4ensic

My friend and I are also not doing Voom, we're planning on a small whiteboard or even just a notepad and going old school.  ("@ Solarium if you need me", "Wandering around, be back 4:30 to get ready for dinner")
Also packing two different color highlighters for the Compass to highlight what we each think we're interested in going, as that will also probably provide a tentative help to track each other down at any point in the day.

I've done non-Royal tours and saved a lot of cash over the years.  Missing the ship is low probability, but severe effect - especially where there will be some sea days after your excursion.
If the problem is a traffic jam , chances are that the Royal excursion contractors will be  sitting in traffic also (the odds of this decrease if your excursion isn't also offered by Royal).
But 2 years ago some friends had an experience that makes me lean toward paying the "Royal Tax" and booking through the ship.  We were on a T/A that made stops in the Caribbean before the leg to Southampton.  Our last port before a string of sea days was St. Maarten.  Friends took the double decker bus tour around the island.  They were returning to the ship and saw police and an ambulance responding in the other direction.  A couple of minutes later, more police and fire equipment.  Then the bus slowed to a stop and sat there.  Yes, it had leaked out all the oil onto the roadway and caused a string of traffic collisions before seizing up.  It took over three hours before the tour company could get buses out to return the folks on tour (partly because they were located behind the crashes and ensuing traffic jam).
The ship patiently waited.  Friends might have spent an extra $25 a person, but spending at least one night on the island, missing the rest of the cruise, and paying walk-up rates for  1 way international tickets home would run more than that. (Though travel insurance might have helped out).
If you take private tours, be sure to take your passport, credit card and local port contact # for the ship.  And if you buy travel insurance, check the policy before buying to see how it handles this situation.

History tends to have a way of repeating.  Remember when most people would only buy American cars?  The big three automakers thought they could make junk and the American people would keep buying them, well now most people swear by Japanese or German automobiles.  Remember when, if you wanted electronics, you would only buy Sony if you wanted the best then they started making sub par items allowing Samsung to dethrone them.  Don't get me wrong, I love Royal Caribbean, I've been sailing with them since the early 80's and have been on most ships at least once, their ships continue to be amazingly innovative (exclusive of the Quantum class) but their continuous downgrading of customer service, lack of appreciation for long-time repeat passenger and the constant nickel and diming grows old after a while.  We sailed on the Adventure this past May (2018) and the Diamond concierge never had us listed as Diamond Plus, we never received any of the benefits and were never invited to any of the events, when we tried to bring it to his attention he said he'd look into it but did nothing.  Like I said we love Royal, and I do understand it's a business and the economics behind it (we actually sail basically for free on a few cruises each year using the dividends from our Royal stock) but little things like good customer service and recognition of loyal repeat customers goes a long way (many people would actually pay a premium for these things!).  So to answer your question HeWhoWaits, we've decided to try MSC, we booked on the new ship out of Miami, the Seaside.  MSC has a loyalty status match program where they'll actually match and reward us for our Crown and Anchor Diamond Plus status.  Will we be back to Royal?  Yes, but if they don't realize they aren't the only option for repeat guests (cruise lines bread and butter) they might just learn what many other companies have when they took their customer base for granted.          

You don’t need a dining package at all to get decent food. If you are the type that doesn’t want to pay extra then  don’t and you will still have a good meal.
But I think @Matt idea is smart. If you don’t mind paying a little extra, try a specialty dining once and see how you like it. It can be a great experience if you enjoy really good food like me.
Of course my wife always disagrees with me. If it was up to me I would do the Dining Plan because I love really good food and want to have a special vacation. She doesn’t think the food is worth the extra money. I do. So we compromise by eating a couple of times per cruise.
 

