Cruise Port Days

The main event of your cruise will probably be your port day. While I love a good sea day, it's always great to get off the ship and venture around the port, even if I've been there before. 

The one thing to look into before your trip is whether your stops are pier ports or tender ports. A pier port is one where you just walk right off the ship, down a ramp, and onto the pier to walk into the port. If you've ever seen clips of people running back to catch their cruise before it sails away, this is at a pier port. The other type of stops are tender ports. These are ports where the water near the shore is too shallow for your ship to safely dock, so they'll drop the anchor down in the middle of the water, and then you'll get off your ship onto a tender boat and be tendered over to the port. The two things to be aware of is that, unlike a pier port where you can just get on or off the ship whenever you want, with a tender port you're completely dependent on the availability of a tender boat to get on or off the ship. This means that if there's a lot of people who suddenly had the collective thought to get on/off the ship at the same time, you'll be waiting around for a while as tender boats can only hold so many passengers at once. The other thing to be aware of is that because these boats are much smaller than your cruise ship, you'll feel the motion of the boat significantly more. If you're prone to get motion sickness, you'll definitely want to make sure you've taken medicine before you tender to/from the ship. 

You'll scan your room key as you get on and off the ship at each port, so the cruise can know who is on or off the ship, so make sure you bring your room key with you when you get off the ship. If you are doing an excursion, don't forget to bring your tickets with you. 

Most people opt to do an excursion at each port, but I don't think you absolutely have to. Regardless of which port you're at, they'll announce which deck of the ship you'll need to go to so you can get off. The exit deck for a pier port will be different than a tender port. If you have an excursion, they'll usually give you the tickets on your first day of the cruise, and the tickets will tell you if there's a meet up spot and time for your excursion. Some meet up spots will be in main gathering areas on your ship, like in the theater or a bar. If you meet up on the ship, a staff member will take everyone down to the exit deck together and help you get off the ship. Other excursions will have a meet-up point at the port, so you'll just get off the ship and look for someone holding a sign with your excursion name. And if you don't have an excursion, then you can get off the ship at any time.

What to wear for a cruise excursion 

If you're doing an excursion, what you wear will depend on what you're doing. Most excursions will involve being in/around the water. For those, I recommend you wear a one-piece swimsuit so you can zip-line or jump into a cenote without worrying about flashing a group of strangers. You'll want a fast-drying coverup that's easy to take on and off all day. I avoid flip-flops for excursions because you never know if what you'll be doing will make them going flying around, so instead I wear strapped waterproof sandals for excursions. For snorkeling or boating excursions, again I'd recommend either a one-piece swimsuit and UPF shirt, or a rash guard and water shoes. Bring a waterproof sunhat to keep from getting burned. 

For dry excursions, like ATV's, bus tours, or ruins visits, I wear something more comfortable like breathable tops and quick dry athletic shorts with comfortable sneakers. If you want to wear your hair up, I suggest you add a UPF hat to keep the sun off your face. 

If I'm not doing an excursion, I usually wear my beach shoes and a swimsuit under a coverup off ship and then I'll pack a wet bag with out underwear and a change of clothes in the wet bag in case we want to change out of our wet swimsuit. 

Whether I do an excursion or not, I always make sure to wear my Apple Watch that has a watch face that has both ship time (time zone of the city the cruise departed from) and local time on it so I don't miss my ship's departure time but can also make sure I know the local time. I just make sure to use it with a sporty watch band that is safe to use in the water and won't fall off my wrist easily. Make sure you plan to be back at your ship at least an hour before sail away time. Cruises do not wait for late passengers and will leave you unless you are on a cruise-sponsored excursion that has notified the ship that you're running behind.  

What to pack in your shore day bag

The most popular shore day bag is a beach bag, because duh. Personally, I prefer to use a beach bag with 2 shoulder straps like a backpack so that I can have my hands free, and so I don't have to keep shifting a bag from one arm to the other to keep my arms from tiring out as we walk around to explore the ship. I also make sure to have the UV index on my watch face so I can know if I need to reapply sunscreen more often than normal, and wear UV stickers to make sure I don't get burned. 

Any iPhone 7 or newer is waterproof, and basically any Android will be waterproof too, so you can take your phone with you anywhere and get really good pictures. If you're worried about holding onto your phone when you're in a swimsuit and don't have pockets, or if you want to swim around in the ocean, you can put your phone in a waterproof phone pouch and just wear it. 

