tetleytea

To be honest, I thought all the beaches were more-or-less the same. We rented a golf cart for the day, and we decided to beach-hop. We didn't have to pay anything, and I think part of that was because we had rented a golf cart, and those guys must have some arrangement with the beach guys. After visiting well over half the beaches there, I think I like Krazy Lobster the best. Chunky Monkey and Playa Lunas were the quietest--especially if you wanted to disconnect from Wifi, since Chunky Monkey's Wifi simply didn't reach all the way to the beach. But really, I can't imagine what exactly a single cruiser would want that truly differentiated the beaches from one another.

Here's a map. I took this tour in Costa Maya, and this came with it. Cruise ship is on the lower-right, beaches are all on the left half, and the vendors are mostly right behind the beaches. All the black, in the lower-right corner--that's the cruise ship pier. You walk up, just past the black--that's where independent operators rent out golf carts. I rented mine for $60 for the day; in peak periods they want $80. It can seat 4. The vendors are all in the center of the map, right behind the beaches. There is a "road" there (more like a big pedestrian walkway), where they all set up shop. But there are also a few good vendors in the upper right center of the map, as you take that pink road winding over to the beaches (I find that the vendors who see the least amount of traffic tend to offer the best deals, and the ones on the pink road certainly see the least amount of traffic). The exchange rate when I was there was 16:1 pesos/US dollar. But if you do credit card, they raise it to 20:1--which means a good, solid markup of 25% for using your credit card. On the road with the arrows on it, there's a BBVA bank which has an ATM and it seems fairly safe to use it, but they wanted 175 pesos for an ATM transaction fee--i.e. over $10 transaction fee. Costa Maya can really gouge you at times. I am much happier shopping in Cozumel over Costa Maya, but like the OP said, if somebody is selling something local and specific to Costa Maya, then that makes sense. I don't remember anything that particularly fit that category, though.

We just cruised. I used the old app; my SO used the new. I had the better experience.

On the insurance, yes: I accept the insurance in Mexico, whereas in the US and Canada I usually do not. The price of renting a car with insurance is about in the $110 range for the day. Expensive, but compare it vs. the other excursions you could be doing. However, what kind of hassling walking through town? We had merchants harass the tar out of us. Nothing like Montego Bay (Jamaica), which was terrible. But Costa Maya and Cozumel, we had merchants hassle us a lot--once we left the immediate cruise ship port area. The ports are all Americanized: prices in dollars, no haggling, cruise ship tourist prices. But then you step out into the actual streets, and it's Mexico; with Mexican culture. Even in the port, I saw another cruise ship passenger literally, but gently push a merchant away, whom he didn't want to talk to.

I really like the supermarkets in the Mexico ports. It's like going to Walmart in Anchorage or Ketchikan and buying your tourist stuff there. They're for the locals, so it's harder to single stuff out to buy because they don't just market it like, "hey, this is a touristy thing, you want to buy me," but that is a good thing. And then they were selling bananas at below $0.25 a pound (after you do the math in your head--they sell it in pesos per kilogram). You hungry? Just buy a bunch of fresh bananas for practically free and snack. Can't bring bananas on the ship, but plenty of other foods you can bring on with no issue. I'm still working on finishing my Mexican salsa and vanilla from there.

I read an incident on here of this in Skagway, and that cruise port is the U.S.. I don't remember much what happened, but the guy got stuck with loss-of-use fees from the car agency.

What about Punta Sur? All the rocks seemed to be down there in the south.

LOL and I don't even drink. 😄 The others in my party loved the samples--and one of them quickly just had to down my sample, too.

My understanding is that the CC insurance only works in the US and Canada. Also, all the red tape that goes with claiming on insurance is the last thing we need during a cruise. If the CC works and there's a way to get back on the ship without compromising your case, I am definitely interested.

The tour guide at the Tequila place said it is not sold in the US and said nothing of Mi Mexico Lindo, but...he is trying to sell you something, and I try to practice sound judgement whether to believe everything I hear at Caribbean shops. The samples at El Cedral are indeed very good. The tequila tasting itself is good. But caveat emptor before you buy the tequila. I can't tell you for sure--I bought their agave nectar; not the tequila.

A United Airlines meltdown. They cancelled our flight and were unable to rebook us within 72 hours, causing us to miss the departure. 72 hours?!?? We cushioned our flight to land comfortably well before the cruise departure time for precisely this reason. Aon was useless. They gladly collect your premiums and do nothing. So if Princess is still selling Aon travel insurance policies to their customers (and not Nationwide, as I see on Google), then uh...let's just say we will never become Princess Elite. https://www.princess.com/en-us/blog/cruise-tips/is-cruise-insurance-worth-it Pretty much any TA will tell you that yes, you need travel insurance, and actually I don't argue the point. But if they don't honor the claims, then what's the whole point?

