How Much Does Swimming With The Pigs Cost?

Swimming with the famous pigs of Big Major Cay is the single most requested excursion in the Bahamas, and the first question almost everyone asks is what it costs. The honest answer is a range, not a number. A shared speedboat day from Nassau can start near $329 per person, the big-name full-day tours cluster between $378 and $499, and a private charter for your own group can run from $6,000 up to $8,500 per boat. The gap is not random. It reflects how far you travel, how many people share the boat, whether lunch and landing fees are bundled, and whether you arrive by speedboat or by plane. Price is only part of the picture, since the tours themselves changed after the deaths explained in why the pigs died.

This guide lays out the real price bands for pig tours departing Nassau and Great Exuma, explains exactly what sits inside each ticket, and flags the small extras that catch people out. Swimming with pigs tours start at $378 per person., and where a detail varies by date or group size, the advice is simply to check the booking page before you pay. For the broader picture of getting to the islands, see the Nassau to Exuma day trip guide.

A typical shared full-day swimming pigs tour from Nassau costs between $378 and $499 per person, with the two most reviewed options priced from $438.90 and $439. Budget shared powerboat trips start near $329, luxury small-group tours from $850, and private charters from $6,000 to $8,500 for the whole boat. Departure point, boat type and group size drive the spread.

Those numbers deserve unpacking, because "swimming with pigs" describes at least four different products. The cheapest way onto the water is a large shared powerboat carrying dozens of guests on a fixed itinerary. The Original Exuma Powerboat Adventures trip, rated 4.7 across 553 reviews, runs about 9 hours from $328.90 per person. At the other end of the shared scale, the Ultimate Exuma Cays Experience full-day group tour is from $499, and the Exuma Full Day Swimming Pigs Group Boat Tour, rated 4.7 across 175 reviews, also starts at $499.

Between those poles sit the volume sellers. The Exuma Island Hopping Swimming Pigs Tour with Lunch from Nassau, rated 4.8 across 689 reviews, is from $438.90 per person, and the Exuma Powerboat Tour from Nassau with Swimming Pigs, rated 4.8 across 536 reviews, is from $439. Both run roughly 8 hours and both include lunch, which is why they anchor the middle of the market. The Exuma Day Away Original Swimming Pigs Excursion, rated 4.5 across 474 reviews, is from $378 and runs about 8 hours 30 minutes, making it one of the better-value full days with a long track record.

Above the shared market sits a genuine luxury tier. The Exuma Elite Escape, a 7-stop luxury tour rated 4.8 across 580 reviews, runs about 6 hours from $850 per person, buying a smaller group and a faster, more comfortable boat. Fly-in options from Nassau, like the Exclusive Fly-In Trip for a Premium Beach Day at from $838.35 per person, replace the two-hour speedboat crossing with a short flight. And for groups that want the whole boat to themselves, private charters run from $6,000 per group for a standard private island-hopping day to $8,500 and beyond for premium private itineraries with iguanas, sharks, sandbars and lunch. Exuma Tours covers all of these bands, and the right one depends less on budget alone than on how you weigh comfort, time and crowd size.

What Are The Main Price Bands For Pig Tours?

Shared full-day tours from Nassau cluster in three bands: roughly $329 to $378 for large-boat budget departures, $439 to $499 for the established full-day operators with lunch, and $838.35 to $850 for luxury small-group and fly-in trips. Private charters form a fourth band, from $6,000 to $8,500 per group, priced per boat rather than per person.

The table below puts every current pig-focused option side by side. Note the basis column carefully: the private trips are priced for the whole group, not per person, so a party of six on an $8,500 charter is paying a very different per-head figure than the sticker suggests.

Three patterns stand out. First, the price gap between the cheapest and the most popular shared tours is real but modest, which is why most travellers land on the $439 band: it buys lunch and the two most consistent operators by review volume. Second, the luxury tier roughly doubles the shared price but roughly halves the day length in the Elite Escape's case, trading duration for intimacy. Third, everything private is quoted per boat, so the per-person math only works in your favour with a full group.

If you are weighing these three headliners against each other, the Exuma boat tours compared guide breaks down the itineraries stop by stop, and the swimming pigs tour guide covers the beach day itself in detail.

What Is Actually Included In The Ticket Price?

Most full-day Nassau pig tours include boat transport and lunch; extras like snorkel gear and drinks vary by listing and the standard wildlife stops at Pig Beach, an iguana cay and a nurse shark site. What varies is alcohol, the Compass Cay landing fee, hotel pickups and the quality of lunch, so the gap between a $378 and a $439 ticket is not the destinations, both include the pigs.

The inclusions are where the middle band earns its price. The listing for the Island Hopping tour with lunch describes a full day with food included, which matters on an 8-hour trip: you are on the water from roughly 9 AM to 4:30 PM with no chance to buy lunch ashore. The Day Away excursion at $378 is the value play if you are happy to check exactly what its current inclusions are on the booking page, since packages at this level sometimes trim the bar or the lunch venue rather than the stops.