After having been to Nachi Cocom in Cozumel twice and Maya Chan in Costa Maya once, I wanted to list the differences and similarities based on my experiences at both. These are only my impressions from my visits and are not definitive at all  
  Entry and Getting There   Entry Fees Nachi Cocom — $55 Maya Chan — $59   Transportation  Nachi Cocom — from the International Pier, the cost is $17 each way for a taxi trip. Once the shops are navigated to the taxi stand, the trip takes about 20 minutes. Let them know when you want to return to the ship, and a taxi will be waiting.  Costa Maya — once you exit the controlled shops and terminal area, the meeting spot is about two blocks away. The trip cost is included in the price and organized by the staff and takes 25-30 minutes on rough dirt roads south from Mahahual paralleling the coast. Return trips to the ship came in thirty minute increments starting at 1:30 for a 4:30 all on board time. The last taxi was scheduled at 3:30 and drops you off inside the controlled port area, which I liked better than the original pick up area.  Clear Edge to Maya Chan when combining entry and transportation for the right number of people. It doesn’t favor Nachi Cocom cost-wise unless you have a large number of people and a bus.    Total Cost for Two Adults Nachi Cocom — $144 Maya Chan — $118 Clear Edge to Maya Chan   Greeting and Orientation Nachi Cocom — upon arrival, you are greeted by a staff member who takes pictures of you with a sombrero and then directs you to the cashier who takes your payment receipt. After a brief wait, you are introduced to your waiter who takes you to your palapa  Maya Chan — when arriving at the meet up point outside of the port area which is fairly easy to find on the right next to a small convenience store, you are advised of the conditions and given the opportunity to cancel if there is a lot of seaweed in the beach. They have your name and number in your party on a list, check you off and match you with other guests for the trip which is usually in a 12 passenger van. A rep, for us, it was one of the American ex-pat owners gives a brief orientation.  Edge to Maya Chan   What’s Included (The Basics) Nachi Cocom — all food and beverages as well as access to all facilities. Your waiter brings anything you like to your palapa, or you can use the swim up bar in the pool or the restaurant area. Food is ordered off a fairly extensive menu. Beach toys are extra.  Maya Chan — an attendant will bring an introductory rum punch and any other beverages you like. Other than chips, guac and salsa, food is buffet style in the small All beach toys are included. They range from water shoes, snorkeling gear, floating chairs and stand up paddle boards.  Edge to Nachi Cocom (I don’t mind paying a little extra for a kayak or floating mat)   The Facilities Nachi Cocom — there are two sets of bathrooms, a large outdoor seating area in the restaurant/bar, palapas that run two deep the full width of the property, which I am guessing is about 250 feet of water frontage. Each palapa has two chairs and a small table. There is a nice second bar on the beach. There is a small dock. The pool is great, and has a swim up bar which I love. There is also a hot tub. The beach is wide and clean. It’s easy to wade in with your floating device and a cold beverage. The restaurant is very nice and under shade, so even on the hottest days, is a great place to be. There are about 20 tables in the space.  Maya Chan — palapas include 1-5 chairs and a beach bed which provided one of the best naps I’ve ever had. They are larger than what is available at Nachi Cocom. There was an unattended second bar behind the line of palapas. I am guessing there is about 150 feet of  water frontage. There is no pool. The day I was there was not ideal, sadly, because a storm washed an unbelievable amount of seaweed ashore. It was quite staggering, actually. Three dedicated staff members were putting in huge efforts to clear paths to the water. Even then, when wading out, the seaweed was so thick, it wrapped around your legs for 10-15 feet until you reached clearer water. The bottom was rocky, though not as rocky as Adrenalin Beach at Labadee. Water shoes are a good idea. The restaurant/bar area is somewhat small and pleasant with about 8 tables. The cooking occurs right there, so you can enjoy the skilled cooking.  Edge to Nachi Cocom   Staff Nachi Cocom — absolutely fantastic. I had the same waiter both times, he remembered me. The bar tenders are quick and generous with the mixed drinks and the beers are cold.  Maya Chan — absolutely fantastic. They are extra attentive to your needs yet they don’t pester you. I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Dan, one of the owners.  Slight Edge to Maya Chan — Nachi is wonderful however   Food and Beverage Nachi Cocom — I like the option to be served at a table or at your palapa. All tropical drinks I had were very good, and the beer was cold. The menu has numerous Mexican and some American selections.  Maya Chan — The tropical drinks were very tasty and the beer was cold. Food was served buffet style and limited to assembling tacos using shredded skirt steak, chicken, sea bass (dripping in garlic butter — omg), and pork. All had Mexican seasoning and were fresh, plentiful and wonderful with all the fixings including really, really good guacamole.  Edge to Nachi Cocom because of the style of servïce and variety. Quality at both were good.    Edges to Nachi Cocom — 3 Maya Chan — 4   Conclusion   Because I am happy with a cold beer on the beach to keep me happy, and the lower overall cost, I would give an edge to Maya Chan especially on a good beach day when the seaweed is gone. If I’m in the mood for a pool day and a swim up bar, I’ll pick Nachi Cocom and conclude the total extra cost is worth it knowing that I could have stayed at the port at Costa Maya and had swim up bar action all day if I wanted.    Despite how the edges came out above, I think Nachi Cocom would win over in my book because of more variety. My daughter picks Nachi Cocom because she remembers that the drink portions are larger and the large menu. So I would say that for us, the more developed facilities and the food variety are weighed more heavily than some of the other categories.    I would be curious to know what others who have been to both think.   