It's a rite of passage for first-time cruisers (men particularly) to go into the ocean with their wallet in their pocket and then completely ruin the leather wallet and have all of their money soaked and the cards sticky from salt water. How you can avoid that is with a waterproof travel wallet. These zip up to keep money/cards from falling out and to keep it waterproof. It's perfect because all you need at port is your ID, your ship card, a credit card, and some cash for tipping/bartering/buying things from merchants on the beach, so you can leave everything else in a regular wallet in your stateroom safe that way if your wallet gets lost/stolen, you didn't just lose all the cash you brought for the trip and all of your credit cards. 

In my beach bag, I keep sun hat, sunglasses for everyone, sunscreen, and a reusable water bottle that I've filled up at a drink station on the ship before we got off. I also bring a solar phone charger so my phone won't die, headphones,  and my waterproof Kindle for entertainment on the beach. I'll either pack my sandscreen or baby powder to keep sand off my hands. The last thing I'll bring in my beach bag is actually a packable backpack. This takes up basically no room in my beach bag, but if we go shopping or just run out of room in our normal bag, we can have plenty of room to carry everything back on the ship in one load. 

For the water, I'll bring a small inflatable float that I can relax in the ocean if the waves are calm. We also decided to just buy and bring our own snorkel gear for checking out the fish near the beach because it doesn't take up that much space in our luggage, and we like to have our own gear that we're used to and know we like. I once had a really bad experience where the mask I rented had a crack in it, so water kept filling up in my goggles and I had to wait until someone else checked their set back in before I could get a new mask because they were all sold out. This also saves us money in the long run, because you can buy your own snorkel set for about the price of renting it once, so if you use your snorkel set just twice, you'll save money. 

The other bag we always bring is a waterproof dry bag for our towels. This is a great bag to throw wet towels and swimsuits in at the end of the day, or to keep electronics dry if it's raining. You can take ship towels off of the ship for free, but I prefer to bring our own camping towels. Even the largest camping towel (which is bigger than the ship towel) takes up less space in your bag so you can fit more towels into 1 bag and still have leftover room. And these towels are significantly lighter than ship towels, especially when wet. They are also a different color than the ship towels, so you can find your beach chair much easier if you're looking for an orange towel in a sea of blue towels. I also bring towel clips to keep our towels from flying away if we're not sitting in our chair.

If we're traveling with our daughter to the beach, we'll bring a beach bag just for her. Right now we keep a seashell collection purse, travel sandcastle toys, water shoes, sunglasses, sun hat, sunscreen applicator, and floatie packed for her. One weird thing I bring with us to the beach for her is a water bottle shower attachment. This can go on any plastic water bottle and spray water, which we've found is great if she gets her face covered in either sand or food. I also like to bring a sand-proof beach blanket to spread out so she can have a place to either play or nap. We would just use a baby tent to keep her shaded for naps. Obviously, all of this is in addition to the diapers (swim and dry), wipes, paci, change of clothes, and snacks that we brought ashore. 

If we're doing an excursion where you're snorkeling or on a boat all day, all I would bring is the dry bag for your towels and then a waterproof crossbody for your phone, wallet, sunscreen, and water bottle. Don't forget to put your sunglasses on a floating sunglass strap so that they don't go flying off your head, but they won't sink away if they do get knocked off. My sister lost a pair of RayBans while we were jet skiing on our first stop of the cruise and had to buy overpriced crappy sunglasses at a souvenir shop. 

If you're doing an excursion where you're visiting ruins or doing a tour, just know that it will be a lot of walking and it will probably be hot. Keep all your stuff in a lightweight backpack since you'll be carrying your bag all day. You'll probably want a neck fan, shirt fan, or handheld fan to keep you from overheating from all the walking in the humidity. Definitely make sure you fill up a water bottle with cold water from the ship before you leave for your excursion. There might be bugs really bad, so don't forget to pack bug repellant. The Caribbean can have quick storms pretty often, where it might rain every day but only for an hour. If a stop is looking like it might rain, I pack my travel rain jacket just in case.

What not to pack in your excursion bag

This is a heavily-debated topic between cruisers, so here's my hot take: I don't recommend you take your passport off of the ship. The recommendation for bringing your passport with you to shore is if there's a medical emergency and you won't be returning to the ship, or you get to the port too late and miss your ship, then you'll have your passport with you and can easily fly out of the country to either go home or meet up with the ship at the next stop. Both of these things do happen probably just about every cruising, but it still feels like a rare occurrence to me. 