Landing and entry fees are the line item people miss. Operators report that day-use fees at Compass Cay run about $15 per person, and Pig Beach itself charges no entrance fee, the cost is purely the boat that gets you there. Established tours bundle these fees into the sticker price; the Exuma Water Sports full-day trip from Great Exuma, for comparison, explicitly lists its landing fees for Compass Cay and Big Major Cay as included. When a tour description is vague on fees, ask before booking, because a $378 trip with unbundled fees erodes its advantage over a $439 all-in day.

Gear is nearly always included at every price point: masks, snorkels and fins for the Thunderball Grotto stop, and towels on the better trips. What the cheap bands skip is comfort, not equipment. Larger boats mean longer boarding queues, more people at each stop and a fixed schedule you cannot bend. The premium bands sell flexibility and headroom, and that is a legitimate reason to pay double if the day matters to you.

One reassurance worth having at the decision point: most established operators offer free cancellation within a window typically ending 24 hours before departure, and some allow you to reserve now and pay later. Confirm the exact terms on the booking page, since weather-related rescheduling is common in this part of the Bahamas and you want a cash refund path, not a credit, if the sea forces a cancellation.

Why Do Pig Tour Prices Vary So Much?

The three biggest cost drivers are fuel and distance, boat type and group size, and food and bar service. A 2 to 3 hour open-water crossing each way from Nassau burns far more fuel than a 15-minute hop from Staniel Cay, high-performance powerboats cost more to run than conventional hulls, and a private charter prices the whole vessel whether two or twelve people ride it.

Distance is the honest starting point. Big Major Cay sits in the northern Exuma Cays, and a speedboat day from Nassau involves 2 to 3 hours each way across open water for a full 8 to 9 hour commitment. That is why no legitimate shared Nassau pig tour sits much under $300: the fuel and crew time for the crossing alone set a floor. The same geography explains the fly-in premium. A roughly 30-minute flight from Nassau plus a short boat ride puts you at Pig Beach with more flexible, quieter morning timing, which is precisely what trips like the fly-in premium beach day at from $838.35 are selling.

Group size does the rest of the work. A shared tour splits the boat's cost across 20 to 40 passengers; a private charter does not split it at all. The Exuma Cays Private Boat Charter at from $6,000 per group and the Private Exuma Cays Day with iguanas, sharks, pigs, sandbar and lunch at from $8,500 per group are priced per vessel, and the booking pages confirm final cost by group size and itinerary length. For a party of eight or ten, the per-person arithmetic can approach the luxury shared tier, which is why families sometimes find the private option less outrageous than the sticker suggests. The Exuma private boat charter guide works through that math in detail.

The day's shape matters too. A 6-hour luxury tour is shorter because a faster boat and a smaller group spend less time boarding and waiting. Time on the water is a real input to price, so when you compare a $499 8-hour trip against an $850 6-hour trip, you are not paying more for less day, you are paying for a denser one.

What Extra Costs Sit Outside The Ticket?

Beyond the tour price, budget for hotel transfers if not included, the Compass Cay day-use fee of about $15 per person on trips that do not bundle it, reef-safe sunscreen and water shoes, tips for the crew, and the Bahamas departure tax of $29 per person aged six and over, which is normally already inside your airfare. None of these are large, together they add a modest amount per person.

The fee landscape around the pigs is genuinely confusing, so here is the clean version. The pigs live at Big Major Cay, outside the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, and Pig Beach itself charges no entrance fee; the official Bahamas tourism page describing the pigs states no admission charge and no government fee. The park, established in 1958 as the first marine reserve in the wider Caribbean, charges boaters rather than beach visitors: charter boats inside the park pay per-passenger day fees, generally BSD 6.36 per person at most locations or BSD 12.73 with a guided Warderick Wells tour, and operators normally absorb these into the tour price. Thunderball Grotto, another standard stop, charges no admission fee and requires no permit, though that could change for tourism management. Beyond the pigs, a good guide to everything Exuma is famous for helps you plan the rest of your time around the cays.

Feeding the pigs costs nothing extra and this matters for the animals' welfare: operators ask guests to use only the food the crew provides, never personal snacks or alcohol, and to feed the pigs in the water rather than on sand. Those rules trace back to the 2017 pig deaths linked to sand ingestion, and crews on established tours enforce them as part of the briefing. You do not need to buy pig food, and you should not bring any.

On packing, operators consistently recommend reef-safe sunscreen, a hat, sunglasses, a towel, a waterproof phone pouch and water shoes; a cheap pair of water shoes saves cut feet on rocky grotto entries. The what to bring on an Exuma boat tour guide has the full checklist.

