30 Jun 2025
This tour is a super long day, but I think worth it if you want to be able to climb a Mayan ruin and see Chichén Itzá in the same day. The cenote is also refreshing after being in the heat. The whole tour took 14 hours (2 hours longer than advertised). Most of the day is spent on the bus, which we were aware of. We found the tour bus to be cramped compared to the other tours we took in Mexico and did not have enough air conditioning. I imagine the buses are not the same for each tour but FYI.
We were a little put off by how much time our guide spent trying to convince us to buy things in the Mayan village / the personalized Mayan horoscopes. We know lots of people are interested in souvenirs but we would have appreciated more of a focus on Mayan history and culture than just trying to get us to buy stuff. They also sort of forced us to take turns taking pictures with a Mayan soldier-dressed man in a loincloth and then when we were eating lunch they printed it and put it on a bottle of alcohol to sell to us (we don’t drink). We felt uncomfortable posing with the man and then printing it felt like a guilt trip to get us to buy something. Overall we accomplished our goal to see these ruins but the amount of time spent trying to get us to buy stuff detracted from the experience.