14 Aug 2025
We stayed in Riviera Maya for 5 days for our 20th wedding anniversary and were debating between doing a separate tour to Chichen Itza and a second tour to Coba, but knew we wanted to spend most of our time at our all inclusive resort, so we ultimately ended up choosing the all day Chichen Itza and Coba tour to knock it all out in one day and are so glad we did!
Our tour guide, Gerardo Israel was absolutely incredible. He was friendly, upbeat and so knowledgeable about the ancient Mayan civilization and cenotes. The schedule of the tour is right on too - at first we weren’t sure about the early 6:30 am pick up from our resort, but he knew it was necessary to get us to Chichen Itza right when it opened to experience it before the crowds arrived. He took his time explaining the details and significance of each spot, and was happy to answer our questions and take photos for us. We stayed for about a little under two hours and learned so much and never felt rushed. As we were heading back to the parking lot, the line was looooong to get in and there were literally hundreds of tour buses and vans arriving.
There is a specific cenote that they usually go to for this tour, but we knew that we wanted to specifically visit Ik Kil cenote, which is about 5 minutes from Chichen Itza. Again, the timing was perfect because there was hardly anyone at the cenote and we mostly had it to ourselves. Once again, as we were leaving, the tour buses and vans started rolling in, so we were grateful for getting such an early start!
Gerardo took us to an incredible Mayan restaurant in Valladolid called Paladar de Cura. The food was SO good and authentic, honestly the best food we had on our entire trip.
Finally we made our way to the ancient ruins in Coba. We chose to ride bikes through the jungle and stop at the different ruins along the way, but they also have a passenger option where a guy rides a large bike that you can sit in and not have to do any physical work. Once again, Gerardo was incredibly knowledgeable and shared some great information about the ruins and culture. If you can, I would absolutely choose the bike option, such a cool way to experience Coba!
All in all, the entire day was perfect and Gerardo was the most incredible guide! The entire day from pick up to drop off was probably around 10.5 - 11 hours so it was a long day but totally worth every moment!