Why I don't bring my passport off the ship is because I believe, statistically, that I'm much more likely to lose my passport on shore than I am not getting back on the ship. When I studied abroad in Sprain and my mom came to visit me, her passport didn't make it out of Barcelona. We don't know if she was pickpocketed, if she sat it down and forgot about it, or if it just fell out. She ended up having to go halfway across the country to Madrid where the embassy is and get an emergency passport. That was very, expensive to pay for an emergency passport and spend the money getting to another city to get to the embassy. It also took up a whole day off of her trip and added a lot of stress for her. To me, it's just not worth it. I do have a scanned copy of our passports saved in a Goggle drive that I've made available offline, just in case.

Another thing I don't bring ashore is my engagement ring or wedding band. I'll wear a travel wedding ring instead. Most ports are safe, but you don't want to make yourself an easy target by flashing a rock worth several thousand dollars. But I mostly swap out my rings just because I don't want to lose them! I've actually fallen in the water and lost one of my travel rings, and I was SO grateful that it wasn't my real ring. I'll just keep my real ring in the safe back on the ship so I know I'm going home with it at the end of the trip. 

One last port don't is don't bring anything back on the ship that you're not supposed to. Some cruise lines have drug dogs hanging around the gangway to make sure no drugs are snuck in. The ship will have you go through a quick security process when you get back on, where you walk through a metal detector and your belongings go through an x-ray machine. You can't bring fresh fruit, food, or your margarita back with you. If you bought alcohol or some cigars on your trip, they will hold them for you until the last day of your cruise. Depending on the country you're on and your ship, you might not be able to bring seashells or sand back on. 

Cruise Embarkation Day

Going on a cruise is definitely different than going to a hotel. The biggest difference is that at a hotel, guests check in and check out throughout the week, so it's a steady trickle of the hotel turning over rooms. On a cruise, everyone is checking in at the same time, which is a really large influx of people all trying to get on a ship, explore the ship, and get settled into their vacation all at once. I wanted to share my tips for the first day of your cruise, plus what to pack in your carry-on for embarkation day.

To make your cruise embarkation go smooth, about a month before your cruise (give or take, the cruise line will send you an email) you can go online and check-in to your cruise like you would a plane. Just like a plane, this will give you a boarding pass and a boarding time. They'll also make your luggage tags available. Unlike a plane, the cruise won't print your boarding pass or luggage tag ahead of time, so you'll want to take care of that before you leave for your tip. 

Assume you'll have crappy internet at the cruise terminal because everyone will be on their phones trying to load their documents. Some people prefer to print their boarding passes, some prefer to screenshot them, but I prefer to save them to my Google drive and make it available offline so that both Ryan and I have access to them. Either way, just make sure you don't need internet to access them or you're going to be stuck there for a while.

Before your cruise, you can print off your cruise luggage tags with your room number on them, and your luggage will all be delivered to your room that first day. I recommend getting luggage tag holders for your luggage tags so the paper tags aren't ripped off and your bag isn't delayed. The luggage tags are short and fat for Carnival, but long and skinny for Royal Caribbean, so you'll need either Carnival-specific luggage tags holders or Royal Caribbean-specific luggage tag holders (most other cruises will fit one of these shapes).

You'll also want to download your cruise's app before your trip, called the Carnival Hub for Carnival or the Royal Caribbean app for Royal Caribbean, but each cruise line will have their own. Even if you got the internet package, I would also recommend you download and Spotify or Apple Music playlists so you can have music at the port, and download any shows/movies to your phone/iPad or books to your Kindle ahead of time because the ship wi-fi might not be as fast as what you have at home. 

What to expect for your cruise embarkation

Your cruise embarkation will be more similar to boarding a plane than checking in to a hotel. You'll either park if you drove in to the port or you'll get a ride if you flew in. Once you get to the cruise terminal, there will be porters there who can help you drop off your checked luggage, or you can drop off your checked luggage yourself, or you can carry on your checked luggage. The porters are free, but it's suggested you tip them $2 for large/heavy bags and $1 for smaller/lighter bags. Checked bags on a cruise are a little different than a plane. There's no weight or liquid amount limit, so you can bring a 60 pound bag with your full-sized shampoo bottles from home and be perfectly fine. Similar to TSA, your carry-on will go through security. The only real restrictions for a cruise checked bag is that any drinks (1 bottle wine per person over 21, case of soda or water per person) need to be in your carryon, and any other alcohol or potential fire hazard (power strips are a no-no, but outlet extenders or outlet adapters are okay, steamers are also banned) will be confiscated.  Your bags are usually delivered later in that afternoon, but sometimes they aren't delivered until that evening so I recommend you have everything you need to get you through the first evening in your carry-on bag (more on that below).

