four ships at once and more than 13,000 guests in a day, adding about 200 ship calls and 700,000 guest arrivals a year. Twenty Carnival ships already list the stop. From September 2026, three-ship and four-ship days were due to become routine. Princess and AIDA Cruises were scheduled to join later in 2026.

CELEBRATION KEY BY THE NUMBERS

• First-year count: 2.4 million guests in the twelve months after opening.
• Next-year forecast: 3.5 million guests by the second anniversary.
• 2028 target: four million guests a year.
• On the ground: over one mile of beach, five zones and more than 30 food and drink spots, including a 3.5-acre Starfish Lagoon.

Josh Weinstein, Carnival Corporation’s chief executive, called Celebration Key a centerpiece of the company’s Paradise Collection and said finishing the pier early helped meet demand. That is the math behind a Princess itinerary change that was never billed as an island closure. A $600 million beach with four empty berths needs ships. Princess ships are a way to fill them, and Carnival’s Celebration Key guest pages already treat the place as a shared Carnival Corporation stop rather than a Carnival-only club.

Princess guests who want the layout in advance can use the Princess guide to Celebration Key visits, which maps Paradise Plaza, the two lagoons, Pearl Cove Beach Club and the Lokono Cove shops. Pearl Cove is sold as a premium extra. The 2027-28 Caribbean season around those calls is Princess’s largest on paper: 187 departures, nine ships, 43 itineraries, 31 ports and five homeports, including a new Miami base.

Eleuthera Still Requires a Tender Boat

Princess Cays is a slice of Eleuthera, not a standalone island. The resort covers 40 acres with over half a mile of sand on the island’s southern tip, about 50 miles east of Nassau. Eleuthera itself runs about 110 miles long and two miles wide and is home to over 12,000 people. The cay has no permanent residents.

Ships cannot dock. Shallow water keeps them at anchor, and guests take a 20-minute water shuttle to Love Boat Marina. From there the day is bungalows, a kids’ area, an adults-only pocket among the palms, kayaks, snorkeling, a banana-boat ride and a stingray encounter in the shallows. It is a beach, not a park.

That tender is the operational problem Carnival already solved at the other two stops. Duffy said Half Moon Cay used to lose calls when wind and weather made the boat run unsafe, and the line could not bring its biggest ships. The new north pier ended that for Carnival. Celebration Key never had the problem. Princess Cays still does. Upgrading it would mean dredging, a pier, breakwaters and a much larger plant on a thin, remote peninsula.

Disney Cruise Line already made that kind of bet on the same island. Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point sits on Eleuthera’s southeastern tip with a pier, on land Disney bought and only partly built out. Princess Cays is the older, smaller neighbor, still reached by tender. Regulars describe it as a vintage stop with a strong beach and few of the new slides and lagoons. That is a compliment to the sand, and a warning for a company that just spent $600 million somewhere else.

Carnival Keeps the Cay on the Calendar

Princess’s public line is short, and it draws a hard distinction between the destination and the brand’s own schedule.

Princess Cays is not closing. The destination is and will remain open to all cruise lines for calls year-round. As with all cruise vacations, itineraries may occasionally be adjusted for a variety of operational and commercial reasons.

Princess Cruises, written statement

Carnival Cruise Line still lists Princess Cays on Bahamas sailings through March 2028. Carnival ships have used the beach since 2017, so the place is already a shared asset, not a Princess-only hideaway. A Carnival Corporation spokesperson said the port remains available to any of the group’s lines, Princess included. Nothing in the current Princess book takes them up on that.

For Eleuthera, that split matters more than a brand slogan. Local staff still have Carnival calls on the calendar. They lose the Princess ships that named the place and filled it for more than three decades. The cay can host other lines. It does not have a dock that makes those calls easy, which is why the open-to-all promise is weaker than it sounds.

Waterparks, Piers and a Club Across the Bahamas

Princess is moving while every rival is building a louder private day. The Eleuthera beach Princess is leaving looks smaller next to those projects, which is the point of the reshuffle.

WHAT THE OTHER LINES OPENED

• Norwegian Cruise Line: Great Tides Waterpark opened on Great Stirrup Cay on September 4, 2026, a nearly six-acre park with 19 slides and a 170-foot Tidal Tower.
• Royal Caribbean: Perfect Day at CocoCay already runs a large waterpark, and the line opened a private Bahamas beach club at the end of 2025.
• Disney Cruise Line: Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point gives Disney a pier on the same island as Princess Cays.
• MSC Cruises: Plans for a private Caribbean island called Sandy Cay sit on top of existing private beach calls.

Carnival answered that race with Celebration Key and the Half Moon Cay pier, then reached across its own brands for the extra hulls. Princess Cays, still a tender stop with bungalows and a barbecue-pace day, does not win that comparison on paper. It wins it only if a guest wants the older beach, and those guests now have to sail Carnival to get it.

The Beach Day Moves Off Eleuthera

A Princess Caribbean cruise still has a private beach day. It is just someone else’s private beach. At RelaxAway the guest lands on an island built for Holland America and rebuilt for Carnival. At Celebration Key the guest lands on Grand Bahama, walks through Paradise Plaza and chooses a lagoon, a slide tower or a paid club. The sand is still Bahamian. The name on the map is not Princess.

Princess Cays remains on Carnival’s books through March 2028, open, staffed and reachable by tender. After October 17, 2026, the line whose name is on the beach is scheduled to steam past it.