Is It Cheaper From Nassau Or From Great Exuma And Staniel Cay?

From Nassau, shared full-day pig tours run $329 to $499 per person. From Great Exuma, local operators list full-day Staniel Cay pig trips around $350 to $435 per person with shorter boat rides, and 4-hour tours from about $199. From Staniel Cay itself, half-day small-group trips start near $375 per person, because Pig Beach is only a 10 to 15 minute boat ride away. Since your departure point shapes both the price and the length of your boat ride, our guide to the best part of Exuma to stay in can help you pick the right home base.

The departure point is the biggest single lever on price, and it works in ways people do not expect. Staniel Cay sits closest to Big Major Cay, so Staniel-based tours spend their time at the sights rather than in transit, and a half-day there covers what a full day from Nassau covers, minus the crossing. A Staniel Cay operator's small-group experience, maximum 12 guests over roughly 3.5 to 4 hours, starts at $375 per person and includes Pig Beach, Thunderball Grotto snorkeling, the Compass Cay nurse sharks, a sandbar, the iguanas and the sunken plane, with entry fees and gear included but lunch not. That is a genuinely different product from a Nassau speedboat day, not a cheaper or dearer version of the same thing.

Getting to Staniel Cay yourself costs money too. Scheduled small-plane flights from Nassau have been listed at around $125 one way and $240 round trip including VAT, and getting to Great Exuma by air from Nassau takes about 30 minutes with round trips from roughly $180. The Staniel Cay tours guide covers the local options.

For most cruise passengers and short-stay visitors in Nassau, the speedboat day trip remains the practical choice despite the crossing, because it bundles everything into one ticket from your hotel door. The best excursions from Nassau guide ranks the options, and the broader cost comparison lives in the guide to swimming with pigs from Nassau.

When Is The Cheapest Time To Book A Pigs Tour?

From-prices on shared pig tours are set by operator and boat, and the rate you see can move with travel date and demand., so the savings come from timing and booking style instead: travel in the shoulder window outside the December to May high season, avoid private charters unless your group is full, and book shared tours early in your date window for the best availability rather than a discount.

Unlike hotels and flights, the pig tour market does not run seasonal pricing in any obvious way. What does change is conditions and crowds. Hurricane season runs 1 June to 30 November with peak activity August to October, and rough seas in those months mean rescheduled or cancelled departures; calmer weather and better water clarity are typical from December to May, which is also when the boats are fullest. Travelling in late November or early December can buy high-season sea conditions with shoulder-season crowds, and sea temperatures stay warm year round, about 29 degrees Celsius in late October.

Booking style moves the price more than the calendar. A private charter at $6,000 split between two honeymooners is $3,000 a head; the same boat with ten friends is $600 each, comfortably below the luxury shared tier. Conversely, if you are a couple, every private option is poor value and every shared tour is good value, and the decision reduces to which shared band fits your comfort tolerance. The best time to visit Exuma guide works through the seasonality month by month.

One planning note that costs nothing: sea state, tides and animal behaviour vary, and no operator can promise calm water or eager pigs. The grotto stop is best at low or slack tide, when the entrances are most exposed and the interior is calmest, and crews time their arrivals around it. Treat any itinerary as the plan rather than a guarantee, and choose operators with clear weather-rescheduling terms.

Is Swimming With The Pigs Ever Bad Value?

Only when the wrong band meets the wrong traveller. A $329 budget day is bad value for someone who expected a small boat and a leisurely lunch; an $8,500 charter is bad value for a couple. For most visitors the $378 to $439 shared full-day band is the honest sweet spot, and the premium tiers are worth their premium specifically for groups, tight schedules or comfort priorities.

The most common value trap is under-buying on time. Nassau's cheapest pig itineraries are still 8 to 9 hour commitments with an early check-in, commonly around 8:45 AM for a 9 AM departure, and some listings flag the full-day format as unsuitable for cruise ship guests whose port windows are too short. If your day in port is under ten hours, a full-day Exuma speedboat trip is the wrong product at any price, and a closer-to-Nassau excursion is the safer booking. Another quiet trap is the unbundled fee: a headline price that excludes the Compass Cay landing fee and lunch can end up costing what an all-in competitor costs, with less included.

The reverse trap is over-buying privacy. Private charters are superb for milestone trips, proposals and groups of eight or more, where the per-person cost converges with the luxury shared tier and you gain a custom route and your own schedule. For a family of four, the same charter costs several times the Elite Escape price per head, and the money buys flexibility a four-person family will rarely use. Match the band to the group and almost every option in this market is fairly priced for what it delivers.

For anyone still deciding between the headliners, the how to choose the best Exuma tour guide offers a decision framework, and the Big Major Cay pig beach guide explains the beach itself, which is the same stretch of sand at every price.

Common Questions About Swimming With Pigs Costs