Once you get rid of your bags, it's time for the security clearance. Before your cruise, you'll be able to choose your boarding time. For our 2023 Carnival cruise out of Galveston, we ended up showing up about 30 minutes after our boarding time. They still let us on, but they had 2 security lines- 1 for people who were within their boarding window, which was a very short line; and 1 for people who were either too early or too late, which was a much longer line. Security is like TSA pre-check where your carry-on bags go through an x-ray machine and you go through a metal detector where you'll have to remove anything that would set the metal detector off, but hats, shoes, and jackets didn't need to be removed.

After you're through security, you start the boarding process. This is a little different than most planes. You go into a giant room and get in line to check-in. Depending on the crowd, this can take 15 minutes to an hour, so be prepared for both. The only thing you need to check in is your boarding pass and your ID's. If your trip begins and ends in the US, you can travel with a birth certificate + driver's license for adults, and just birth certificate for kids. However, I really recommend you cruise with a passport because it makes this process much faster, and disembarkation day is significantly faster as well. I suggest you just wear a crossbody bag with your phone and ID's to make it really easy and fast to find what you need to board. They'll take a picture of each person in your group for identification purposes, similar to what I've had happen at a doctor's office. Every time you get on and off the ship at each port, this photo will pop up as you get on/off the ship, so if you care about how you look in the photo then be aware of what you look like on that first day.

Now you finally get to walk onto the ship. Your room likely won't be ready when you get on the ship, so you'll have to find something to do until your room is ready (remember, your suitcase may or may not be at your room by the time your room is ready), and they usually will announce overhead when the rooms are ready. You'll usually get on the ship at one of their main levels where there's shopping, the excursion office, and guest services so you can go straight to one of thee if you need it. Most people go up to the top decks to change into swimsuits (or they boarded wearing their swimsuit) and get in the pool, claim a beach chair and get a drink while waiting for the ship to sail off, or head to the buffet to get the first of many free meals.

What to pack in your cruise carry-on

Two thoughts on your cruise carry-on situation: 2 straps and lightweight. I think of a cruise carry-on bag more like a flight "personal item" bag. Usually people bring either a purse, beach bag, or a backpack. I personally prefer to keep my phone, wallet, and important items in a crossbody bag, and then bring a backpack as our carry-on. I like a backpack just so I can be hands free to hold a drink and a plate of food in my hands without worrying about a bag falling down my arm, and so I don't have to keep shifting a bag from one arm to the other to keep my arms from tiring out as we walk around to explore the ship. 

In the backpack, we keep a wet bag with swimsuits for everyone (and then put our underwear in the wetbag once we change) and a coverup for going into the buffet in my swimsuit, sunglasses for everyone, sunscreen, and reusable straws for the day (cruises no longer use plastic straws, so they either have paper or candy straws). I'll also pack a small makeup and hair bag in case I have to do touch-ups for dinner in the event our checked luggage doesn't arrive before our dining time. The dress code for the main dining room on the first night is always casual, so you can probably wear what you wore to board the ship to dinner that first day as long as you didn't wear sweats or just a swimsuit and coverup to board. If you bring a laptop or iPad with you, you'll probably want it in your carry-on bag just to keep it safe. I also bring a wireless charger since I won't really have access to an outlet until my room is ready, headphones,  and my waterproof Kindle so I can start enjoying being on vacation. My carry-on backpack has a drink holder, so I'll pack my reusable water bottle and fill it up at a drink station once I get on board.

The last thing I bring are 2 bottles of wine in my carry-on bag. You get 1 bottle of only wine or champagne per person over 21 in your room. I bring shelf-temperature bottles but don't cool them until I get into my room so I'm not stressing over my wine's temperature fluctuating too much and ruining. I do pack the bottles in a wine carrier to keep them from clanking in my bag, but if you're worried about the bottles breaking then you can always put them in a travel wine protector bag. You can bring the wines with you to dinner and have wine with your meal for a small corkage fee, or you can enjoy your wine in your room for free. Personally, I just prefer to save my wine for the evenings on our balcony. I personally bring a wine bottle with a screw-off lid so I don't have to worry about a corkscrew and then pack silicone wine glasses to drink out of.