Maya Chan — hammock in the back of our palapa

Maya Chan — raised observation tower  great place to charge your phone 

Maya Chan — our palapa

Maya Chan — our palapa

Maya Chan — view from our palapa

Maya Chan — buffet area in the left foreground, and the bar in the back  this was taken upon entering for the first time

Maya Chan — this is an example of an area of seaweed that was cleared the most. The thicker areas were unreal  I waded through it several times, and it’s not bad if your mind is focused on the goal of getting to the other side. If you dwell on it, I will tell no lie, it’s pretty gross. If you don’t intend to go in the water on days when this happens, it won’t be an issue. 
 

Maya Chan — bar/restaurant from the beach

Maya Chan — beach toys — note the mounds of seaweed
 

Nachi Cocom — very nice beach

Nachi Cocom — palapas on the beach
 

Nachi Cocom Menu
 
Nachi Cocom Bathroom
Nachi Cocom pool and hot tub

Nachi Cocom massage palapa

Nachi Cocom secondary bathrooms and shower
 

Nachi Cocom — secondary beach bar
 

Nachi Cocom — pool with restaurant bar on the other side
 

Nachi Cocom — swim up bar on the other side fro. The restaurant side bar. 
 

Nachi Cocom resultant seating
 

When we cruise with husband's family, it is always MDR every night with special attention paid to formal night and pictures taken with family every night. 
Husband and I take the much more laid back approach when cruising on our own... and no pictures. 

I've done non-Royal tours and saved a lot of cash over the years.  Missing the ship is low probability, but severe effect - especially where there will be some sea days after your excursion.
If the problem is a traffic jam , chances are that the Royal excursion contractors will be  sitting in traffic also (the odds of this decrease if your excursion isn't also offered by Royal).
But 2 years ago some friends had an experience that makes me lean toward paying the "Royal Tax" and booking through the ship.  We were on a T/A that made stops in the Caribbean before the leg to Southampton.  Our last port before a string of sea days was St. Maarten.  Friends took the double decker bus tour around the island.  They were returning to the ship and saw police and an ambulance responding in the other direction.  A couple of minutes later, more police and fire equipment.  Then the bus slowed to a stop and sat there.  Yes, it had leaked out all the oil onto the roadway and caused a string of traffic collisions before seizing up.  It took over three hours before the tour company could get buses out to return the folks on tour (partly because they were located behind the crashes and ensuing traffic jam).
The ship patiently waited.  Friends might have spent an extra $25 a person, but spending at least one night on the island, missing the rest of the cruise, and paying walk-up rates for  1 way international tickets home would run more than that. (Though travel insurance might have helped out).
If you take private tours, be sure to take your passport, credit card and local port contact # for the ship.  And if you buy travel insurance, check the policy before buying to see how it handles this situation.

