Our Family Trip to Exuma, Bahamas with Kids

I hate that I never finished this post back in March after we got back from Spring Break with the kids in Exumas. I ended up finishing up the Exumas Travel Guide and never published a recap of our trip. So I am back to give you a more detailed look of what we did on our week long trip. I get asked a lot if we think this is a good spot for kids or if we feel it is more of an adult vacation and I think it absolutely can be great with kids too!

I think having young babies would be tough because it would be harder to enjoy any of the excursions; but I think about age 5 and up, you can have a ton of fun. Our youngest was 4.5 years old on this trip and she did great, but I would say that’s about as young as I would enjoy. She was able to snorkel with the big kids and keep up with everyone and she can make it through the day without a nap. I do see people bring much smaller kids too; but I think any kid that is still too young to swim, would be tough. I will talk a little more below about how we planned the trip out with having kids and what worked best for us. I will say that having a house with a pool and hot tub made it really nice for having some entertainment at the house for the kids. They could just hang and play for hours right at our house.

How We Got There

You fly into Georgetown (GGT) international airport in the Exumas. We flew from Pensacola to Miami and then right into Georgetown. The flight from Miami to Georgetown is a mere 45 minutes! It’s so fast and easy. They also have direct flights to Georgetown from Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Toronto if you are lucky enough to live in one of those cities!

Once we arrived, we walked across the street to Thompson Car Rental to grab our rental car and then loaded up like the Wringly Brothers Circus and loaded up all our luggage and barely fit ourselves into the car. I would highly recommend to rent a car way ahead of time because they do sell out and get yourself a decent size car. They only had economy size car left by the time I decided to rent one and it was tight with 5 of us plus luggage! Driving in the Exumas is not easy, I will admit that; but for this trip with kids, it was nice having a car. I have been on the island a couple of times and only done the taxi route and I love that; but this trip, we just decided it would be easier to have a car. You will read further down about our excursions and on several of those excursions; transportation was included, and we took advantage of letting them pick us up for those tours and not driving ourselves.

Where We Stayed

Where We Stayed:
Cerulean Sands – We really loved our house! We stayed at the the newly-built, Cerulean Sands home in the Farmer’s Hill area of the island. It was a convenient 12 to 15 min ride from the Georgetown airport and less than 5 mins from the Grand Isle Resort and Sandals Resort. I share a map below that gives you a better idea of the layout of the little “towns” like Farmer’s Hill. The main area of town or what might be called the “downtown area” is in Georgetown so you can keep that spot in mind when you are looking at the map of the island.

The home we rented had 4 bedrooms and 3.5 baths with a large covered back porch area. We had our own hot tub, Infiniti pool and our own private beach. The house came with several kayaks, life vests, snorkel gear and sand toys for the kids. The home was well stocked and included items like laundry and dish detergent, garbage bags, paper towels, bug spray, family games, etc. That may not seem like much, but it’s so nice to have included. The house has TWO stackable washer and dryers which seemed like overkill but we used them both! You go through a lot of towels in the Bahamas.

Another thing that was really nice about the house was having access to the house manger. We were able to work with her ahead of our arrival and have groceries delivered to the house so it was stocked with the necessities when we arrived. They also greet you upon arrival and show you around the house and how to use everything. I recommend utilizing that service.

The house sleeps 9 people. If you had a larger group, you could rent the house that is right next door called Treasure Cove. These two homes are next door to each other, but otherwise you are very private.

You can read about other homes we have rented and loved here on the Exumas travel guide.

Our Schedule

I used a template on Google Drive to have an organized schedule for our week in Exumas. I liked having this layout to see in one big picture as well as having the times organized. I filled in a few extra things in this copy of the schedule after our trip was over, so I would remember exactly what we ended up doing all week long. We had some windy days while we were there which changed up some of our excursion schedules a little bit, but thankfully we were still able to fit everything in.

When I was planning this trip, I wanted a mix of having somewhat of a “plan” for each day, but not over-planning! I knew we would enjoy spending time at our house and the kids would have fun just enjoying our pool, hot tub and private beach, but I also wanted to make sure that we weren’t waking up each day and stressing over how we were going to make a plan for the day.

