I've been on 7 or 8 cruises. Firstly, I love Royal Caribbean. Been on others and just like the way they do things. After all, we are not talking about Carnival here, which I would never go on.
As expressed earlier, I would only use the tours with the cruiseline for things like scuba or such. When you disembark on most islands, there are van drivers who will stop you and offer tours. What we do, is tell them where we want to go, what beach, and how long we want to stay there. For example, in St. Maarten, we get a van driver...tell him we want to go to the flea market. He takes us there and waits...(with about 5 other people he has picked up) and then we go for a drive to different areas...and then to Orient Beach. We tell him how long we want to stay on the beach and he is there to get us and return us to the ship. This is true of almost all the islands except Barbados, where they now have a person standing there loading people into the next available van for the predetermined tour. We then find another couple to share a taxi and usually the driver will give us a more personal tour that we love. These run about half of what the cruiseline charges. Additionally if you are several people, you can negotiate five dollars per person less than they are asking. They are happy to have as many people as possible in the van. We are doing the southern caribbean in April. Been there, done that, and would do it another hundred times. Spending a few days in Puerto Rico before boarding the ship. ^ ^