Things to Do in Bimini

Golf Carts, Taxis, Trams and Walking

Golf carts are the local rental standard and the easiest way to cover North Bimini end to end. A.B.C. Golf Cart Rental at Resorts World Bimini lists $75 per day for a four-seater and $110 for a six-seater. Other rental operators on the island were reported at $89.99 to $115 a day for four-seaters and $120 to $150 for six-seaters, so price moves by company and season.

Taxis wait at the Resorts World pier. A ride to Alice Town or Radio Beach runs about $5 per person and takes roughly 15 minutes, against a walk of about 45 minutes, which matters on a short day.

If you stay in the Resorts World orbit, you do not need wheels at all. The resort tram runs every 10 to 15 minutes to Fisherman's Village, the marina and the casino. Cruise guests on Virgin Voyages get free trams every few minutes between the dock and The Beach Club at Bimini, which has a lagoon-style pool of over 13,000 square feet. Non-hotel guests who want the resort beach buy a day pass for $40, with the beach open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily subject to change.

To reach South Bimini for the shark lab or the Healing Hole, water taxis cross from the Government Dock in Alice Town for a few dollars.

Radio Beach

Radio Beach is the name most cruise visitors use for the strip, a white sand beach on the west coast of North Bimini in the Alice Town area. The shoreline faces the sunset side of the island, and a ferry day that lands at 11 a.m. gives you the full afternoon on it. There is no gate and no fee.

Bring what you need for the day, since facilities are not stated in any official listing. Alice Town is a short ride away if you want lunch.

Blister Beach and Spook Hill Beach

Blister Beach and Spook Hill Beach continue the same western shoreline, and Royal Caribbean's own guide names all three for cruise visitors. Because the beaches run continuously, you can walk from one to the next without leaving the sand. That makes them a good fit for a day with no booked tours: step off the ship, ride or walk to the beach, and move along the coast as the mood takes you.

On North Bimini, which is only about 200 meters wide, you are never far from a road or a food stop.

Bimini Beach at Resorts World

The resort option is Bimini Beach at Resorts World Bimini, free for hotel guests and $40 as a day pass for everyone else, open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily subject to change and reached by a complimentary tram. The resort counts three pool venues: the Oasis lagoon-style pool, the adults-only Monkey Business rooftop infinity pool on the fifth floor, and the Bimini Beach ocean pool. Cruise passengers berthed at the Resorts World pier can walk or tram over, which makes this the zero-logistics beach day.

Virgin Voyages guests use The Beach Club at Bimini instead, the line's adults-only beach with free Bahamian food, soda and water.

The SS Sapona Wreck

The SS Sapona is a concrete cargo steamer launched on October 11, 1919 as the Old North State, 281 feet 10 inches long. Miami Beach developer Carl Fisher bought it for $4,000 in 1924, and a hurricane drove it aground in 1926, breaking its stern. It later served as a US bombing practice target in World War II.

Today the wreck lies in about 15 feet of water, reachable only by boat from North Bimini marinas, and guided snorkel tours cost about $90 to $120 per person. Snorkelers swim into the chambers, lit through holes in the deck, and meet barracuda, French angelfish, snappers and eels. Expect some current as the tide changes and a swim of about 200 meters.

One guide places it about three miles south of North Bimini, another a few miles off South Bimini, but either way it is a short boat run.

The Bimini Road

The Bimini Road is a half-kilometer line of limestone blocks in about 5.5 meters (18 feet) of water off northwest North Bimini, found on September 2, 1968 by Joseph Manson Valentine, Jacques Mayol and Robert Angove. The Atlantis theories came later. USGS work led by Eugene Shinn concluded the formation is natural beachrock, with blocks up to 3 to 4 meters across, and radiocarbon dating puts the cement at about 2,800 years old.

It is popular with scuba divers and reached by boat only. The official Bahamas tourism listing describes it as about 1,500 feet long.

Honeymoon Harbour Stingrays

Honeymoon Harbour on Gun Cay is the stingray stop south of the island. The Resorts World Bimini stingray tour uses a 20-minute catamaran ride out, gives about 30 minutes in the water over a 3-foot bottom, and runs 2 hours 45 minutes in total. Carnival sells its own Stingray Adventure at Bimini, 2 hours at $99.99 for adults 13 and over and $89.99 for children 12 and under, with rum punch and water included.

The bottom is about 3 feet deep, so the water is shallow.