If you chose to bring a case of soda or water on board, you'll also have to carry it on, so keep that in mind when packing your carry-on bag. 

Tips for cruise embarkation day

Remember the app I told you to download before your trip? Now is the time to use it. Every person, no matter how many times they've cruised, must do a muster drill for each cruise. You can do the muster drill from the cruise app. It will have a little video or instructions on what to do in an emergency, and then will tell you where on the ship is your muster location. In the event of an emergency, this is where you will report to. Your app will tell you whether or not you'll need to bring a lifejacket from your room to the muster location. At the muster location, they will check you off the list as completing your muster drill. All cruise passengers, even kids, must complete the muster drill before the ship can sail away. The cruise likely won't allow you to buy anything (even drinks) on the ship until you complete your muster drill, and they'll announce your name if you're the one person holding up the ship sailing away from the port, so get it done early on embarkation day.

If you have kids, this is the day to check out the kids club and get them registered. All kids, even babies too young for the free drop-off kids club, should be registered so that you have full access the whole trip. They'll get a wristband that will have their muster station location on them, so if there's an emergency the kids club will have your kids meet up with you at the muster location, and you don't have to go find them.

The buffet, pool bar, and any pool-adjacent snack places are the most packed on embarkation day. If you can, explore the ship a little to find a lesser-crowded area to get something to eat or drink without the long line. Almost all places on the ship will let you take your food or drinks to go, so you can still carry your food and drinks up to the pool bar. 

Everything on your cruise will be charged back to your room, so your room key will be your only form of payment on the ship. But, you don't get your room key until your room is ready (it will be left right outside your room door when the room is ready). Since you can't use your credit card to buy a drink (assuming you didn't get the drink package), you'll need your boarding pass with your room number so they can charge your drink back to your room until you get your room key. 

I use the ships sailing-away horn to remind me to put my phone in airplane mode. If you have the internet package, your texts and apps will still work. But, once you get far enough away from the port, your phone will enter into roaming and will really be expensive. Your cruise app might also require your phone to be in airplane mode to work, and the ship internet might only work in airplane mode as well. 

If you're worried about seasickness, take your motion sickness medicine or put on your motion sickness patch (don't do both, they'll fight each other and make you more sick) before the ship sails away. These usually take 30-60 minutes to kick in, so you'll want to make sure it's in your system before your ship starts moving. 

Cruise Destination: Roatan, Honduras Port

Roatan has been my favorite cruise stop since I first went there, and it still is my favorite to this day! The water is beautiful, the shore is soft, and it's been a great stop every time I go. The water in Roatan is beautifully clear, there's lots of small fish that will swim with you even in shallow parts of the water, I've never seen a seaweed/seagrass infestation, and the water is the perfect temp. My last trip to Roatan was through Royal Caribbean, and Carnival stopped at a differ part of the port. I think I like the Carnival stop even better! 

There's a lot you can do in Roatan, so I wanted to create a place listing what we've done at each stop here over the years. I'll update this as we come back here again and again. 

Mahogany Beach

The "excursion" we booked for this stop was just a clamshell, which essentially just guarantees you 2 beach chairs that are fully shaded. The staff at this port was AMAZING! We had to navigate finding where to give our tickets once we were off the ship, and the staff not only helped us get to the right person, they helped us find a clamshell that was near a tree for extra shade for our baby, and was near the sidewalk so we didn't have to carry our stroller far. Later, when our daughter fell asleep in Ryan's arms, the staff came over and propped a table under the clamshell to angle it down more to better shade us since the sun had moved. 

There was a huge bar/restaurant right behind the beach so you could easily get food and top off your drinks. They offered souvenir drinks that had a lid with a straw and a foam koozie to keep your drink cold, and refills were at a discounted price. We saved our cups and fully intend to bring them back the next time we stop here.

As for the stop itself, what I love about it is that you don't have to do an excursion, so you can walk right off the ship and onto a beautiful beach in a couple minutes, and spend $0 the entire stop if you bring snacks and water with you and don't drink any alcohol. There is a chair lift like at an amusement park that can take you to the beach faster and save you the walk while giving you a unique view, but I don't think there were many other options that I'd consider. 

Cruise Destination: Belize City, Belize Port

To get to Belize City, your ship with dock out in the water and you'll take a tender boat to get ashore. The tender boats are small, so be prepared to wait for a boat and not have a lot of room for your items. Our boat going to Belize stayed fairly dry, but on the way back to our ship the boat was hit with a lot of spray from the water and our shorts got wet. 

