Board Game Arena

I played 3 player game with some friends and kept finding that at end of each round we had dice left but was unable to use them except for bonus actions. This seemed to happen if one player had used all their dice in that round. Is that as game is meant to be?

no, as a default action you should at least be able to go to the money bag thing and get 3 coins.

But in a turn you only do 1 action, you need to wait until the next turn to use more dice.

I also get confused sometimes between normal action and bonus action, but the wording has changed now, it should be a better / clearer.

the 3 money bag is a bonus action so i think you can do them whenever u have dice.

I am referring to not being able to use your dice on your turn for normal actions

you're just getting confused between normal(main) action and your additional action phase.

The UI asks for to 'pass' the additional action, at which point you cannot use your dice, you have to wait until your next turn.

When everyone has run out of dice the round ends.

I think that the OP is complaining about the fact that often you get towards the end of the turn with dice left and there's nothing sensible to do other than go on the money bag because all the other possibilities are not available or too expensive (because they have dice on them already).
I think to some degree he has a point - Marco Polo is known as a very action-limited game and this is the attraction for some people but it involves quite a bit of forethought and planning to get it right.

Some possibilities to alleviate this
1) Plan better
2) Do earlier travel to the cities that themselves give actions
3) Don't buy a black die unless you're certain you are going to use it

I'm by no means an expert though.

OK yes, you're right - you need enough coins to play on already played spaces, otherwise you're options maybe limited to nothing.