When it comes to trips like this, I am the planner and the one that has to be organized and the one that keeps track of excursion confirmations and where we have to be when; so this little schedule helped me tremendously. My husband is just along for the ride (must be nice, right? ha!)!!

What We Did

Excursions – We love Exuma Watersports – They offer a swimming with the pigs half day tour or a full day tour that takes you swimming with the pigs but also to Thunderball Grotto to snorkel, lunch at Staniel Cay Yacht club and swimming with the sharks in Compass Cay. They also have a new excursion which we did this trip that is called the 7 beaches tour which was really pretty. You see another side of the island and explore beautiful beaches and a giant sandbar. I highly recommend this tour as well and it was great for kids. The full day tour is a long day on the boat and they do allow kids but they ask that kids are 5 years old or older. So we ended up doing two excursions with them this trip and both were half days from 9am-1pm and they worked out great.
Rent a boat through Minn’s Water Sports – We really enjoyed this day. You need to rent your boat ahead of time because they do book up. You will be the captain of your own boat so you also should have some boat driving experience. It was a fun way to tour around the Elizabeth Harbour area on your own time and at your own pace. This is a great way to see fun places close by that you can’t get to by car. We loved checking out the new Peace & Plenty beach club which was a fun spot to hang out and also have lunch and drinks. We also discovered a new lunch spot that we loved called the Snappy Turtle. The conch fritters were out of this world and so was the tuna wrap!! This is also a great time to go check out Chat N Chill and feed the sting rays, eat fresh conch salad, and drink too many rum punches with a floater!
Explore Beaches on the Island – There are beaches all over the island that are worth exploring if you have a day to do it. Many I have not seen but several that are special. Coco Plum Beach has a really pretty sand bar at low tide that you can search for sand dollars or around Hoopers Bay you can find the turtles swimming around and you can hop in the water with them.

Where We Ate

23 degree North – This was our favorite spot and is an upscale dinner restaurant at Grand Isle resort. The atmosphere is really nice and we had a couple of really good meals here.
Palapas – This is the pool bar/restaurant at Grand Isle that was a nice atmosphere and decent food. We only had lunch here. If you go to Grand Isle, I hear they have a little BBQ shack on the beach that is amazing. We totally missed it!
Coco Plum Bistro – We liked this little spot a lot. We had lunch and dinner here and the food was pretty good. We really liked the set up though because they had an indoor spot but also outdoors they had a beach, beach bar and games, hammocks, set up for the kids to play.
Peace & Plenty Beach Club Grill – This was a pretty spot that was great for adults and kids. It is part of the Kahari resort and they have a pretty simple food menu but also a fresh conch salad stand and a bar to order drinks.
Snappy Turtle Bar & Grill – We loved this spot so much and they have docks to park your boat. The fried conch appetizer was to die for and don’t skip the fresh tuna wrap!
Chat N’ Chill – This is a huge tourist spot with lots to do on property. Swings, volleyball, ropes course, corn hole, etc. It is meant to be a hang out spot. The food is not good and the service can be terrible, but its just one of those spots you just have to go check out if you are close by.

On our last couple of days of our trip, we met up with my instagram friend Jada (@jadaleigh)! She was there with 4 families that were all staying in two houses right next door to each other. They were on Spring Break too and we had so much fun getting to meet them and explore the island with them. One of the days, we met at Coco Plum Beach which is on the Northern tip of the island and we were hoping to explore the sand bar a bit and relax, but the weather was crazy windy and none of us lasted long!! We ended up driving down to Coco Plum Bistro where they have a fun beach area with games and a bar to hang out at and then a restaurant right there too for lunch. This was a really cute little spot to hang out. We actually came back for dinner one night too and it was quite good.

On our last full day on the island, we ended up meeting up with them again too and hopping on a boat they had rented with a captain and he drove us all around. We went swimming with the turtles in Hooper Bay, stopped for a drink at Da Sand Bar, had lunch at Peace and Plenty Beach Club and let the kids swim and play.

Recap

I would absolutely love to take my kids back to this island again in the near future. We made so many special memories that I will cherish forever. It is a great island because all the restaurants and everything is very casual, so you can bring the kids anywhere and everyone is so laid back. I had fun seeing the island through their eyes and watching them snorkel and explore and all play together was so nice to see.