I've done non-Royal tours and saved a lot of cash over the years.  Missing the ship is low probability, but severe effect - especially where there will be some sea days after your excursion.
If the problem is a traffic jam , chances are that the Royal excursion contractors will be  sitting in traffic also (the odds of this decrease if your excursion isn't also offered by Royal).
But 2 years ago some friends had an experience that makes me lean toward paying the "Royal Tax" and booking through the ship.  We were on a T/A that made stops in the Caribbean before the leg to Southampton.  Our last port before a string of sea days was St. Maarten.  Friends took the double decker bus tour around the island.  They were returning to the ship and saw police and an ambulance responding in the other direction.  A couple of minutes later, more police and fire equipment.  Then the bus slowed to a stop and sat there.  Yes, it had leaked out all the oil onto the roadway and caused a string of traffic collisions before seizing up.  It took over three hours before the tour company could get buses out to return the folks on tour (partly because they were located behind the crashes and ensuing traffic jam).
The ship patiently waited.  Friends might have spent an extra $25 a person, but spending at least one night on the island, missing the rest of the cruise, and paying walk-up rates for  1 way international tickets home would run more than that. (Though travel insurance might have helped out).
If you take private tours, be sure to take your passport, credit card and local port contact # for the ship.  And if you buy travel insurance, check the policy before buying to see how it handles this situation.

Credit to @4ensic for this price drop thread.

Very much like us. They won your heart for the cost of a tortilla and cheese.

I am still going to bring my therapy wife on future cruises if they like it or not. I will make sure her vaccinations and papers are in order.  She does not bark a lot but her moans can be bothersome .  

As someone who has a Certified Therapy Dog, I always found the "emotional support" animal an issue.  Not that people don't need it, but the ones that take advantage have no clue that at one point their animal could end up hurting someone or another animal if they are not fully trained. Our Liberty is a THERAPY Dog, not SERVICE Dog, a distinct difference.  Many people think when I am visiting with Liberty somewhere that she is a service animal. She provides comfort to Air Force personnel, Hospice, children etc and travels sometimes with a group of Therapy dogs.  She had 12 weeks total training with both my husband and myself. Service Dogs are trained for 18 months in a foster home then 2 years before being provided to their new Handler that needs them.  I think it really has gotten out of control and like someone else here said, it takes a few to ruin for others that truly do need an emotional support animal.

People abuse the system all the time.  A former neighbor claimed support animal so he wouldn't have to pay pet rent.  I drove him to pick up his puppy from the breeder.  It wasn't trained at anything, it was a ten week old puppy.   Sure enough though, he didn't have to pay pet fees.  With the talk of more restrictions coming, a year later he signed up for a 4 hour session that provided a whimsical certificate so that he could argue the dog had received professional support animal training.  It was basically a play session with other dogs or so he told me as he encouraged me to follow suit.
There have been many incidents reported on trains, planes and ships where a claimed 'service' or 'support' animal bit someone or otherwise behaved inconsistent with a properly trained service animal.  I imagine there is potential liability if another guest is injured by a fake service animal.   Even if the risk of legal action against Royal is low (or the chance of winning a suit is low), it certainly will create a negative experience for a guest to be impacted and have their vacation ruined by a misbehaving fake service or support animal.
Seeing someone else getting away with it may tempt more to try it.  "Why not bring Fluffy?, they did".
If Royal needs to lean on the ADA to support this change in policy, I'm all for it.  
 

To put it in layman's terms:
a) Royal is also incorporated in the U.S.A. as a foreign corporation. 
b) Any company, not just Royal, can apply the color of law within legal boundaries and even relax them as they see fit within the same legal boundaries. International, Marinetime, Conventions and other laws all play into this. Too much to explain and would probably put some to sleep.
c) It is important to Royal that everyone enjoys their vacation. Hence, this new policy.  At the end, Royal Caribbean’s policy remains the same for service animals traveling with guests that have a physical or non-physical disability.

+1 on Indian food.
On Majesty of the Seas, they had some very good Indian food all the time in the Windjammer, if you knew where to look. We casually mentioned how we were enjoying that Indian food to our head waiter in the MDR the first night and every night he provided an Indian dish in addition to the regular menu items. It was awesome. Boy, did we look forward to the MDR. We would have gladly traded out one of the listed entrees for the Indian dish, but he insisted that it be additional, not replacement.
We noticed that there were several chefs and cuisine managers from the Indian subcontinent listed in the WJ.
For the cost of a few plates of food, Royal locked us in as customers for the foreseeable future. Cheap customer retention costs for them. Good food for us. That works.

