I read on someone's post that you get a tender number to use to go to their beach if you do not book an excursion.   Can someone tell me more about this?   Do you get transportation to their beach and can hang there all day?  I'm on the cruise leaving this Friday, 8/21.  Thanks!

I haven't been to half Moon Cay before! But am Going in October! I have tendered a shore before! All we did was wait in line to get off the ship onto the tender boat to go a shore! Was fairly quick and a nice ride with a great veiw of the ship and the island we were at! Half Moon Cay is Carnivals Private Island! From what I understand you are right at the beach after you leave the dock! I am sure some more experienced cruiser will respond with more information! Wish I was cruising in 4 days! LOL Have a great cruise you will have a blast! Happy Cruising!

You get dropped off right at the beach and can pick a spot where you can find one.  You can come and go as you please on and off the boat you just have to wait for the tenders.  The early excursions will get priority tenders and everyone can go over whenever they are ready and there is room.  I have not tendered with Carnival in a long time but it used to be you go to an assigned area the evening prior to the private island and you get a number.  You get on the tender boats as numbers are called.  Everything you need is right off of the boat so there is no transportation required and the entire island is owned by Carnival/HAL so you can roam around and check it out.

This is the best stop there is so enjoy...I could spend a whole week there with no problem!

Half Moon Cay is great. The beach and swimming there are excellent. They use island tenders so they are bigger than the ships. So they cna unload the ship fairly quickly. They give priority to early excursions. We just hit the beach and by the time we were ready to get off they were already on open tenders (no ticket number). You can wander the island and come back anytime. Don't wait till last minute. They hold the last tender until they clear the island. The tender pretty much dumps you as close to the beach as they can. You can also pick up excursion right there. It's a fairly big island and feel free to roam but don't miss the ship. Lunch is barbecue on the island. The ship's crew mostly staffs the island so the first tender off is the crew and provisions.