I was really excited for my first trip to Belize, but I wasn't as prepared for their port as I should have been. I've been cruising for almost 20 years now, and this was the most under-developed port I've been to. While the water was beautiful, the port isn't as established as Cozumel or Grand Turks. I'd describe the shopping there as closer to a flea market than your typical cruise shopping, most of what we saw were bad designer knock-offs and Female Body Inspector-quality shirts. There also weren't a lot of restaurant options, maybe 2 small restaurants, and that was about it. There are no beaches near the port where you can play in the water, as they all are rocky shores. 

I think Belize is a stop that's best if everyone in your group is 12 and older, and likes adventure. The most popular excursions are river tubing through the cruise, zip lining, off-roading, and snorkeling and scuba. I wanted to create a place listing what we've done at each stop here over the years. I'll update this as we come back here again and again. 

Kukumba Beach 

We hadn't heard of Kukumba Beach before we got here, but luckily Ryan heard about it from a taxi driver when we were at the port trying to figure out what to do since we didn't have an excursion booked. Our driver was great and he took us to Kukumba Beach and figured out what time our ship left and planned to pick us up exactly an hour before it left so we wouldn't be rushing to make it to the ship on time, but he gave us his phone number so we could call him if we wanted to go back earlier.

Kukumba Beach actually worked out really well! There were high-top tables set up that had bar stools around them and were covered, and there were a lot of beach chairs. You could get a bucket of beer for like $12 and there were several food options which were pretty cheap. The place itself is sandy, but it's not on a beach. It has a man made salt-water and sand pool that has a huge slide and floating trampolines to play on. Our daughter really liked playing in the sand and in the water. 

And it had free wi-fi! The one con was that the beach chairs were wooden, so they weren't exactly comfortable. I had packed a sandproof beach blanket with us, so I just laid that down and then a camping towel on top of it on the sand for our daughter to have a softer place to nap. 

We were talking to a family that showed up about an hour after us, and turns out that they were on one of those city tour excursions and that this was a stop on their tour. They were really jealous that we got to go straight here and back, because they felt that the tour was just meh and would rather spend more time at the adventure park than taking the tour to get there and then more of a tour to get back to the ship. We also paid significantly less than they did to get there. 

If we were to go back to Belize again, we might look in to going a little further out of Belize City and try Starfish Island, Caye Caulker, Ambergris Caye, or Goff's Caye. 

Cruise Destination: Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos Port

Turks and Caicos is obviously a beautiful destination to go to, and one that I was most excited to go see. It's a great port stop because, like Cozumel, you can just dock and walk right into a very tourist-friendly well-planned port that has food, shopping, and swimming all right when you walk off the ship. 

The pier from the ship to the port is also pretty short, so it's a great port where you could save some money and do a quick return to the ship for lunch. It also would be a great stop if you have napping-aged kids, because you can easily go back to your stateroom for a nap and then come right back to the port without much time or effort. 

There's a lot you can do in Nassau, so I wanted to create a place listing what we've done at each stop here over the years. I'll update this as we come back here again and again. 

Grand Turk Cruise Center

Honestly, the port has so much to do, I think you're fine not doing an excursion. We didn't have an excursion planned for Grand Turk, and it worked out for us. It's a pretty established port that has shopping and restaurants with a big pool surrounded by free lounge chairs or you can rent like a mini house. 

We grabbed lunch at Margaritaville, did some shopping in the cruise center, and then headed to a chair by the pool. We were only there for about an hour before it just started downpouring on us with no end in sight, so we went back to the ship early. There was also a beach that looked really well-kept, but we didn't make it in time to see it. 

Cruise Destination: Nassau, Bahamas Port

I think Nassau is probably the most popular cruise stop since it is just so close to Florida. It's very easy to get to and has beautiful water. It used to be one of my favorite spots, but unfortunately is just seems to be getting more and more dangerous. When we stopped there in 2022, our cruise was delayed leaving because a couple had been mugged and the ship was working with the local authorities to help the couple out. It's just sad that there's so many people who go there, which has apparently turned it into a target for criminals. I don't think it's quite so bad that you should avoid getting off the ship at this port; it's generally safe if you stay near the port, so that's what we try to do. 

There's a lot you can do in Nassau, so I wanted to create a place listing what we've done at each stop here over the years. I'll update this as we come back here again and again. 

