What’s Happening With Princess Cays? Princess and Carnival Are Cutting Visits
Princess Cruises and Carnival Cruise Line are rescheduling cruises to remove Princess Cays from their itineraries. Last week, both cruise lines sent notices to travel agents and affected guests indicating the changes.
While Carnival still has a handful of Princess Cays visits scheduled for 2027, Princess Cruises currently has no visits scheduled after October 2026, raising some questions about the future of the private destination.
What Is Princess Cays?
Princess Cays is a 40-acre private cruise destination on the island of Eleuthera in The Bahamas. Unlike many cruise line private destinations, it’s not actually a private island. Eleuthera is an inhabited island with a local population. It’s also home to Disney Cruise Line’s newest private destination, Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point, which opened in 2024.
The Princess Cays destination itself is private, though, and is owned by Carnival Corporation for use by its cruise lines, primarily Princess Cruises, Carnival Cruise Line, and Holland America Line.
Princess Cays Replaced With RelaxAway, Half Moon Cay
Last week, notifications started to go out with itinerary updates.
Looking at the current schedule, Coral Princess appears to be the last Princess ship scheduled to visit Princess Cays, with a call on October 30.
In November, six Carnival cruises and one Princess cruise were scheduled to visit Princess Cays. In December, there were another four Carnival cruises and four Princess cruises scheduled.
Those itineraries will now visit RelaxAway, Half Moon Cay, Carnival Corporation’s other private destination in The Bahamas. Unlike Princess Cays, Half Moon Cay is truly a private island with no local population. It’s also just undergone a massive expansion.
Carnival Corporation previously announced an estimated $80 million investment in the destination, adding a pier capable of docking two ships, new food and bar facilities, additional beach space, and tram transportation around the island.
Previously just known as Half Moon Cay, the expanded destination is now officially called RelaxAway, Half Moon Cay. Before the expansion, most of the developed areas were concentrated on the southern portion of the island. Now, the entire west coast of the island is usable by guests.
At the northern end is the new pier, with two berths that will typically be used by Carnival ships, along with new facilities built as part of the expansion. The southern end contains the original facilities and will typically serve Holland America ships.
So for guests being moved from Princess Cays to RelaxAway, Half Moon Cay, the change is an upgrade. They’re being moved to a destination where Carnival Corporation has just invested heavily in expanding the facilities and increasing capacity. The pier will make it easier to get on and off the ship, and the beaches have much softer, white sand compared to Princess Cays’ more rocky beach.
Carnival Corporation Is Putting More Focus on Its Paradise Collection
The change also comes as Carnival Corporation is putting much more emphasis on what it calls its Paradise Collection.
Introduced in 2025, the Paradise Collection brings together Carnival Corporation’s exclusive Caribbean destinations. These seven spots are Celebration Key, RelaxAway, Half Moon Cay, Isla Tropicale in Roatán, Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic, Grand Turk in Turks & Caicos, Puerta Maya in Cozumel, and Princess Cays.
And these destinations are becoming an increasingly important part of Carnival Corporation’s Caribbean strategy.
The company expects more than 9 million guests to visit Paradise Collection destinations in 2027. It also says 90% of its North American cruise brands’ Caribbean itineraries will visit at least one exclusive destination that year, while roughly half will visit two or more.
Interestingly, Princess Cays is still officially part of the Paradise Collection, even as Princess Cruises itself disappears from the destination’s schedule after October 2026.
What’s the Future for Princess Cays?
Right now, Princess Cruises has no cruises scheduled to visit Princess Cays after October 30, 2026. Carnival still has some sailings with Princess Cays on their itineraries. The first is Carnival Freedom, departing March 27, 2027.
After that, there are some sporadic visits, including Carnival Conquest’s May 31 sailing, Carnival Paradise’s August 30 sailing, and Carnival Valor’s June 12 and August 7 sailings. Of course, those cruises are still months away, so their itineraries could potentially change as well.
So what’s happening with Princess Cays?
Right now, we don’t know. Princess Cruises has traditionally been the primary cruise line visiting the destination, with Carnival Cruise Line also making regular calls. But Princess’ Caribbean deployment is changing. The cruise line currently has no Caribbean sailings scheduled from May through August 2027, instead focusing its ships on other regions during the summer.
That means there would already be significantly less traffic headed to Princess Cays during those months.
At the same time, Carnival Corporation suddenly has much more capacity at RelaxAway, Half Moon Cay. The new pier can accommodate two ships, and the expanded destination can handle significantly more guests than before. Princess is also beginning to visit Celebration Key, giving the cruise line another Carnival Corporation destination in The Bahamas.
With Carnival Corporation investing heavily in its Paradise Collection and giving its cruise lines more exclusive destinations to choose from, Princess Cays may simply no longer be as essential to its Caribbean strategy as it once was. Or maybe they’ll looking to give it a similar upgrade to increase the strength of their portfolio.
For now, though, Carnival Corporation hasn’t announced any plans to close Princess Cays, and those handful of Carnival visits currently scheduled for 2027 suggest the destination isn’t disappearing entirely.
But with Princess Cruises itself completely absent from the schedule after October, it’s certainly something worth watching.
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