Lines at airport in Nassau

[Booking It]

Does anybody have any recent experience with the lines at the airport in Nassau after departing a cruise? I heard stories about insane lines after the first few cruises. We are flying American in first class, and I have Global Entry, so I'm hoping that it won't be too bad with those two factors in mind. We will arrive at the airport at least 4 hours early, so I know that in the end it will be fine. I'm just getting anxious about everything. 🙂

[thinfool]

Global Entry has no value in a foreign airport.  Sadly an american woman did not understand this when she tried to jump the line at the Lima airport a few years ago.

It did seem to sink in once she was escorted to the rear of the queue.

We didn't laugh out loud.  No comment on laughing internally.

[njhorseman]

37 minutes ago, thinfool said:

Global Entry has no value in a foreign airport.  Sadly an american woman did not understand this when she tried to jump the line at the Lima airport a few years ago.

It did seem to sink in once she was escorted to the rear of the queue.

We didn't laugh out loud.  No comment on laughing internally.

You Global entry card actually should be of value in Nassau.

 

Nassau is one of the 16 foreign airports where you preclear US customs and immigration before boarding your flight to the US so your flight will be treated as a domestic flight when it lands in the US. Other airports with preclearance are Freeport Bahamas, Dublin and Shannon Ireland, Bermuda, Abu Dhabi, Aruba and in Canada Calgary, Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver, Victoria, Halifax, Montreal, Winnipeg and Ottawa . In any of these airports your Global Entry card should speed your preclearance.

[geminitwin]

Was on the July 3rd sailing on AOS out of Nassau.  We had later flights and so were assigned one of the last departure groups from the ship.  Nassau check in area was complete and total chaos.  You couldn't find the end of the American first class check in line; non-premium check in wrapped several times.  We were in line for about an hour just to check in and drop bags. 

 

For security screening, there is no preferred lanes.  Security screening was thorough and slow like many foreign countries.  Once you cleared security, you were funneled into the US Pre-Clearance area.  In this section, there were four (i think) Global Entry kiosks off to the left side with no waiting whatsoever.  Normal Global Entry priority and process from the kiosks through to the terminal.  

 

Overall, we were about two hours (maybe a little less) from our cabins once our luggage tags were called on the ship to the Nassau airport gate area.  The food court is struggling to handle Saturday passenger load as well -- we waited 30 minutes at least to get a sandwich.