Blue Lagoon VIP Adults-Only Excursion

We booked this excursion through Carnival, and I thought it was pretty good. It's a private beach that comes with lunch and unlimited Bahama Mamas. It's on a small private island that has other excursions, show you take a tender with everyone else who has an excursion at Blue Lagoon, and then once you're there you are divided into which part of the lagoon you have access to. The tender was great, there was plenty of seating and you didn't feel cramped. They did have a concession bar where you could buy snacks, water, sodas, and beer. We thought this would be included in the price of our ticket, but it wasn't. The prices weren't necessarily cheap, but they were cheaper than on the ship. 

The lagoon itself if very clean and well-maintained. It has a walkway for you to tour the area, and there's some shopping and plenty of bathrooms. The adults-only part of the lagoon was roped off, had plenty of chairs (though not all of them were covered), had a bar, and had staff coming around to take food and drink orders. We were a little disappointed that the only free alcohol was the Bahama Mamas, and you had to pay for anything else at the bar. I was pregnant, but Ryansaid they were a little too sweet started to give him a headache after a few drinks. They did have non-alcoholic punch and water that I thought was pretty good. The cups they use are tiny 8-ounce plastic cups that had no lid, so I would definitely recommend bringing your own insulated tumbler with a lid. 

The food was actually really good and there was a good amount of options. I really liked the chicken wings and rice, and Ryan went back for seconds. They only offered lunch, so if you wanted more food you would have either needed to bring your own or to buy it on a different part of the lagoon.

There was a pier you walked down to the beach which did a good job of separating the adults-only side with the family-friendly side. The adults only side was just the beach and water, with 3 few anchored floating rafts for everyone to share. We had each brought our own snorkel gear to use here, but there was hardly any fish to look at, so we didn't end up snorkeling and I wouldn't recommend you expect to get to do that. Instead, I would've brought my whale tail float to sit on in the water or an inflatable pool floats to relax on. Like I said, there was just the 3 rafts for the entire excursion, so we spent most of our time in the water just standing around waiting for something to become available. 

They did do a good job of kicking any kids out of the area, so there was no screaming or splashing on our area. However, our wristbands did give us access to the family-friendly side of Blue Lagoon which has big inflatables that you could play around on. 

Overall, I thought this was a pretty good excursion. If they would have included a larger variety of alcohol, heck even just some cheap local beer, I think it would've been really great. This is a park-it-in-the-sand excursion, so it might not be for you if you're wanting to be more active for your stop. Also, the shopping was pretty minimal and seemed to mostly just be for things you forgot (hat/sunscreen/sunglasses/coverup), so if shopping is all you want to do, this excursion might leave you disappointed. 

Cruise Destination: Cozumel, Mexico Port

If you go on a Western Caribbean cruise, there's a really good chance that you'll stop in Cozumel regardless of what cruise line you're on. It's probably the most popular Cruising port west of the Bahamas. Your ship will dock right at the port and you can walk down the pier, through the duty-free shop, and be free to go and do whatever you want, and come back to the ship whenever you want. 

It's a great port because there's lots of tourist-friendly restaurants like Senor Frogs and Margaritaville, but there's also authentic Mexican restaurants as well. There's really no language barrier and they even accept American dollars and usually credit cards as well, so you don't have to bring any foreign currency with you. It has an established shopping center that is well thought-out and feels similar to shopping back home. Most importantly, it feels safe! The people in the shops aren't overly pushy or sketchy. 

There's a lot you can do in Cozumel, so I wanted to create a place listing what we've done at each stop here over the years. I'll update this as we come back here again and again. 

Carnival Dock

International Cruise Terminal Cozumel

For our 2023 Carnival cruise, Cozumel was our last stop of the trip so we decided to have a chill day and just walk around the cruise terminal. Ryan grabbed us some drinks and we just walked around and shopped. Ryan was begging to get our daughter a sombrero because he has an obnoxiously giant one from a prior cruise, so I told him if he could find a baby-sized one then he could get it. Really, I thought it was a fool's errand, but of course the very next store had one! 

We also stopped into Cariloha and ordered some sheets. What's nice is that they ship your purchases to your home for free, so you don't have to worry about packing what you bought when you go home. This is exactly why I always throw a foldable backpack into my beach bag on port days, so that we have a way to carry all our port purchases back onto the ship.

Our daughter fell asleep in her stroller while we were shopping, so we stopped and had a long lunch at Fat Tuesdays while she had her nap. We ended up deciding that this was enough for one day, so we didn't go to the beach on this stop. But, if we come here again we'll probably just take a taxi to Paradise Beach on our own. 

