CRUISING: DESTINATION NOWHERE - Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism - page 91

A Native Mayan in a feathered headdress, his face and body painted in beguiling swirls,
greeted us at the gangplank. Bill pulled out his camera to snap a photo of me with the
Mayan when a ship photographer blocked him.
“We paid for the Indian to be here, only we can take his picture,” he said. “Ship rates
at a hundred dollars for the first four copies; ten dollars a copy afterwards.”
“But we're passengers on this ship,” said Bill, wondering why we had been put in the
camp of “us versus them.”
At the cruise port of Puerto Maya Pier, there are no passport checks, thanks to a special
arrangement with Mexico and other Caribbean countries. Instead, we walked into a spe-
cial duty-free zone dominated by three Diamonds International shops.
Fifty years ago the French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau visited the then unknown
and sparsely inhabited island of Cozumel and declared its clear waters among the best
for scuba diving. Today, every year, 1 million cruise passengers visit the thirty-mile-long
island with a population of 100,000 looking for a few hours of sightseeing and shopping in
the now densely commercial strip of San Miguel, where, again, a Diamonds International
store dominated.
We saw cruise passengers on excursions arranged by the ship, snorkeling near the shore,
or swimming with dolphins. (Forty minutes for $122.) We walked past a thatched-roof al
fresco bar where other passengers were clasping dripping cold beers. At the pier, buses
were disgorging passengers who had taken tours of Mayan ruins. At 4:30 P.M . the “All
aboard” signal rang. We had had five hours in Cozumel.
Walking back onto the ship, we went through a security check where the guards were
largely concerned about hidden alcohol. No, Bill and I said, we did not buy any liquor.
One of the most stringently applied policies of Royal Caribbean is the ban on bringing any
beer, wine, or spirits on board. If passengers had purchased a bottle of tequila in Cozumel,
they had to hand it over to security where it would be “sequestered” until the cruise was
over and the ship docked in Miami.
The only alcohol passengers were allowed to drink had to be purchased at the ship's
bars or restaurants. The penalty for disobeying this policy is severe. In our rules book Royal
Caribbean states that guests concealing alcohol “may be disembarked or not allowed to
board, at their own expense, in accordance with our Guest Conduct Policy.”
Those drinks tabs added up. My husband and I were not reveling into the late hours,
but our wine at dinner and occasional cocktails over five nights ran to several hundred
dollars. When your key card is also your credit card, it is easy to lose track of what you're
spending. Essentially everyone has a rolling tab. We passengers were the ultimate captive
audience, spending our time and money on that one ship for five days, watching our bar-
gain vacation quickly spiral into a more expensive getaway. Temptation was everywhere.
The Portofino Italian Restaurant and the Chops Grille required a surcharge of $25 a per-
son. Massages cost as much as $238.