A Bahamas day trip from Florida: how it works

You meet the aircraft at our terminal at Treasure Coast International in Fort Pierce, about thirty minutes before departure. There is no security line. The crew weighs and loads the bags, walks you out to the aircraft, and you are taxiing within a few minutes of sitting down.

An eight o'clock departure is the usual pattern. It gets you onto the island by nine or nine-thirty for the nearer destinations, which matters for two reasons: you get the full day, and Bahamas customs charges overtime per passenger for arrivals before 9 AM, so there is no point being early.

The Caravan cruises at around 180 knots and stays low for the crossing, usually a few thousand feet. Once you are past the Gulf Stream the water goes from dark blue to pale green and you can see the bottom from the window.

Every island on our fixed-price list is a port of entry, which means Bahamian customs and immigration are at the airport you land at. The crew hands over the paperwork, the officer stamps passports, and you are through in ten or fifteen minutes. On a quiet morning at Bimini or Treasure Cay it is faster than that.

What you need: a valid passport for every passenger, and a Bahamas Immigration Arrival/Departure Card, which we fill in for you before departure. The Bahamas customs processing fee is $150 per flight each way and is billed on top of the fare. If you want the detail on documents, pets and baggage, it is all on the Before You Fly page.

This is the point of the whole thing. On a day trip the aircraft and crew stay with you on the island, and there is no pilot wait charge for a same-day return. You are not watching a ferry timetable and you are not paying for a hotel you only sleep in.

How much time you get on the ground depends on the island. Roughly:

• Bimini or Freeport: about seven hours on the island. Enough for a boat, a beach and a long lunch.
• Treasure Cay or Marsh Harbour: five to six hours. Treasure Cay's beach is ten minutes from the ramp; Marsh Harbour gets you a ferry to Hope Town and back.
• Nassau or North Eleuthera: four to five hours. A proper afternoon on Harbour Island, or lunch and a resort day on Paradise Island.

Tell your coordinator what you want to do and we will suggest the departure time that fits it. If the plan is fishing, we can have a boat meeting you at the dock.

Departure is whenever you say, within daylight and crew duty limits. Bahamas customs closes at 5 PM at most of the smaller airports and charges overtime after that, so a four or four-thirty departure is typical. You clear outbound customs on the island, fly home, and clear U.S. Customs and Border Protection at Fort Pierce, which has its own CBP facility on the field.

Wheels down to your car is usually under half an hour. Most of our day-trip passengers are home in time for dinner.

The fixed prices below are for the whole aircraft, up to nine passengers, there and back the same day from Fort Pierce. A same-day round trip costs the same as a one way, because the aircraft has to fly back either way. The price includes fuel, crew and everything else the airline controls; Bahamas customs fees and per-passenger government taxes are added on top.

Split nine ways, Bimini works out to a few hundred dollars a seat. Six friends to Treasure Cay for the day is under a thousand each with the customs fees added. The alternative is an airline connection through Nassau or Fort Lauderdale, a hotel night, and most of a day gone at each end.

• Passports for everyone, including children.
• Soft-sided bags, and not many of them. Two small bags per person and about 30 pounds each is the guideline.
• Cash for the island. Card machines exist but are not everywhere, and U.S. dollars are accepted at par.
• Whatever the day needs: fins, rods, a cooler. The Caravan has double cargo doors and takes bulky gear without complaint.