Luxury Tour in Tulum, Coba, Cenote and Playa del Carmen

Overall friendly and good on time management. Tulum was impressive. Guide provided a brief history lesson. It would have been nice to have a bit more of the history next to each point. Cabo was equally interesting, but only history came from tricycle driver and was very brief. That said, the tricycle was well worth it as a massive time saver. The cenote was great. I recommend swimming before eating as you wont be as rushed. At the end of the day was the final stop at Playa del Carmen. I was honestly hoping we would skip it. I was pleasantly surprised. Not enough time to do anything, but impressed by the volume of restaurants, shops, and street stands. An option to stay for dinner would be a nice enhancement the tour. Downside of the day was the bus. Smell from toilet, engine noise, and alternator noise in PA were a distraction. Time for big maintenance overhaul.

The tour is NOT as advertised. The duration, from pickup in Cancun Centro, was 18 hours! I rode the bus for 2.5 hours just to get out of the vicinity of Cancun, with all of the pickups. Then, we even stopped numerous times throughout our way to Tulum to let people off and add people on the bus. Apparently, this bus was also a "transfer" company for people to other tours. We finally arrived in Tulum around 1 PM. To make a terrible long story short, we were finally eating our "lunch" buffet in Coba at around 4:30 PM. It was getting dark when we left the cenotes so that was not a very sunny retreat in the cold water. The arrival in Playa del Carmen was not until 8:45 PM. Since I would not be able to return to my hotel until 1AM the next morning, I ended up taking a ADO bus from Playa del Carmen back to Cancun Centro. Also, the tour is advertised as a max of 30 people and I counted 57 on the bus n the way to Playa del Carmen. The tour guided only spoke a few stories on the bus and was nowhere to be found during the actual tours, with the exception of giving a story in Tulum before letting us off to go explore on our own. The "Deluxe" was also not worth the money. I had to ask for a beverage each time I wanted one and had a total of 2 waters and a beer on the bus. I have never experienced such frustration during a tour in my life, and I've been on many. I felt that it was a total waste of a vacation day. WAY too much time on a bus, with no bathroom for that size, and not a good tour guide. A few couples were able to catch a ride back from Coba with another tour company and get out of this disaster of a trip. I will be speaking with the the actual tour company that promotes this tour. Tripadvisor needs to check into this and drop this tour. This experience now makes me have second thoughts about browsing TA and I may be sticking with "Airbnb Experiences" for future excursion seeking.

The tour started off very poorly as the driver couldn't figure where our pickup was, despite speaking with their office the previous day and including the name of our well-known large resort on the booking. Once aboard, we were greeted with a sandwich and drinks. We enjoyed a nice tour of the Tulum ruins, including a nice explanation at a few stops. Next, we visited the Cenote, which was well back into the jungle. We were given a Mayan blessing by a shaman and they had a delicious lunch. We loved swimming in the cenote there. The water was refreshing (cool) and clean, we found the 25 foot jump off the rock wall invigorating, to say the least. Nest, we stopped for a short (much too short) visit at Coba. We hired a pedicab for less than $10. The driver guided us and explained what we were seeing and stopped for us to take pictures. Last was a very short visit in Playa Del Carmen, not long enough for anything more than a snack and a drink. All in all it was amazing day, if not a tad long. The tour staff was helpful and very considerate of their guests. We'd suggest that they consider cutting out the PDC visit in favor of more time in Coba, as well as a slightly earlier departure to get home sooner. Final analysis: money well spent for a great taste of ancient and current Mayan civilzations.