13 May 2022
To start off, this tour is not “small group” despite the viator description. My bf and I were picked up on time in an air conditioned van. Then the van took us to a meeting point where we moved to a big tour bus with more than 50 people. We then proceeded to pick up others in different hotels.
We first visited a “mayan village” where we did a traditional mayan ceremony and ate at a buffet. This whole village was the tour’s attempt to immerse tourists in mayan culture, but it felt more like a money grab. They made us stay in the gift shop for 20 min before the buffet. You arent allowed to bring outside drinks to the buffet either, must purchase there. The food was very meh and had limited selections. But this viator tour is pretty cheap so my expectations for food werrnt too high. Once you exit the buffet, you must exit through one way where you have people in costumes asking you to take pictures for money.
After the buffet was the chichen itza. We got an english guide over there and he was awesome. He provided a lot of information and was very knowledgeable. The chichen itza itself was pretty cool but there are a lot of vendors in the area so bring pesos if you’re into that.
Lastly, we visited a cenote. The viator listing said we would go ik-kil which was a big reason why we picked this. But no, we went to saamal instead which was pretty but not as nice. We only got to spend 1 hour here but 20 min of that is getting in and changing. Id rather spend the time spent at the mayan ceremony at the cenote instead considering how hot it was.
Our tour guide and driver were great people. The tour guide kept the tour fun and gave information about the sites