Cruising 5 days to Bahamas with special needs child

We are taking our autistic 6 year old grandson on the Fascination in Feb. I understand how helpful Carnival special needs department is checking in and while on board. My biggest concern is what should we do in Nassau and Freeport? I know for sure there will be at least one other ship in port at both ports. TIA

1 other ship is nothing.....but a guidebook will be VERY helpful...get one at your library!

We've found private tours of just our family to be immensely helpful. If our son got fussy or needed a break or needed food, we could adjust our schedule without worrying about a larger group's needs (or ruining anyone else's vacation). Someone on this board may have taken children to these destinations and can help, or you can post on the destination board for those locations.

We always brought a lot of boxed cereal from breakfast with us. Whenever our kid got whiny, he could choose a new cereal and that tended to distract him and keep him happy.

I generally started with cruise ship tours to get an idea of some of the highlights of the destination. Cruise ship tours generally cover most highlights for adults but not always for kids. And then I'll look on trip advisor both for excursion ideas, and also for private tour operators who can take you on the same itinerary as the shore excursions for less.

What does he like to do? See if there is something in those ports that will interest him. Do you have to get off at those locations? If you don't think he'll do well at the ports it may be better to stay on the ship. It'll be quiter and the ship will still have activities to do. The last thing you want is a tough day for everyone if he has a rough time.

We have a party of 8 (4 Adults, 4 kids) going in February, and for our stop in Nassau we are going to be chartering a boat for us to do Snorkeling, tubing and going to a beach. Our 10 year old has high functioning Autism, and we think that this will be a good way to avoid some of the crowds and be able to have a lot of flexible fun.

http://www.shoreexcursioneer.com/nassau/private-charter-boat-snorkel.html (upto 6 people)

https://bahamascruiseexcursions.com/NassauPrivateSnorkeling.htm (This is the one that we are doing)

In Freeport we are going to do the Dolphin excursion (I know its expensive, but the kids like dolphins).

Joey