As part of my next Royal Caribbean cruise, I want to take you along for the planning process as we make decisions and plan our Royal Caribbean vacation.  I hope this will give you some insight into my thought process and perhaps this will assist you for planning your next Royal Caribbean cruise too.

Today we are going to look at excursion ideas for one of the stops on our Navigator of the Seas 7-night cruise, Belize City.

Photo by afagen

Background

Belize City is one of three stops on our cruise itinerary and I knew very little about this port prior to researching it.  

Part of the reason I was attracted to this cruise was the fact we were going to go to Belize and Roatan (Honduras) because they are ports I have never been to before.  The other reason I liked the idea of going to Belize is I'm a big fan of visiting Central American countries for their great food, beautiful beaches and great value for the dollar.

Quickly into my research across message boards and travel web sites I discovered a few key facts that gave me pause.  First, Belize City is a tender port, which isn't ideal but what struck me is many people reported that the tender ride from ship to shore (and vice versa) is roughly 20 minutes.  That's a long tender ride.  

This long tender ride evidently leads to long lines trying to leave the ship in the morning or return to the ship in the afternoon.  The lines are such a problem that others have suggested you need to book a Royal Caribbean excursion because those people get priority to leave first.

The other issue with Belize City is the port itself, which outside of the port gates is described by many as being less than welcoming.  I've read the area looks rather run down and many that ventured out felt out of place very quickly. As someone that enjoys exploring the ports of call I visit, it was another concern.

The Options

After careful research I came up with these four excursion ideas.

Bannister Island

Royal Caribbean offers an excursion called the "Private Island Beach Break" that is your basic beach excursion to this very small island.  My research revealed this to be Bannister Island and is a basic, no frills beach getaway.  Water, sand and optional food and beverage are there and not much else.

Photo by zqvol

Reviews I found ranged from good/very good to mediocre/overrated.  I also read the sand is the kind of sand that has a lot of crushed sea shells so not exactly softest in the world.  The other big problem is the cost, at $128 for the three of us and that does not include any food or drinks.

The benefit of this excursion is the excursion departs directly from the ship, so I'd get priority disembarkation and I wouldn't even have to go to the port area.  A back and forth trip that appears to be seamless with nearly everyone reporting how easy it was to get to and from the island.  The other good thing is it's about 4 hours long, so we ought to be able to get back to Navigator of the Seas in time for lunch and a nap.

Pros: Conveniece getting on/off the ship; Ship-sponsored excursion; Not a big time commitment

Cons: Expensive; Beach reviews are less than glowing; Not really seeing Belize City at all

Goff's Caye

The first excursion outside of what Royal Caribbean offered that sounded interesting is Goff's Caye, a small island off the shore of Belize City. Like Bannister island, it's tiny but offers the sort of beach experience I'm looking for.

Photo by RWayne

Reviews for Goff's Caye fared better than Bannister island, with people saying the experience getting to and from the island from the port simple.  Photos I've found from others that have went look to be very beautiful and my overall sense is Goff's Caye is a better beach than Bannister Island.

The downside seems to be I have to first get to Belize City and deal with the mess that is disembarking Navigator of the Seas. Some reports you read of people who tried to go on their own in Belize results in crazy lines and late arrivals.  And while I know there's always going to people with negative experiences, there's enough of these long line reports to concern me.

Pros: Beach looks best; Price is cheaper

Cons: Getting to excursion pick up on time will be a challenge

Find a local in port

My tried and true strategy for most ports I visit is to wander into town, past the kitchy cruise stuff and find a local to drive us around.  It's often a good value and I feel like actually get a sense of the city I'm visiting.  I like to try the local food and go places most tourists don't.  

Photo by ShellyLeit

Lots of what I read online points to a port city that looks run down with a lot of pushy locals who make the toursits feel uneasy.  Not to mention many people recommend to have something planned before getting into Belize to avoid all this.  

I've searched online for drivers others have found, which has been a strategy that has served me well in other ports, but with no luck.  Regardless, you never know what your experience will be like and what one person finds "scary", I might find the kind of authentic experience I savor.

Given that this is my first time in Belize City, I really want to be able to say I got a sense of what the port was beyond a beach and what I could see from my ship that is 20 miles out to sea.

