Cruise with Royal Carribean - tips please!

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We are going on our first cruise this summer, very kindly paid for by my MIL. They live in Oregon, us in London, and we're cruising from Fort Lauderdale, FL to Nassau, Honduras, Cozumel and another Mexican destination I can't remember!
Any tips and advice gratefully received, especially about the excursions. They seem like an expensive rip off to me, designed for less confident travellers who don't want to organise their own thing.
But please correct me if I'm wrong.
I'm concerned that if we don't go on the excursions, we won't get to see anything, as it may be difficult to travel independently from the cruise ports?
Any specific knowledge of this cruise route?
Thanks in advance.

I went RC last year Europe tho

We Loved it!

Tips

1. Buy one drinks package for 2 people to share or 2 for 4 people etc.

You can go up one at a time and they are fine about it.

1. Don't use on board trips. You can get most places from port However we were in Europe which I imagine is safer than Mexico. We used taxis or walked from port We weren't bothered about seeing stuff miles away tho. Most of our trips were small islands.
2. If you use the cinema make sure your dressed. We went in swimware and sober two hours frozen.
3. You can request in your first day to tip as you go. It must be the first day and go to the concierge desk. Otherwise you will be charged a massive amount per person even kids for a tips. Our drink package included tips so that's the bar staff sorted and we tipped our waiter and maid at the end of the holiday.

If I can think of anything else I'll come back.

We’re just back from a cruise that stopped at Honduras (the island of Rostan). We did an amazing tour with a company called Victor Bodden, called the zip n dip tour.
They collected us from the dockside, and took us to a zip lining place, which was fantastic. We then went to a animal park with parrots, monkeys, sloths etc, then we were driven to a beach resort for a couple of hours, before returning us to the ship in plenty of time. It was very professionally run, and much cheaper than the ships tours.

Cozumel is very nice, we took a taxi from the port to a beach and pool day resort called Paradise Beach. The pool was fantastic, and it was only $3 per person, although there was also a minimum charge of $10 per person for food and drinks, which were very nice, and reasonably priced.

Remember that if you book tours with another company and are late back then they will not wait for you, we very nearly had this problem when stuck in traffic. Saving the money wasn't worth the added stress.

Remember that if you book tours with another company and are late back then they will not wait for you

It can be a risk, but this tour got you back 2 hours before final boarding, so no stress there.

It’s not guaranteed that they’ll hold the ship even if you are late back on a ship tour, although they will cover any cost of getting you to the next port.

We got back by the skin of our teeth due to heavy traffic. As luck would have it so did the ship tour so we were ok.

We got back by the skin of our teeth due to heavy traffic. As luck would have it so did the ship tour so we were ok
That must have been very stressful, nothing relaxing about running late for a departing ship !

Buy one drinks package for 2 people to share or 2 for 4 people etc.
You can go up one at a time and they are fine about it.

That’s pretty poor advice, IMO. It’s theft, so you’re basically telling the OP to steal from the cruise line. If you get caught doing this, they will cancel the drinks package with no refund.

As I understand it, Royal Caribbean is introducing a new policy anyway, where all adults in a cabin must purchase the drinks package if one wants it, to get round the problem of people sharing packages. Such a shame they’ve had to do this, especially if one person in the cabin doesn’t drink.

Thanks for the tips so far; some interesting things I wouldn't have thought of!
Your discussion of the drinks package reminds me of my general questions about food and drink.....
How does it work?
The meals are included, right? And the restaurants such as sushi etc that you have to pay for are just if you choose to have something different?
And the drinks? If you don't buy a drinks package you can't have anything to drink??!

Bring a load of Immodium

Oh dear; did you have a bad experience, Nakedavenger?
Is it the food on board ship that you think is dodgy?

We didn't have an alcoholic package just soft drinks.
You can get soft drinks. Tea coffee etc
Free of charge but only in the restaurants so can be a long walk to get a drink if no package.

I had no issues which food at all it was all lovely and they were hot in hygiene washing.

Thanks Madeyemoodysmum; I understand now. Free drinks in the restaurant, but you have to get a drinks package so you can get drinks in other parts of the ship.

No, you can buy drinks at any of the bars and just charge them to your account, like in a hotel. We drank on average two alcoholic and one payable soft drink per day each and it was cheaper than the drinks packages would have been. This was 3 or 4 years ago though. If you haven’t already found it the Cruise Critic Forum is a great place to get all sorts of questions like this answered.

We've never bothered with a drinks package, it's convenient enough to pop to the restaurant to get a drink. We took water bottles and filled those each morning.

There is a forum board called cruise critic that maybe helpful for you. It covers different cruiselines/routes/facilities tips and tricks etc.

Thanks all - yes I just discovered Cruise Critic this morning!