5 nights West Caribbean from Galveston

A forty-kilometre-long island directly off the coast from Playa del Carmen, Isla Cozumel is a renowned cruise-ship call: nearly every day, up to ten cruise ships dock at one of the island’s three dedicated piers, all just south of the only town, San Miguel. A holiday to Mexico with MSC Cruises will present you with restaurants, souvenir shops and jewellery stores, all along the malecón(Av Rafael Melgar) in downtown San Miguel. If you fancy a museum, the attractive Museo de la Isla de Cozumel has small displays of the flora, fauna and marine life of the island, as well as a good collection of Maya artefacts and old photos. If you’re not a diver, there’s a certain appeal in wandering the relaxed inland blocks of San Miguel, away from the piers, spotting Maya ruins and birds (the Maya called the island cuzamil – “land of the swallows”) in the dense forests and being the only person on the windswept eastern beaches. Midway across the island, San Gervasio is the only excavated Maya site on…

Puerto Costa Maya, where the Caribbean and Antilles MSC cruise ships dock, is out of sight north of Mahahual, but its influence is felt on cruise-ship days, when the village springs to life with souvenir stands and jet-ski rentals along the slick seafront promenade, an extremely miniature version of Playa del Carmen. The two towns in the area, Mahahual and the smaller Xcalak, were hit hard by Hurricane Dean in 2007. Mahahual was rebuilt, but Xcalak is still quite battered. On an MSC Caribbean and Antilles cruise you will typically stay around Mahahual, while divers and anglers head south to Xcalak. If you stop for only one ancient site in the Río Bec area, Kohunlich is your best excursion choice. The ruins, seldom visited by anyone other than enormous butterflies and wild parrots, are beautifully situated, peering out above the treetops. The buildings date from the late pre-Classic to the Classic periods (100–900 AD) and the majority are in the Río Bec architectural style. Foliage has…