Port day
Royal Caribbean in Roatán: you dock at Coxen Hole
Royal Caribbean docks at Coxen Hole, also called the Port of Roatán or Town Center. Celebrity, Norwegian, MSC, Disney and Virgin Voyages use the same terminal. You walk off the ship with no tender, but there is no beach inside the gate, so a beach day here means leaving the port.
4 min
Coxen Hole is the island's original cruise terminal, open since 2007, and it sits right next to Roatán's main town. Royal Caribbean uses it, and so do Celebrity, Norwegian, MSC, Disney and Virgin Voyages. The other terminal, Isla Tropicale, belongs to Carnival Corporation and its brands.
The part most guides skip
You cannot walk to a beach from this port.
That is the single most useful thing to know before you dock, and it is the question we get asked most. Isla Tropicale has sand inside its gate. Coxen Hole does not. There are shops, a terminal building and a town, and the water you can see from the ship is a working harbour, not a swimming beach.
So if your plan is a beach day, plan on leaving. It is not a problem, it is just a decision you want to make before you are standing at the gate with four hours on the clock.
No tender, which is worth more than it sounds
You walk off the ship, through the terminal, and out. No boat to queue for, no shuttle to find. On a port day measured in hours, a terminal you can walk out of is a terminal that gives you the whole day.
How far things are
West Bay, the beach in most of the photographs of this island, is at the western end of the south coast and is the usual destination for a beach day from here. The wildlife parks and the reef trips are inland and along the coast respectively. Coxen Hole is the closer of the two terminals to most of it, which is a genuine advantage of docking here.
Two ways out
If you want to get somewhere specific and come back, a taxi from the cruise terminal costs 10 US dollars per passenger one way and 20 round trip, cash to the driver, with an hour's notice. That covers Coxen Hole, West Bay, West End and what is around them. It is the right answer for a pharmacy, an ATM, a supermarket or a restaurant.
If you want the reef, the sloths and monkeys, a zipline or a full day at West Bay, that is a tour. Our Roatán shore excursions pick you up outside this terminal and get you back before your all-aboard.
Give your ship name when you book
Ships move between the two terminals depending on the schedule. The ship name survives that; the port name does not always. Tell an operator which ship you are on and let them work out the gate.
Still deciding how to spend your port day?
Send us your ship and date. We answer from the island, usually within minutes.