Pros: Sense of adventure; Chance to try local cuisine; Potentially money saving experience

Cons: Reviews of port area are concerning; Not many attractions/restaurants/things to do near port area

Stay on the ship

Of course, there's always the option to not bother going to Belize City and enjoying having Navigator of the Seas to myself.

Photo by Christoffer Löfhjelm

Staying onboard in a port is cool from the standpoint of many venues are emptier than usual and this means a good chance to enjoy the pool, restaurants and other areas.  Staying onboard will also mean a longer and more controlled nap time for my daughter.

I'll be honest, staying onboard considering this is my first time in Belize City will eat at me.  I relish exploring the ports I visit and having never been and staying onboard would be like someone baking a cake and leaving it in front of a cake lover who tries not to eat it.  Torture!

The other reason not to stay onboard is the cruise has 3 sea days so getting off the ship will be preferred.

Pros: Cheapest option; Zero hassle of trying to get off the ship; Pool time without crowds; Rested daughter = happy dad

Cons: Personality clash; Extra time onboard

The Decision

After considering our options, we ended up choosing.... Goff's Caye.

The reason basically came down to ultimately it was what we wanted to do that would be relatively simple but something we thought would be fun.  

Bannister Island seemed like too much of a compromise in terms of how we'd be spending the day and the other options were just too "out there" for us.  

The biggest concern about Goff's Caye is getting there on time, so we are planning on waking up early and ordering room service breakfast the night before to minimize the time spent getting ready to go.  

Just a few days until Christmas and if you were busy getting ready, then we have all the Royal Caribbean news from this week to share with you.

Quantum of the Seas news was the big story this week, with a study proving that she is just too darn big to go to Bermuda.

Tests revealed the existing North and South Channels were not big enough to safely accommodate the vessel, especially in high winds. If Bermuda wants to be able to host Quantum of the Seas, then dredging will need to begin soon.

It's unclear as of yet what the Bermuda government will do, if anything, to accomodate Quantum of the Seas from being able to visit the island.

Royal Caribbean News

• New Royal Caribbean unlimited alcohol packages available for purchase online.
• Travel Weekly named Royal Caribbean the best cruise line for the 11th year in a row.
• What would it cost to do EVERYTHING on a Royal Caribbean cruise?  We did the math to find out.
• Freedom of the Seas rescued two sailors that were adrift at sea.
• We listed the top ten Royal Caribbean news stories of 2013.
• A passenger fell off Rhapsody of the Seas and the crew was able to find their body.

Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast

The twentieth episode of the Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast is available and we're discussing transatlantic Royal Caribbean cruises.

This week, podcast listener Ron reviews his recent transatlantic cruise.  Transatlantic cruises are the sort of cruise that people either think would be really fun or not fun at all, so Matt and Ron talk about the appeal of a transatlantic cruise as well as who might find transatlantic cruises enjoyable.

Please feel free to subscribe via iTunes or RSS, and head over to rate and review the podcast on iTunes if you can! We’d appreciate it.

Royal Caribbean Around the Internet

Cruise Maven has a new post about how Royal Caribbean kids busy all day long.

Royal Caribbean shared holiday baking tips from their pastry chefs.

Travel Weekly has an update on their UK office's new boss.

Cruise Radio has a new podcast episode reviewing Brilliance of the Seas

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) will begin collecting personal importation taxes on alcohol and cigarettes from passengers returning from cruises in Galveston in 2014.  Royal Caribbean operates Navigator of the Seas currently out of Galveston.

Beginning on January 4, 2014, cruise travelers disembarking out of Galveston will need to pay the tax for alcoholic beverages and cigarettes imported into the state that were purchased either on the ship's duty free store or at a foreign port of call. 

During the recent legislative session, the agency was appropriated funding to begin tax collection of imported alcoholic beverages and cigarettes from seaport facilities. The Galveston Port facility will be the first seaport location where this tax will be collected with plans to extend to the Houston-Bayport facility in the fall of 2014.

Tax collection points staffed with TABC personnel will be situated at both terminals 1 and 2 at the Galveston facility located where patrons come through the U.S. Customs secondary checkpoint. Passengers will be able to pay the taxes with either cash or credit cards.

