25 Apr 2024
We booked and paid for the Coba Maya Ruins Tour with lunch and Cenote Swim at our local TUI store in the U.K. This was due to take place on 28th March 2024. The day before the trip we were advised by the TUI rep in our Hotel Riu Palace Costa Mujeres that our trip was cancelled due to not enough people having booked. We were suspicious as this appeared to be an excellent excursion. We rebooked for the only available day, the day before our departure from Mexico. The departure time from our hotel for the trip was 4.50 a.m. The ticket said the trip duration was 8 hours. We were surprised to be picked up by large coach, typical for the airport run, rather than a minibus that we had for another trip. The reason for the large coach soon came to light as on arrival in the Playa del Carmen area we made eight stops at different hotels, which took ages as each hotel is situated in a complex off the main road and behind a security check in. It took 6 hours to reach our destination. Our tour guide was excellent, but we were dreading the journey back as we had not expected just the transportation to take 10 hours. We arrived back at our hotel around 7.30 p.m. - a total of 14 and a half hours, not 8 as on the ticket. Had we known that getting to the excursion and return would take 10 hours, we would not have gone on this trip the day before our 10 hour return flight to the U.K. We complained to the TUI rep in our hotel, who had rebooked our trip, that we had not been informed of the extended duration. We questioned why we were the only pick up from our area and the other people were from the Playa del Carmen and Tulum area. It was ridiculous to include people from the Costa Mujeres area on a trip that was designed for collection for people located nearer Tulum. We wanted to warn other people about this trip.