ruins tours in Cozumel - ANY OPINIONS

[kenics]

Which ruins tour is better, the Cozumel tour or the Tulum ruins tour? Does anybody havee amy suggesttions? I could use some advse. It is probably the only excursion I am interested in doing.

 

[bigsky]

Well, I wasn't there myself, but people did complain about the looooooooong drive there on the bus.
We went to Chankanaab park and had a wonderful time snorkeling! Lots to do there!

We went to ruins in Belize and it was hot, hot and more hot. Wished we had done the cave tubing! Oh well.

Anyways..those were just the complaints that I heard last fall. Don't remember which ruins they were talking about.

Have a great time whatever you decide!!

 

[WDWLVR]

We opted not to do Tulim because it was an all day excursion and we had heard that the boat to the mainland was making some people sick.

Instead we took a tour of the ruins right on Cozumel. Great tour. We took a short - maybe 20 minutes - bus ride to the ruins. Our guide was fantastic and walked around the ruins with us explaining things. When finished we had 1/2 hour to shop the shops at the ruins site (about 6-8 in all). Back on the bus they had ice cold beer or Pepsi. We next took a very scenic ride along the coast and saw some beautiful unspoiled beaches. Final stop was at Playa Sol for an hour or so. The bus dropped us off at the shopping plaza right by the ship. It was a great day!

 

[sandygirl]

Was that a DCL tour or another company? Sounds like a nicer day than the long trek to Tulum. I really do want to experience the cultural and historical side of the area.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Doctor P]

We did the Tulum Ruins tour on the 7/19 cruise and thought it was a great experience. The boat ride is a very rough one, but I had no problem since I was using the bands and meclizine for the cruise anyway. The day is well organized and goes very quickly. We assembled at 9:40 am. Left the ship directly via tender at a little after 10:15 or so. The tender took 30-45 minutes to get to the mainland. You then walk 5-10 minutes from the pier to air conditioned buses (the walk is primarily in the shade). The bus ride is approximately one hour, separated into 30 minute segments by a washroom stop at a Mexican bazaar shop. We arrived at Tulum at approximately 12:45 pm. Our guide took us on a tour that lasted until about 1:30 pm and then we were free to explore for a while (or go to the beach). We needed to be back on board the bus at 3:00 pm, drove back to the bus area, walked back to the pier and returned to the dock at Cozumel (not the ship) by about 4:45 pm. It was a very well-organized excursion and very interesting. By the way, DCL sent a crew member along with us who carried a first aid kit. Interestingly, approximately 200 people from our cruise went on this excursion!!!!!

 

[catspjmas]

We also did the Mayan Ruins and beach tour. The ruins were interesting to see, but it was very HOT (about 94 degrees and humid) so we were anxious to get back on the air-conditioned bus. It was a short trip and after that, we also did Playa Sol which was pretty nice. We felt like we got to experience a little culture and have some beach time too...just wish it wouldn't have been quite so hot.

 

[puckhog45]

Has anyone seen the ruins by using Wild Tours Cozumel ATV (stops at La Palma and Castillo Real - 26 miles)? I saw their website and it looked interesting, especially since I have two teenage boys!

 

[WDWLVR]

Originally posted by sandygirl
Was that a DCL tour or another company? Sounds like a nicer day than the long trek to Tulum. I really do want to experience the cultural and historical side of the area.

Thanks for the info.

It was a DCL tour. It's called the Cozumel Ruins & Beach Tour and leaves the ship at noon. Another nice thing (in my opinion) is that because it was a shorter tour than the Tulim we had time to walk into town and do some shopping, and grab a quick lunch at Pluto's before the tour. A piece of advice if you are going to do this is listed to the shopping talk (either in person or the replay on the tv) that will give you an idea of what shops have what and will help you decide where to go. Each shop will have 1 or 2 people trying to get you to come in "Pretty Lady - shop here", "Good prices - come on in" etc. We knew just what we wanted - said no thank you and kept on walking!

 

[SeaSpray]

Originally posted by Doctor P
We did the Tulum Ruins tour on the 7/19 cruise and thought it was a great experience. The boat ride is a very rough one, but I had no problem since I was using the bands and meclizine for the cruise anyway. The day is well organized and goes very quickly. We assembled at 9:40 am. Left the ship directly via tender at a little after 10:15 or so. The tender took 30-45 minutes to get to the mainland. You then walk 5-10 minutes from the pier to air conditioned buses (the walk is primarily in the shade). The bus ride is approximately one hour, separated into 30 minute segments by a washroom stop at a Mexican bazaar shop. We arrived at Tulum at approximately 12:45 pm. Our guide took us on a tour that lasted until about 1:30 pm and then we were free to explore for a while (or go to the beach). We needed to be back on board the bus at 3:00 pm, drove back to the bus area, walked back to the pier and returned to the dock at Cozumel (not the ship) by about 4:45 pm. It was a very well-organized excursion and very interesting. By the way, DCL sent a crew member along with us who carried a first aid kit. Interestingly, approximately 200 people from our cruise went on this excursion!!!!!

You were back at the pier at 4:45pm, but not the ship? How much longer does it take to get back to the ship? I'm asking this because we want to take our DSs on the Tulum ruins tour, but Disney also has a teen excursion that night which my DSs will probably want to do, and that's at 6pm. Do you think we'd be back in enough time for them to get finished with the Tulum tour and then be ready to do the teen catamaran excursion at 6pm??

 

[Doctor P]

Our daughter did both excursions without a hitch. The pier we came into was the same one at which the Magic was docked. It was about a five minute walk back to the ship. The meeting time for the teen excursion was 6:00 pm in Common Grounds and she had no problems making that. Good luck!

 

[SeaSpray]

Thanks DoctorP! Can you ask your DD if she was glad she did both? Or does she wish she'd only have done one of the excursions?? And if so, which one would she rather have done? I'm hoping my DSs end up doing both. Since the cruise is a surprise, I haven't asked my DSs for their input yet, but DH and I really want to take them on the Tulum excursion (we just don't think the other ruins excursion looks as interesting), and as for the teen excursion, we're pretty sure they will want to do that one, once they find out about it. We'll be telling them about the cruise in a few months, so they'll still have plenty of time to look into the various excursions and see which ones they think they might want to do. Thanks again for your input!

P.S. As I was searching old threads, I ran into a lot of your old threads and posts, yours were very interesting and informative to me, including the one about getting vaccinated before the cruise, various excursions you asked about, etc.

 

[Doctor P]

If she had to give up one of the excursions it would have been the teen excursion--the boat was packed, the chips and popcorn were stale, and she didn't get to eat dinner till they got back at 9:00 (we had the late seating so it wasn't that big a delay, but she couldn't get a snack before that to tide herself over). I think she enjoyed dancing, but if we asked whether it was worth it, she would probably say no.