Xel-Ha Park & River Tubing - All Inclusive

[ssjones]

Any comments or experiences?? Thinking about doing this in Cozumel next year.

 

[ssjones]

Bumping this, in hopes to get a reply.

 

[TivoQueen]

We were in Mexico a few years back and visited Xel-Ha for the day. It was the best day of our vacation. There were 5 of us (myself, husband, 3 kids ages 2, 5, and 9) and we all enjoyed the day there. Its pretty much all inclusive with the exception of the dolphins, photos and the underwater trek thing. The good was better than our resort, we snorkeled for hours, explored the caves, tubed through the mangroves into the river and into the lagoon. I rode on a tube with the 2 year old and my husband and other kids floated down the entire way in their vests. We even jumped off the cliffs into the river. There are stairs at the many points of entry of the lagoon which make it easy to get in and out of the water. There are people with animals (monkeys, toucans, lizards) that you can hold and get photos with. My daughter had a monkey sitting on her head. The photos are expensive and there will be tons of them for you to purchase. They have people all around taking your picture and you don't see all of them. They had pictures of me and my son midair jumping off the cliffs. The photos are the only thing that I really spent any money on and they were not cheap but I bought them anyways. They captured some great memories that day. Let me know if you have any question and I will be more than happy to answer them.

 

[KrisNJ]

I had read somewhere that you have to wear bio-degradable sunscreen at Xel-Ha to protect the sea life. Is that true?

 

[TivoQueen]

Yes it is. Regular sunscreen supposedly suffocates the coral. That is what they said. lol. We knew that in advance and took our own with us, however they did offer packets of it to us when we got there. Not sure if they still do that or not.

 

[ssjones]

Thanks for the info. I was hoping to get a few more reviews of this place. It sounds wonderful. I am surprised it is not more popular with the DCL folks!

 

[TivoQueen]

If you are looking for more reviews I would suggest checking out Tripadvisor.com. They have tons of reviews and photos listed. I am thinking its not that popular with DCL because of the time it may take to get there. I assume you are docking in Cozumel? If so then you need to take a ferry to the mainland and then a bus quite a ways south to Xel-Ha. Some people may be turned off by the travel time from your Disney ship to the park itself. If they are offering it where you have at least 3/4 of a full day to spend at the park I would say go for it. You won't be disappointed. If you are only there 2 or 3 hours I would say forget it because you will not have enough time to enjoy the entire park.

 

[ssjones]

Yes, we are docking in Cozumel. I only see in the description that it is a 7-7.5 hours for the length of excursion. I was looking at the website and it looks amazing. My daughter would love the animals and the cliff jumping.

 

[ssjones]

If you are looking for more reviews I would suggest checking out Tripadvisor.com. They have tons of reviews and photos listed. I am thinking its not that popular with DCL because of the time it may take to get there. I assume you are docking in Cozumel? If so then you need to take a ferry to the mainland and then a bus quite a ways south to Xel-Ha. Some people may be turned off by the travel time from your Disney ship to the park itself. If they are offering it where you have at least 3/4 of a full day to spend at the park I would say go for it. You won't be disappointed. If you are only there 2 or 3 hours I would say forget it because you will not have enough time to enjoy the entire park.

After reading the description, it looks like after travel there will be about 4-4.5 hours there. Worth it??

 

[Ohana 4]

We went on the MV cruise of the Fantasy and did this excursion. It was just my husband and me, so we didn't have children with us. We found it to be very nice. They lock up your personal items at the start of the river and you pick them up at the end of the river. Worked out very nicely, even though I was very very nervous about it at first. Nothing to worry about though. There are many things to do along the river and even after you've finished the river. The actual tubing or snorkeling takes up the bulk of your time, but you can fit things in afterwards. Our tour guide was a bit controlling of making sure we were in the right place at the right time, but we were able to go off on our own and walk the floating bridge and take the hike in the park. You have four choices (I think) for lunch. We chose the buffet and had very minimal food there. I was worried about drinking anything (it IS Mexico, after all), so we just picked through the buffet. I saved my appetite for dinner on the ship. Overall a nice experience. It was a pretty decent walk to the bus from where we docked. Just as a warning, you have to take a boat from the ship to Cozumel, and that thing was pretty rough. Hopefully, no one in your party is the seasick type. I'm not at all, but even I felt that one.