TABC personnel have worked with Port of Galveston officials to ensure that the tax collection is done efficiently and with limited disruption of port operations and delays to the passengers.

A passenger fell overboard while on Royal Caribbean's Rhapsody of the Seas cruise and in the subsequent search, the body was found.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, the incident occured at 2:00am on Saturday.

Evidently Rhapsody of the Seas was about 300 nautical miles east of Brisbane when the man was seen falling from the ship.  At that time, the ship immediately turned around and life rings and marker smoke were deployed.  Rescue boats were deployed to find the person.

Rhapsody of the Seas was on a nine-night cruise of the south Pacific.

A spokeswoman for Royal Caribbean said in a written statement another passenger had witnessed the man go overboard.

The incident was also captured on the ship's CCTV system, she said.

"The ship's captain immediately stopped the ship, turned around, and alerted the local authorities including the Australian Maritime Safety Authority," the spokeswoman said.  

"...With the assistance of the Search and Rescue aircraft, the Rhapsody of the Seas was able to locate the guest however regretfully the guest was found to be deceased at the time.

"The body of the deceased has been recovered on board the Rhapsody of the Seas.

"Royal Caribbean’s care team is providing support to the guest’s family and travelling companions and our thoughts and prayers are with them.

This week's batch of beautiful Royal Caribbean photos is here and it's always fun to share with all of you the great photos our readers take while on their cruise vacation.

The photos we have to show this week are fun and of course anyone can send us their Royal Caribbean photos to use as well!

Our first photo is from Matt Carrera taken on Allure of the Seas back in October 2012.  I'd say this pirate looks ready for a high seas adventure (and maybe a hot dog for lunch).

Next is photo from Michael Poole of Central Park on Oasis of the Seas.  With his photo, Michael wrote, "Who wouldn't want to be there now."  Could not agree more!

Jan Breedlove sent in this photo of arriving at St. Maarten in October 2013 while on Freedom of the Seas.  St. Maarten is such a beautiful island and Jan's photo really captures the serenity of the harbor.

This panoramic photo by Paul Wilson was taken from the deck of the Navigator of the Seas at Cagliari this past November.  Great idea to take a panoramic photo!

Finally this week, let's go north of the border to François St-Onge, who sent us this photo of Explorer of the Seas in Quebec City Port.  Magnifique!

Do you have Royal Caribbean photos that you want to share?  We'd love to feature them so send them in by using our nifty submission form and maybe your photos will show up in next week's edition!

Freedom of the Seas rescued two sailors early this morning that were adrift at sea.

Cruise Critic reports the Royal Caribbean cruise ship found the two after the sailors shot a red flare to signal for attention.

Royal Caribbean Director of global corporate communications Cynthia Martinez issued this statement regarding the incident, "the rescue occurred today at approximately 5:30 a.m. as the ship sailed from San Juan to Philipsburg, St. Maarten. After sailing toward the red flare, the ship encountered a small boat with two passengers. Crew lowered a boat into the water and rescued the two men, both from the Dominican Republic."

After being rescued, Cruise Critic indicated that the Royal Caribbean crew gave the sailors food, water and medical treatment until they could be transfered to the United States Coast Guard in St. Maarten.

I was inspired by a friend, who wrote a blog post about what it would cost to do everything in Walt Disney World, to figure out how much would it cost to indulge and do everything on a Royal Caribbean cruise.  After all, Royal Caribbean is always looking for ways for its guests to spend money and there's a lot available to do on Royal Caribbean ships.

In order to figure this out, I need to set up this hypothetical experiment.  First, we have to define the parameters of our research.  We will assume this would be attempted on a single Royal Caribbean ship (sorry, trying to do everything across the entire fleet just isn't practical).  

Next, I have to come up with what constitutes "doing something".  If there's an excursion that offers cave tubing and a beach break and then there's another excursion with just a beach break, does that mean I need to do both or just one?  The all encompassing excursion sounds good to me.  

All the prices and assumptions you will see are assumed for one person.  It's easier to calculate for just one person and if by some miracle I could ever win the lottery, then I suppose I could bring someone else along.  Until then, this is a solo experiment (sorry wife and daughter).