The Shark Lab and Shark Snorkeling

The Bimini Biological Field Station on South Bimini was founded in 1990 by Dr. Samuel Gruber to study the lemon shark, and the official tourism page lists tours with complimentary admission. Cross on the water taxi from the Government Dock in Alice Town for a few dollars. For sharks in the water rather than on a lab tour, Resorts World lists cage-free snorkeling with Caribbean reef sharks and nurse sharks at Triangle Rocks, and Royal Caribbean adds seasonal great hammerheads.

If you want all of it in one booking, the Bimini Four-Stop Snorkeling and Shark Tour covers the Pablo Escobar plane wreck, the SS Sapona, Stingray Island and Shark Arena in 3 hours for $175 with a group capped at 10. Its full story is on the Bimini snorkeling tour page.

The Healing Hole

The Healing Hole is a freshwater pond inside salt water, hidden in the mangroves of Bonefish Creek on East Bimini, and the tourism board lists it as reachable by boat only. Reaching it takes a boat, not a swim from shore. The sources give no tour times or prices, so check with a marina before planning it into a ferry day.

Fishing and the Big Game Club

The Bahamas tourism board calls Bimini the Sport Fishing Capital of the World because of its position on the Gulf Stream, and the water holds blue marlin, sailfish, tuna, wahoo and bonefish. Bonefishing runs year-round, with Northern Sound named as one of the best flats for fast five-pound bonefish. The Bimini Big Game Fishing Club opened in 1936 under Nassau entrepreneur Neville Stuart, moved to its current site with a marina and six cottages in 1954, opened its main hotel building in 1963 and was reopened by the Bacardi family in 1972.

No charter prices are given in the sources, so ask at the marina.

Hemingway on Bimini

Ernest Hemingway lived on Bimini in the mid-1930s and is said to have written part of To Have and Have Not at the Compleat Angler Hotel. The hotel was a three-story, 12-room building opened in 1935, and it burned down on January 13, 2006, killing owner Julian Brown, and was never rebuilt. The Bimini Big Game Fishing Club, opened in 1936, belongs to the same fishing history.

For a visitor, what remains is the walking-tour kind of history along Queens Highway.

The Dolphin House Museum

The Dolphin House on Queens Highway is the island's most distinctive building. Local historian Ashley Saunders built it from shells, sea glass, tiles, coins and found materials, and it opened in 1993, with a small museum inside. Hours are Monday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and admission was reported at $20 cash only.

Bring bills, since admission was reported as cash only. It pairs naturally with a Radio Beach afternoon, since both sit in the Alice Town area.

The Clock on a Ferry Day

Check-in opens at 6:00 a.m. for the 9:00 a.m. departure and the terminal doors close at 8:00 a.m., so most travelers arrive between 6:15 and 6:45 a.m. The crossing to Bimini takes about 2 hours on the Jaume II, a wave-piercing catamaran carrying 655 passengers at 35 knots. The ship arrives at 11:00 a.m.

Return sailings leave Bimini at 7:00 p.m. in summer and 6:00 p.m. from mid-September, which nets roughly 7 hours ashore on a same-day trip. Listed sailings are Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, though one reseller says daily, so confirm your date. With only a few sailings a week a sold-out date can push travel by days, so book 2 to 3 weeks ahead.

Day trip fares are $199 in Economy on Wednesdays and $246 other days, and $259 in Economy Premium on Wednesdays and $306 other days, taxes included.

Which Day Trip to Book

Three bookable options cover the same crossing. The Bahamas Day Trip by Ferry to Bimini or Grand Bahama costs $299, runs 15 hours, and covers the round-trip ferry from Port Everglades with free time on the island, though optional activities and beach day passes are extra and bought on the ferry. The Bimini Ferry with Miami Beach Hotel Transfers also costs $299 and adds hotel pickup in Miami Beach or Downtown Miami plus landing and facility fees, with food, drinks and the optional water sports pass not included.

The Bimini Day Trip by Ferry from Fort Lauderdale costs $270 and runs 18 hours with a 600-passenger high-speed ferry and hotel pickup, but its Resorts World day pass is sold separately onboard. For the details of the crossing itself, schedules and terminal logistics, see the ferry from Miami to the Bahamas page.

What 7 Hours Actually Holds

Seven hours is tight, so pick one water trip and one beach and leave South Bimini and the Healing Hole for an overnight stay. Cruise passengers on Virgin Voyages calls get a different shape of day: the Beach Club runs from ship arrival to about 6 p.m., with the ship berthed alongside and no tender. Documents: Bahamas Immigration requires a passport valid at least six months and does not accept passport cards, and the ferry requires a valid passport for every passenger including children, so do not plan this trip on a birth certificate.