NCL set for water park showdown with Royal Caribbean in Bahamas

Norwegian Cruise Line has the bigger island than Royal Caribbean in the Bahamas, but it won’t be until later this year it will be ready to compete for travelers seeking water park thrills on their cruise vacation.

NCL’s Great Stirrup Cay is 270 acres, but has been left relatively undeveloped over the years while Royal Caribbean took the neighboring 125-acre Little Stirrup Cay and sunk $250 million into a series of revamps that included renaming it Perfect Day at CocoCay.

Part of that was a water park with 13 slides, wave pool and what was touted as the tallest water slide in North America at the time at 135 feet. It’s been towering just a half mile and within sight of NCL’s Great Stirrup Cay since it opened in 2019.

Norwegian Cruise Line’s private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay is undergoing a series of upgrades, seen on Sunday, March 29, 2026, with competing cruise line Royal Caribbean’s private destination Perfect Day at CocoCay seen in the distance. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

NCL looks to remedy that with the opening of its own water park by late summer.

“Sometimes others will launch something, and you watch it, and what you can do is make it a whole lot better,” said NCL President Marc Kazlauskas.

NCL’s retort is the Great Tides Waterpark, which will feature more slides on a bigger swath of land along with a 9,000-square-foot splashpad for kids, an 828-foot-long “dynamic river” and a first-in-industry cliff diving feature.

“That’s our opportunity here. With 19 slides and 6 acres and scale and size, you could imagine what we were able to do,” Kazlauskas said. “What we’re anticipating is we’re going to go from great to greater. … At the end of the day, it’s not bad to have others and see what others do and be able to have better.”

For now it remains a construction site, with an empty trench laid out where the dynamic river would be and blue poles sticking up through the dirt for what will eventually be the tallest point on the island.

Construction continues on Great Tides Waterpark on Norwegian Cruise Line's...

Construction continues on Great Tides Waterpark on Norwegian Cruise Line’s private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay seen on Sunday, March 29, 2026. The 6-acre, 19-slide attraction is aiming to open by the end of summer 2026. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

Chris Doval, NCL’s senior director of development strategy and program management, discusses construction progress for the Great Tides Waterpark coming to Norwegian Cruise Line’s private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay seen on Sunday, March 29, 2026. The 6-acre, 19-slide attraction is aiming to open by the end of summer 2026. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

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Chris Doval, NCL’s senior director of development strategy and program management, has been working on the water park plans for two years, and was here when they broke ground last summer. Getting it done before the end of summer this year will be a challenge, he said.

“The timetable, it’s achievable. It’s not like it’s insane. Maybe it’s a challenge, but it’s achievable,” he said.

The biggest hurdles have been the logistics of assembling the designs in conjunction with partners WhiteWater West, which helped design Royal Caribbean’s water park as well.

“We’ve been able to overcome a lot of that by doing a lot of things upstream, working with our partners, being able to work with them on pre-assembly, early fabrication, making sure that we have shipment timing corrected,” Doval said.

For cruisers comparing water park towers on the two islands, NCL’s “Tidal Tower” will stand at 170 feet, which is about 5 feet taller, structure-wise, than Royal Caribbean’s “Daredevil’s Tower.” It will also be sitting on one of the highest points of Great Stirrup Cay at about 40 feet above sea level.

While the tower may be taller, NCL’s tallest slide will actually not be as high up as its competitor’s, coming in at 132 feet tall compared to 135 feet tall over at Royal Caribbean.

“We’re trying to achieve a certain minimum rider height requirement. So sometimes you take those 4 feet away and you just say, ‘Let’s get a better experience for our guests and get more of a rider age group demographic.’ We had it in mind,” he said.

NCL’s height requirements will run between 36 and 42 inches for the tower slides whereas all of the rides on Royal’s tower have a 48-inch height requirement.

This rendering shows the nearly 6-acre Great Tides Waterpark slated...