Beautiful home !

The prior owner of my house in St. Louis married a woman originally from Hinunangan.  They asked me to go on a medical mission there (both are MDs) to run the back end of the pharmacy and manage the supplies we brought over.  I liked it and went back yearly on vacation with them.  The wife is from a family of medical people (Her nephew is the town dentist and my next door neighbor) in the town.  
She owns some lots in town and said her niece in Cebu (a commercial contractor) could build a house.  The doctors had already built their retirement house there a couple of blocks away.  For a very reasonable cost she built me a 4 BR 3 BA, 2 story house made of solid reinforced concrete.  It's withstood a 6.9 earthquake and Typhoon Yolanda (a Cat 5 hurricane that killed over 5,000 people in Tacloban - about 100 miles North) without so much as an insurance claim.  That's my story.

Welcome to the message boards!
The NCL Sky was known to be a party ship when it was doing 3 and 4 nights Bahamas cruises with open bar.  Now that Cuba has opened up to cruise operators she spends much of her time doing Cuba cruises.   
The weekend 'booze cruise' market is different than the Cuba cruise market. 
Sky still does a 3 night Nassau cruise and a 3 night Great Stirrup Cay cruise on many weekends in between her 4 and 5 night runs to Cuba.  When the marketing for these cruises has a huge "Open Bar" graphic as the lead photo you have to know these cruises are more likely to be booze cruises.
Several years ago I did a B2B on Carnival, 4 night followed by 3 night.  The clientele was very different on the two cruises.  The weekend 3 night cruise was a party boat.  I suspect the same may be true for the Sky.  On a weekend 3 night cruise it's more likely to be a booze cruise then the following day when she sets out for Cuba she is less likely to be a booze cruise.  In reality I'm sure it varies cruise to cruise.  A couple of obnoxious drunks on any cruise can set the tone for the pool deck for all.  That applies to any cruise line.  I don't think the stereotype booze cruise crowd seeks to go to Cuba, but I could be wrong.
Royal has some very interesting Cuba itineraries that have two new ports added to the mix.  Check those out before deciding.  
 
 

Quoted for the truth! Long live the Champagne Bar!

I have one also. 

The prior owner of my house in St. Louis married a woman originally from Hinunangan.  They asked me to go on a medical mission there (both are MDs) to run the back end of the pharmacy and manage the supplies we brought over.  I liked it and went back yearly on vacation with them.  The wife is from a family of medical people (Her nephew is the town dentist and my next door neighbor) in the town.  
She owns some lots in town and said her niece in Cebu (a commercial contractor) could build a house.  The doctors had already built their retirement house there a couple of blocks away.  For a very reasonable cost she built me a 4 BR 3 BA, 2 story house made of solid reinforced concrete.  It's withstood a 6.9 earthquake and Typhoon Yolanda (a Cat 5 hurricane that killed over 5,000 people in Tacloban - about 100 miles North) without so much as an insurance claim.  That's my story.

Yes, I use a metal cup that looks like a camera lens and have brought it on 2 ships.  The only comment from F&B staff has been "Where'd you get it?".

Yes, I use a metal cup that looks like a camera lens and have brought it on 2 ships.  The only comment from F&B staff has been "Where'd you get it?".

How many have ordered something off the menu?  I don't mean a dish available another night, but something Royal doesn't offer at all.  How'd it turn out?
Friends I cruise with do this on occasion and the results are usually worthy of a specialty restaurant.  They usually ask early on the voyage for something generic like "Filipino food" for a meal at the convenience of kitchen staff  (basically we'd be happy with a crew meal). Usually a chef comes around that evening and makes suggestions.  On the Freedom, the chef (Filipino!) volunteered to prepare different meals for two nights.   He did  family style meals of: pancit bihon (Rice noodles with pork and vegetables), sinigang (sour fish soup), chicken adobo , goulay (local vegetables), and lumpia Shanghai (pork filled eggroll). 
What's your experience been?
 

Welcome @4ensic!  Happy to have you on board with us ?