El Cedral. You pay like $3 bucks USD to get in, and for that, you get free samples and a free drink. However, I suggest you Google their tequila first (brandname: "Regalos de Dios") before you plunk down $100 on a bottle. El Cedral is, overall, an interesting place with some respectable shops and a couple other places to see besides tequila. If you have a car.

I was just at Costa Maya, and this was barely a topic of conversation. I wouldn't worry about it.

Aon? I thought Princess said they dropped Aon and moved on to Nationwide?

I have rented a car and DIY'ed Cozumel every time I have been, but one thing I don't see myself ever doing: I will never decline the rental car insurance.

I saw it said that you don't want the vanilla from the supermarket, but do note that there are supermercados on Cozumel itself; and the prices are quite good. You're going to have to know some Spanish, though. The one I'm thinking of is named, "Chedraui". It is NOT a tourist trap, but I found the experience quite good, as a tourist. Not just for the vanilla, but for all kinds of nonperishable items. I brought some salsa home, which definitely was not made in New York City.

We used Butts Up last week on our cave tubing + ziplining tour, and only had one issue: we also booked ATV, and they didn't let us do it. They didn't make us pay for ATV. I think we would have been squeezed for port time if we had done it, anyway. Cave tubing + zipline alone took up about 75% of the time in port we had. One thing they didn't tell us was, the hike was a little more than just a hike. We had to ford 3 rivers, and they were knee-deep and had a strong current. For me, it only added to the adventure (this is, after all, an adventure tour), but little kids might be afraid and/or need a little extra help. One of the 3 crossings, we had to use a rope to get across, but the water's depth and current will vary depending on the weather. They also served us each a fairly large tamale for lunch. We didn't know about that, either. You have to pay for drinks. All told, Butts up was fine. Cave tubing was great. Ziplining was not the hardest I've ever done.

You said, "will receive" [an FCC]. I had to kick, scream, escalate, even talk to an attorney to get mine. And my reason for cancellation was clearly a covered condition--I should have gotten refunded; not even FCC. Make sure you call/write Princess and hold them to their own terms. Sitting around and waiting can be risky. And if it sounds like I have a less-than-favorable opinion of Princess now because of it, it's because I do.

Mine's not a shareholder OBC issue. It's a travel insurance issue. Your subject line was general and suggested that Princess is on the ball. Maybe their shareholder OBC is on the ball, but my experience with Princess could not be more the exact opposite.

Meanwhile I have emailed customer services at least 30 times (literally) and they have not responded even once. And every time I call Princess, they turn around and say to email customer services. About a sailing that same month.

I have no plans to ever purchase a drink package on Princess (the math doesn't compute), but on Norwegian where the drink package is included, they would charge only the tax for alcohol if you were in port stateside, but the staff would freely tell you to wait till they are out to sea. Then no tax. The rule of thumb was, if you are out to sea enough to open the casino, then no tax. I defer to others on what Princess does, but that was Norwegian.

Similar to what I said to Tony, if you had asked me 2 years ago I would agree with you, but IMHO times change. I think the Breakaway-PLUS ships are more upscale than Princess (which, admittedly, the Norwegian Breakaway is not), and our sailings on NCL since Covid left us with an impression of NCL that is brighter, more youthful, and vibrant (and by that I don't just mean the ship--I mean the cruise directors, the programming, the activities, etc.). Princess was still good (as long as you didn't need to call the corporate phone line), but just seemed to get in a rut. It seems Norwegian's been really trying to change their image, and at least for us they were successful. I would have said Princess Medallion is technologically ahead of Norwegian, except that everywhere I look people are struggling to get Medallion to work. At one point I saw Princess assigning their dance instructors to helping passengers fix their Medallion app. It's that rut I was talking about: Princess deployed Medallion, but over time the IT support has just atrophied. Funnily, I think we actually like International Cafe (on Princess) better than O-Malleys. That's our go-to after a long port call, and we saved our stomachs for the ship. They both can get pretty busy. I think maybe O'Malleys might be "better", but International is a better fit for us because we can just walk right up, whereas O'Malleys you have to wait. Funny that our impressions of Princess vs. NCL are mirror-image opposites.

Well yeah, of course their sales will be very responsive.

I would have done the same.

The agent I worked with from here on CC said that she likes to leave in a little guard-band time, because sometimes there are hiccups in the payment process. But 30 days seems like an awful lot of guard-band time.