This rendering shows the nearly 6-acre Great Tides Waterpark slated to open in summer 2026 as part of Norwegian Cruise Line’s plans to revamp its private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay. (Courtesy/Norwegian Cruise Line)

This rendering shows the 170-foot-tall Tidal Tower, home to eight of the Great Tides Waterpark’s 19 slides. The water park is slated to open in summer 2026 as part of Norwegian Cruise Line’s plans to revamp its private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay. (Courtesy/Norwegian Cruise Line)

This rendering shows Cliffside Cove, part of the Great Tides Waterpark that is part of Norwegian Cruise Line’s plans to revamp its private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay. (Courtesy/Norwegian Cruise Line)

This closeup rendering shows the the family slide that lets four people down at once as well as the Grotto Bar underneath, all part of Cliffside Cove within Great Tides Waterpark, expected to open in summer 2026 as part of Norwegian Cruise Line’s plans to revamp its private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay. (Courtesy/Norwegian Cruise Line)

This closeup rendering shows the 10- and 15-foot-tall jumps that are part of Cliffside Cove within Great Tides Waterpark, expected to open in summer 2026 as part of Norwegian Cruise Line’s plans to revamp its private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay. (Courtesy/Norwegian Cruise Line)

This rendering shows the kids splash zone that is part of the Great Tides Waterpark coming in summer 2026 as part of Norwegian Cruise Line’s revamp its private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay. (Courtesy/Norwegian Cruise Line)

This rendering shows the “dynamic river” that is part of the Great Tides Waterpark coming in summer 2026 as part of Norwegian Cruise Line’s revamp its private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay. (Courtesy/Norwegian Cruise Line)

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NCL, though, is bringing something unique to this part of the world: the Nautilus, one of WhiteWater West’s signature creations.

“You see like a shell-looking structure. But this tube comes into the structure, and kind of gets washed around, and the guests can go down backward, or they can come down forward,” he said. “So what it does is it increases rider repeatability, because you’re saying, ‘OK, I just went forward. I have to go backward when I go through the next time.’ So you’ll want to go back onto the ride.”

Instead of a lazy river, NCL’s “dynamic river” will take from four to six minutes to go around the park with four entrances and even a cove that features a bar. Along the ride, one feature Doval hopes sets it apart will be a dark tunnel.

“The immersive tunnel is 110 feet long, 30 feet of darkening, 80 feet of entertainment,” he said. “We are mixing LED with projections to give you a theme, to make sure that the experience is enhanced for our guests. It is unique.”

Another section of the park will plunge those who are up for it into a more thrilling experience.

Called Cliffside Cove, it features a family ride called the Fiesta Slide that allows up to four people to slide down concurrently, along with a pair of cliff jumps from 10 and 15 feet into a deep pool. It also includes what Doval called “shotgun slides” that curl around and shoot riders out into the pool from 3 feet above the surface.

“This is more of our adventurous part of the water park,” he said, noting it will have higher minimum height requirements.

A big part of the cove is the Grotto Bar for those who choose to watch instead of ride.

“You’re going to have the spectator approach here, so you can actually go out into the courtyard here and actually see friends jump off the cliff, see friends go down the Fiesta slide,” he said. “The whole thought with this location is spectators being able to watch, friends, families, being able to interact, enjoy the moment, a little bit more thrilling, adventurous experience. So we have something for everyone at our water park.”

Some of the features in the water park are a first for the Bahamas and Caribbean, he said. The Fiesta slide, for instance, had just one similar ride, at the Evermore golf resort in Orlando. The dark portion of the dynamic river has only been used in two parks, one in Tennessee and on in Canada. And the Nautilus ride has only been introduce in one place in the Midwest.

“We’ve worked with our design firms to actually go look at what competition is doing, new ideas, try to get the newest and latest, is what we’ve tried to get,” he said. ”

He said he hopes NCL’s offerings might attract water park afficionados.

“Why not? I mean, if I hadn’t done something, and this is the first ever, or the first in the Caribbean, then I would go over and do it,” he said.

Unlike Royal Caribbean’s water park, NCL’s won’t have a wave pool, but that doesn’t mean one once come in the future, Doval said.

“There is room for expansion here at our water park, that is for sure,” he said. “There’s space. So first we need to open, study, see what everyone’s saying, listen to our guests, and see where we go to next.”

A 28,476-square-foot pool with an 1,898-person capacity recently opened on...