 

[TivoQueen]

I think you could enjoy 4 hours there. You just may not get everything in. You could go to their website and it will list everything available. I agree with the above post that snorkeling and the river will take up most of your time and in my opinion they are the best part of the park. Its probably took us a good 45 minutes or so from the start of the river in the mangroves to we got into the main river and down to the lagoon. We also stopped a few times along the way to jump off the cliffs and look at different things.

 

[holie]

I did this on the 4/28 fantasy sailing.
Although it had its moments, I did not feel it was worth 120 dollar pp.
With 7-8 hours as an excursion time, 4 of it is traveling. It takes 2 hours to get there and 2 hours to get back. Also, you're walking with a group for a while, you do the river thing, that takes about an hour and a half. We ate lunch, which was good, and then we had 50 minutes to kill until we had to leave for the shuttle. Not a lot of time to do anything.
We brought sunscreen with us, just because it was prepacked, I had already known you can only wear biodegradable. You 'trade' sunblock with the staff at the front desk and they give you 1 packet of sunscrean PER bottle (that you get back when you leave). There was two of us to share one tiny packet, I was not impressed that they didn't hand this out as samples per person like the excursion description said.
Overall, it was all right, but not worth the money, I found. We didn't even have enough time to check out cozumel by the time we got back

 

[ssjones]

I did this on the 4/28 fantasy sailing.
Although it had its moments, I did not feel it was worth 120 dollar pp.
With 7-8 hours as an excursion time, 4 of it is traveling. It takes 2 hours to get there and 2 hours to get back. Also, you're walking with a group for a while, you do the river thing, that takes about an hour and a half. We ate lunch, which was good, and then we had 50 minutes to kill until we had to leave for the shuttle. Not a lot of time to do anything.
We brought sunscreen with us, just because it was prepacked, I had already known you can only wear biodegradable. You 'trade' sunblock with the staff at the front desk and they give you 1 packet of sunscrean PER bottle (that you get back when you leave). There was two of us to share one tiny packet, I was not impressed that they didn't hand this out as samples per person like the excursion description said.
Overall, it was all right, but not worth the money, I found. We didn't even have enough time to check out cozumel by the time we got back

Thanks so much for the info. I am still on the fence with this trip. I don't think my 2 kids would fare well having to do a 2 hour trip, but the place sounds awesome.

 

[True Romance]

Thanks so much for the info. I am still on the fence with this trip. I don't think my 2 kids would fare well having to do a 2 hour trip, but the place sounds awesome.

You might want to think about doing a trip to the Riviera Maya on its own someday. We just got back from Playa del Carmen with my 3 kids age 4, 6, and 9. We stayed at an all-inclusive which is super nice, most resorts are AI there. I was a little unsure, because I am typically a cruiser. However, the AI that includes drinks and tips is the best.

We did Xel-Ha and Xcaret when we were there. We enjoyed both, but I preferred Xel-Ha more. We spent all day from 9am-6pm there. It was really fun and relaxing. My 6 year old ended up getting sick and spent most of his time sleeping in a hammock or lounge chair, however he still got to enjoy the cliffs, ziplines, kids area, and the river. My daughter swam with the dolphins there and had a blast. I thought the food was very good and I loved that it was AI.

For our family of 5, it ended up being cheaper for us to fly to Cancun, stay in an ocean front family jr. suite for 7 nights--was less expensive then our cruises with Disney.

There is so much to do on the Riviera Maya and the water is beautiful. Don't worry about staying in Mexico. The area is beautiful, the people are amazing, and the food was yummy. I can't wait to go back.

 

[purtywun]

Thanks so much for all this info. We are first time travelers (and cruisers) this Aug. on Disney Fantasy; am thinking of booking a private Xel-Ha excursion from Cancun Discounts : (and adding the dolphin encounter while there - a one hour)


so we can be on our own schedule and leave when we want; price is basically the same as the Disney (a tad cheaper) - but I'm also on the fence regarding travel to and from....

We dock at 8am and don't have to be back on board till 5:30, so I do think there's time - and my kids are 11,11 and 13 and love adventure.... so I think they can handle it....

My question is how far from the ship is the ferry - would we need a taxi and if so, can the ship help us arrange that? I really don't want to be randomly roaming around with kids... need to have a plan

Thanks in advance!!!!
R