(Review) Norwegian Cruise Line’s Great Tides Waterpark, helpful tips and videos

What makes Great Tides Waterpark worth the trip?

NCL recently invited us on a cruise to Great Stirrup Cay, the company’s 270-acre private island destination in the Bahamas, to preview their new water park. We were able to try out all of the slides and attractions. Between the name of the island (Great Stirrup Cay) and the name of its water park (Great Tides), it’s safe to say cruisers have ‘great expectations’ for this new addition.

Great Tides Waterpark is a success. But like all water parks and theme parks of the world, there are some shortcomings. Overall, it’s a great addition and worth checking out.

To get your bearings, watch our video below with a tour of the water park by Joel Garcia, NCL’s Vice President of Construction & Engineering. He and his team built the water park in record time. The land was barren when we toured it last year.

Watch our tour video below.

Norwegian Cruise Line led the way for private islands

Norwegian was the first cruise line to offer a private island destination back in 1977, and they have continued to add to and make Great Stirrup Cay better, especially in more recent years. The island has had all the essentials you’d expect for many years, such as private cabanas, local shops, lots of beach coves, and even a zipline experience, but in just the past year they’ve also added a pier for the ships to dock at (guests used to have to take tender boats), a large pool area with swim-up bars called Great Life Lagoon, and a new entrance area.

But let’s get to the water park itself: Great Tides Waterpark is nearly six acres and includes a slide tower, lazy river, two separate thrill slides, a family racing slide, a kids area with dump bucket and smaller slides, food area, and a cliff jump. 

Tidal Tower area

Let’s start with Tidal Tower, the iconic centerpiece of the park standing at 170-feet tall, featuring eight fun slides. Yes, there are a lot of steps to get to the top of the tower, but only one slide is at the very top and it’s worth the steps. Plus, you only have to carry a mat up for one of the slides, and it’s on the first level.

Breakwater Blasters

This is the best of the slides, as it isn’t just a gravity-pulls-you-down-slide, but a water coaster!

Not many water parks feature water coasters, and it’s something unique compared to Royal Caribbean’s Thrill Waterpark on the neighboring island. It’s not just a water coaster either; it’s the first dueling water coaster slide in the Caribbean.

Guests are propelled in inner-tubes uphill and through steep drops and twists with high-pressure water jets. Don’t miss this one, but find a friend, because this is the only slide they have that requires two people, and they must weigh less than 400 pounds together (yes, you will be weighed).

Tropic Spiral

This is also not just another water slide, Tropic Spiral is the first Nautilus slide in the world with large spirals that spin guests into different directions.

Think of it as a bowl slide, except instead of spinning around before going down, at two places along the ride, guests are shot up a small incline only to continue the trip down the slide either forwards or backwards. You’ll need to ride this one more than once to get the full experience.

Tropic Storm

For this one, you can ride with as a single person or double. You’ll ride on a two-person raft. Most of this one is open-air, but you will pass through two short dark tunnels.

Whitewater Dash

No raft or mat is needed at all for this one, as you’ll race against another rider (or should I call them sliders?) on this body slide. I rode in the one on the left and got stuck for a minute in one of the tunnels, but the person I was racing against didn’t, so of course he beat me. You’l slide through a colorful rainbow ring tunnel, then an open-air part so you can see if you’re winning the race, followed by a bright tunnel to the finish.

Rapid Mat Racers

This is another side-by-side racing slide, but the time you’re going down head first on a mat. For this one only, they also include a countdown. This one has three open-air areas to check out your competition, plus a colorful rainbow tunnel.

Cliffside Cove area

After Tidal Tower, there is a collection of attractions dubbed Cliffside Cove. Here you have a thrilling cliffside jump, a wide family slide, Fearless Falls waterslides and the landmark river with its own bar.

The Great Slide

There’s nothing fancy about this slide. It’s just an open slide with one hill as you race against three others to see who could hit the pool first. But it is the Caribbean’s only family slide where four guests can slide down together.

Fearless Falls

There are two slides here. They don’t have individual names, but they both drop you a few feet into the pool at the end. One approximately six feet, and the other four. I did the four-foot one in this video.

Cliffside Leap

Just like it sounds, you are going to jump off of a cliff here. It’s the fear of falling that makes it fun. You can choose the higher one at 15 feet, or you can just jump 10 feet down into the pool. I did the higher one for this video.

Wandering River with Floataway Bar

To me, it’s not a great water park unless it has a lazy river, and this one is a showstopper. It takes about five and a half minutes to completely go around the 800-foot-long Wandering River. That is, if you don’t stop at the Floataway Bar for a drink. The bar is connected to the lazy river, so you can easily just float on in and then float back into the river when you’re ready to continue your journey.

There’s also a very cool tunnel with projections of sea animals swimming on both sides of you, and even above you.

Take a spin with us along the Wandering River by watching our short video below.