Swim with turtles + snorkelling + archaeological zone of Tulúm + cenote

I should start by saying that the person that was our driver was great and my rating has nothing to do with him. My rating has everything to do with what I thought was was getting with this tour and what I actually got. Basically, you are paying for a driver that buys the tickets for you when you get there. There is no personalized guide for Tulum. You are handed off to another guide,who was not very good at all and didn't even try to make any connections with our family. Especially my older daughter, who is 12 and just loves going to historical places. From there we were taken to the Gran Cenote and had a wonderful time. The place is just beautiful. However, the same thing here. The driver paid for our tickets while we stood next to him and then we went in by ourselves. Then we went back to Tulum to have lunch. It was basically bad cafeteria food and stale chips. Oh, and the restaurant tried to charge us $60 usd for it and I had to call the driver to come back as it was supposed to be included. Then we went to Acumal and were disappointed again. I did a private tour when we went there a few years ago and had an amazing experience with a guide that took us to another spot away from the swaths of tourists. This time, our guide did a beach entry and we regularly got kicked in the face as other tourists would surround a turtle any time one came into the area. I'll just say that, overall, I am disappointed about this "tour". When we went to Xel-Ha earlier in the week I just hired a driver at less than 1/4 of the cost of this tour and he did basically the same thing for us. Save your money and work through your hotel to get you a driver.

Booking this tour we ended up with an agency called "Wonderland" and had a private guide and pilot for the duration of the trip. This was good as we could travel light, leaving things safely in the transportation with the pilot. First stop was Tulum, around 70 minutes from our hotel, the guide (Tito) explained the itinerary during the journey. On arrival to Tulum there is a short 10 min walk to the entrance (we opted to walk but would take the bus next time so the children don't start to get tired, it was 50 or 100 pesos per adult). Tito was extremely knowledgeable about Tulum and the mayan culture, she was constantly looking for shaded areas where the children could rest from the hot sun and also took some really nice family photos of us. We took the bus back to the parking area after the tour where there was plenty of water and snacks waiting in the vehicle. Next stop was Akumal Bay, there is a private guide provided so only our group was together, we had a 4 and 7 year old, the 4 yo sat in the life ring and was pulled around with the guide whilst the rest of us snorkelled. Tito was pointing out the different marine life and we eventually found a turtle after around 20-30 mins of swimming, Tito made sure we all saw it and pointed out when it was surfacing for air. After this we stopped for lunch at a local taco bar, the tacos were very tasty and much needed after the morning. The last stop was to a cenote (cenote Azul) which was a relaxing swim and chance to see more fishes with the children in crystal clear water and more photos from Tito. We arrived back to the hotel around 1730 after a 0730 pick up, everyone slept well afterwards. Would recommend this trip and thought it was good value, Tito was great and answered all our questions throughout the day and wad very good with keeping the children engaged and judging when to rest. There was some confusion with the childrens ages as they were expecting an infant under 2 so had brought a car seat, when booking on the app the age group was 0-5, so it's probably best to write any ages in the comments to save any confusion from the information passed from Viator to the tour operator. The car seat was offloaded whilst in Tulum to give some more space (we had a 7 seater car for transport).

Mario was great! We had a private tour with 5 adults and 4 kids (10, 10, 9 & 7). We swam first and saw turtles, lots of fish, a stingray and a sand shark. Snorkels are not provided bc of covid of course. Then we went to Tulum where Mario was very informative. Then he took us to an authentic Mexican restaurant which was delicious! And finally swam in the Gran Cenote which was amazing and relaxing! We went into the caves and saw lots of turtles, fish and bats. It was a great 3 in 1 adventure!