This is more of a rant that I hope Royal would listen to one fine day.
I had my heart set on going to an all inclusive beach resort-until I looked at the stingy, lame port schedule for our sailing: 7AM to 2PM. I do believe that Scrooge thought of that schedule.
I'm bummed that it wouldn't be worth scrambling around in the early hours, especially since we like a leisurely breakfast on cruises. We both work full time, so the chance to have a relaxing day is a big part of what we treasure so much about cruises.Then worrying about getting back to the ship would before we could be featured in a pier runners YouTube video would kill all the feeling of really having a relaxing beach day. I'd have that worry even with a RC excursion since the time in port is so truncated.
Is Royal Caribbean doing this because they are trying to sell more of their own excursions? Well, that's not going to work.
I don't go on cruises to rush around and wake up when roosters do in order to get anything but a rushed/ripped off feeling with excursions. And shame on Royal for limiting what the shops and other hard working local tourism related business owners can make due to a skimpy port schedule.
Just for that, Royal, I'm not buying a darn thing onboard that day or playing in the casino once we set sail that day. If more of us complained and stopped buying anything onboard on "Scrooge port days", maybe they would listen and let us get a REAL port day in Costa Maya to relax.