Next is the ship.  Royal Caribbean has a lot of ships and what they offer on one ship may not be available on another.  I decided to pick Oasis of the Seas with the idea being it's their flagship class and thus, offers the latest and greatest and in my experience, has the most to offer its guests.

What about the stateroom? There are many different stateroom types on Oasis of the Seas. It would be all but impossible to stay in every one of them. To simplify things, I decided to price out the cost for my arbitrary cruise for what would allow me to credibly say that I had stayed at that hotel. Usually this meant I chose the cheapest balcony cabin. It's not as cheap as inside but not as crazy expensive as a suite.

For the specialty restaurants, the cover charge restaurants are the easiest since it's a flat fee.  For the a la carte restaurants, I decided to pay whatever cover charge there was plus one entree.  There isn't any more logic here than "sounded good at the time".

For everything else, I had to use my judgement for what to include and exclude.  

• In the case of ordering cakes, I decided one cake was all I needed.  
• In the case of spa treatments, if there were spa treatments with different times, I chose the longer one.  
• For shore excursions, I picked one shore excursion per port since you really can't do more than one per day, per cruise.
• I included no discounts or coupons in the prices.
• I haven’t factored transportation fees into my plan at all. I’d need a flight and certainly a rental car. Or possibly I’d drive down and then have gas expenses throughout.

The experiment

As I said, I picked Oasis of the Seas as my guinea pig.  I wanted to pick an "average cruise" so Christmas or other holiday cruises are way too expensive, as are hurricane season cruises.  I went with May since it's after spring break and before the real summer rush. 

Here is a link to the spreadsheet I used for figuring everything out.

The largest chunk of cost comes from the spa, which when you add gratuity to all the service costs comes out most expensive.  This is followed up by the basic cruise costs plus a few basic add ons.  Gifts are next up in terms of cost followed by excursions, restaurants and other miscellaneous items.

Relatively speaking, the specialty restaurants don't really add up and to me, that was a surprise.  The spa cost being the most expensive is eye opening but then again, I think most people realize the spa services are somewhat expensive to begin with.  

Adding it all up, the total for everything on this cruise is $11,840.75.  Our price does not include transportation, which would probably add a few hundred dollars or so for either a flight and a car rental, or auto wear and tear and gas.

Travel Weekly named Royal Caribbean the Best Cruise Line Overall in its 2013 Travel Weekly Readers Choice Awards.  Royal Caribbean picked up numerous honors, chief among them best Best Cruise Line Overall.

In addition, Royal Caribbean won the following four awards:

• Best in Sales and Service (sixth consecutive year)
• Best Domestic Cruise Line
• Best Cruise Line in the Caribbean
• Best Overall Individual Cruise Ship: Allure of the Seas

Winners were determined first by Travel Weekly readers who wrote in names of companies they believed best exemplified a particular category. The leader vote getters were selected from the bunch and voting on finalists took place this fall.

Vicki Freed, senior vice president of Sales, Trade Support and Services for Royal Caribbean, commented on the awards, "We are extremely honored to be voted Best Cruise Line Overall by travel agents for as long as the Travel Weekly Readers Choice Awards have been held.  We also thank our valued travel agent partners for naming Royal Caribbean as the Best in Sales and Service for a sixth consecutive year, reaffirming our ongoing Loyal to You Always! commitment to the travel agent community. Travel agents play an important role in delivering unforgettable vacations and Royal Caribbean is proud to support them in every way."

Our newest podcast episode is out to help give you a quick "audio escape" to a Royal Caribbean cruise!

Episode 20 is available for downloading where we look at why you might want to book a transatlantic cruise.

Matt is joined by podcast listener Ron to review his recent transatlantic cruise.  Transatlantic cruises are the sort of cruise that people either think would be really fun or not fun at all, so Matt and Ron talk about the appeal of a transatlantic cruise as well as who might find transatlantic cruises enjoyable.

Here’s the podcast page for Episode 20. And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast via RSS, Stitcher or on iTunes!

Take a listen and as always, let us know what you think! Please rate and review the podcast on iTunes and leave your comments below!