A 28,476-square-foot pool with an 1,898-person capacity recently opened on Norwegian Cruise Line’s private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay on Sunday, March 29, 2026. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

A 28,476-square-foot pool with an 1,898-person capacity recently opened on Norwegian Cruise Line’s private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay on Sunday, March 29, 2026. NCL’s new ship Norwegian Luna can be seen docked at the island’s new dock in the background. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

A kids splash pad recently opened adjacent a new, massive pool on Norwegian Cruise Line’s private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay on Sunday, March 29, 2026. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

A new welcome area has opened adjacent a newly constructed dock at Norwegian Cruise Line’s private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay on Sunday, March 29, 2026. In the background is NCL’s new ship Norwegian Luna. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

Construction continues on Norwegian Cruise Line’s private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay seen on Sunday, March 29, 2026. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

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The water park is the big project that needs completing to put NCL and Royal Caribbean’s islands head to head.

But already NCL added a massive pool that approaches the size of the similarly grand freshwater pool at its competitor’s island.

NCL’s pool, which is located within a short walk of the new pier where the ships will dock comes in at 28,476 square feet with an 1,898-person capacity. It has a sizable splash pad with a massive water bucket that pours every five minutes or so adjacent, which also happens to be next to a bar where parents can enjoy a drink while their children get pummeled by water sprays.

Grand pools on the cruise lines’ private Bahamas destinations are not commonplace, although Carnival’s new destination Celebration Key on Grand Bahama Island that opened last year has one. 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.

Norwegian Cruise Line's new ship Norwegian Luna takes advantage of...

Norwegian Cruise Line’s new ship Norwegian Luna takes advantage of a new dock constructed at NCL’s private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay on Sunday, March 29, 2026. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

A newly constructed dock allows for ships to make calls without tendering at Norwegian Cruise Line’s private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay, seen on Sunday, March 29, 2026. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

Passengers from Norwegian Luna take advantage of a newly constructed dock that allows for ships to make calls without tendering at Norwegian Cruise Line’s private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay, seen on Sunday, March 29, 2026. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

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The pier is also a win, although one that remains not quite complete, for NCL. For years, the cruise line has had to tender its passengers in on smaller ships that would sail a short distance from cruise ship to an island harbor.

That opened the door for rough seas to lay plans foul though, said NCL’s Chief Experience Officer Mark Kansley.

“A number of you, I’m sure, have sailed to Great Stirrup Cay and had to turn around, see the island in the distance, and have to turn around because the weather conditions weren’t necessarily conducive to tendering,” he said. “We could miss up to 75% of our calls in December and January.”

While passengers through the spring will continue to enjoy the pier access to the island, NCL will have to return to tendering for part of the summer to complete the work. When finished, the 1,500-foot-long dock will allow for up to two of NCL’s largest ships at once, including the new class of ships that can each hold 5,100 passengers coming in 2030.

Vibe Shore Club is an adults-only area that recently opened...

Vibe Shore Club is an adults-only area that recently opened on Norwegian Cruise Line’s private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay on Sunday, March 29, 2026. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

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Vibe Shore Club is an adults-only area that recently opened on Norwegian Cruise Line’s private Bahamas island Great Stirrup Cay on Sunday, March 29, 2026. (Richard Tribou/Orlando Sentinel)

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Another portion of the island already open is an adults-only beach called Vibe Shore Club, which the line designed to be an extension of the popular Vibe Beach Club sections found on board.

“So if you want a more quieter experience, a more adult-focused experience with its own restaurant, its own bar. We offer that at Vibe as well,” Kansley said.

The line has yet to open some other features it had announced previously, including Horizon Park, a family-oriented socialization and game area.

But it does have its new welcome center and tram service to move people across the expansive island. Each tram will have the capacity to transport 107 riders, so at peak times, passengers will only be waiting 3-5 minutes.

Before the enhancements, only about 50 acres of the island had been developed. And while that has grown, there’s room for more, Kazlauskas said.

“We have the largest island, and we’ve only developed a little less than half of it,” he said. “So just watch … as we continue to think of great ways to use that space, and really set the stage to make sure, not only will we have the best island and the destination now, but as we go into the future as well.”

NCL set for water park showdown with Royal Caribbean in Bahamas – Orlando Sentinel

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