I’ll post more fully later, but here’s a photo from our beach club in Costa Maya:
Continuation…
I don’t normally do a lot of advance planning, especially for Caribbean ports of call. For Costa Maya, I’d read in our Frommer’s guide that there was a nice private beach right by the pier, as well as a good spot to get some local cuisine. Planning done.
Sadly, the book was wrong on both accounts. The private beach was dilapidated and abandoned, perhaps the result of Hurricane Dean. The local restaurants were replaced by a Señor Frogs and a Carlos’ ‘n Charlie’s.
Fiddle sticks.
Also, since we’d planned on using the beach at the port, I didn’t have much cash and no ATM card with me, as we were going to return to the ship and pick up Mom and Pop for lunch. To go to the beach now, we’d need a taxi and to pay for entrance to one of the clubs. So, I hustled the 1/2 mile roundtrip on and back on the pier to get my wallet.
The beach club (pictures above) was actually very nice. For $15 per person (Emerson was free) + $12 for roundtrip transport, we had free beach chairs, umbrellas, a pool to use, water toys, clean restrooms, and wifi. For $20 more, we could have had unlimited drinks, which was a real bargain compared to the prices at the port. I’d do this again in a heartbeat on a visit to Costa Maya (and I’d stay to eat lunch at the club too).
In our case, we returned to the ship around noon to pick up Mom and Pop for lunch. We went to Carlos’ and Charlie’s… it was wildly (I mean wildly) overpriced for so-so Mexican food. While it was good to get Pop off the ship to enjoy the ambiance, I wouldn’t eat/drink there again. You’re essentially captive… and it’s (what’s the Spanish for it?) a “trap tourista.” 
We had dinner at Bambo and attended the show, which was altered after an accident at the earlier performance. It seems that one of the dancers/acrobats took a fall from a height during (we believe) the song “Defying Gravity” — sadly, he didn’t. Irony aside, it’s good to hear his injuries don’t appear to be life threatening. (Update: he broke his hip, was disembarked in Cozumel, and flown back to Miami for treatment).