Royal Caribbean Dock

Nachi Cocom

The Royal Caribbean dock is actually 2 miles away from the Carnival dock. So although you can see the other ships, the shops are a long walk away. For our 2024 Royal Caribbean cruise, we couldn't find an excursion through Royal that was toddler-friendly, but we knew we didn't just want to walk around the port again, so we booked Nachi Cocom on our own. We paid $69 per adult and $0 for our toddler to again get all-inclusive food and drinks. The reason we chose Nachi Cocom over other Cozumel options like Paradise Beach or Mr. Sanchos was that they limit the amount of guests per day. Having a toddler, it was really important to me that she felt she could run and play without getting trampled by a huge crowd. It also didn't have any big water inflatables that attract big kids who can run around and run over my daughter.

Navigating the Cozumel port to get to Nachi Cocum was an easier experience than navigating the Costa Maya port to get to Maya Chan. We again brought our Doona trike and this time remembered the trike backpack, but my husband thinks our daughter could have made the walk.We just followed the signs that pointed towards the taxi pickup. The one sus part was at the end there was a sign pointing to go to the right to get to the taxis, and then right behind that was a store with a sign pointing to the left down a hallway to get to the taxis. We thought this was a scam and went right, but actually you do go take a right until you get to the store and then take a left and go down the hallway to the taxis. What I appreciated about the taxi pickup was that they had a board with prices to the major tourist areas with a flat rate per 4 people. Whereas in Cancun all the taxis are white with a green stripe, here all the taxis were white with a red stripe, so you could feel comfortable knowing you're getting into a legit taxi. The trip was only about 20 minutes to get to the beach. 

Once you get there, they have you take a welcome photo and then later they offered us to buy it for $12. It was a cute photo, and I'm glad we bought it because with the chaos of a toddler we completely forgot to buy photos from our ship until after we got home, so this was our only professional photo of the trip. They then will take you to complete your payment and then give you paper wristbands and let you know who your waiter will be and then your taken to your beach chairs. There's actually a QR code that you need to scan to connect to Wi-Fi that we missed and had to go back, because the waiter we asked for the Wi-Fi code either didn't know it or wouldn't give it to us, so don't forget to scan the code before you leave. The Wi-Fi worked much better at the pool than at the beach. We were seated by the beach bar which made me nervous at first for nap times, but thankfully they didn't have the music too loud. 

What was the only con of our Nachi Cocom experience was that the beach area they brought us to initially had a big umbrella covering 4 beach chairs and a table, but as we were setting our stuff down, they took away the 2 beach chairs, leaving only 2 beach chairs for the 3 of us. I know that our daughter was free, but she still deserved to have her own chair and I wasn't a fan of this. At first I was just thinking they were rationing the chairs so that later-arriving guests could have a seat, but the chairs just sat out in the middle of the sun unoccupied for the rest of the day. The table they left us with was small, so I was very happy that I brought my baby Bogg Bag with my little tray insert to have an extra table so not everything had to go in the sand. 

The beach was also large and didn't seem to have a lot of sea grass, but I do recommend water sandals because there are a lot of shells. I'm glad we brought a little mesh bag for our daughter to collect shells in. There was no beach toys or floats offered, so make sure you bring your won. They have showers at the bathrooms to the right of the beach bar to wash off ocean water, and they have a food wash station near the pool to wash off sand. 

Nachi Cocom isn't a resort, but it does have a resort-sized pool. It was huge with a very large shallow ledge for adults to sit and talk or toddlers to play, an adults-only hot tub, and a swim-up bar. This was were my toddler wanted to spend the majority of the day, and we were just fine with that. 

Around the pool was a bunch of outdoor dining tables, so we had lunch by the pool. There was a good variety of options, and I really liked the food. The mixed drinks weren't the strongest, so we just stuck with beer to save on the empty calories. I never saw water sitting out like at Maya Chan, so I was glad we brought several bottled waters with us off the ship.

Regular menu

Kids menu

When it was time to go, they ordered a taxi for us and it was there about 5 minutes later. Overall, I think this would be a great sit and read a good book with a drink in your hand excursion. They specifically have signs saying they don't allow "spring break" behavior. Like Maya Chan, it seemed to be the perfect place for early elementary kids and younger to just hang out and enjoy the beach or the pool. We'd definitely come here again, but next time I do want to talk to them about having 1 beach chair per person rather than 1 beach chair per paying adult.