Mexico: Your Ultimate Guide to Things to Do with Personal Ratings
I went on an amazing girls trip to Cancun, Mexico! We had a jammed packed 7-day trip as we went all throughout the Yucatán Peninsula. (Fun Fact: In the Mayans’ native tongue, Yucatan means “I don’t understand.” The Mayans kept saying Yucatan when the Spanish conquistadors were asking “Where are we?”.)
Here’s my ratings of the adventure and culture activities we did:
Rating: 10/10
Description: This is an adventure theme park with multiple locations. I went to the Xplor Park and had a blast! You can pay to be picked up from the resort (we were picked up at 7am SHARP), and it took 2 hours to get to Playa del Carmen. There are 6 main activities: zipline, vehicles (4 passengers ATV), rafts, river swim, hammock splash, and underground expedition.
Pros:
· Great if you love adventure! The park is no joke and I have the black and blue marks to prove it. There are 6 main activities: zipline, vehicles (4 passengers ATV), rafts, river swim, hammock splash, and underground expedition.
· Food is included in your ticket and the food was very enjoyable!
In the photo, you will see fear the passengers’ eyes as we realized the driver doesn’t know how to drive and might actually kill us on these bumpy roads and sharp turns. God was truly with us that day.
Rating: 5/10
Description: This Adventure Park included horseback riding, swimming in a fake cenote (sinkhole), ATVing, and ziplining.
Pros:
· ATVing! I was able to go dangerously fast and ran through every puddle.
· Jumping into the cenote was fun.
Cons:
· This place definitely lacked safety protocols. It was cute when I was having the time of my life going dangerously fast and almost flipping over on the ATV! But, when I was up on the zipline podiums that were moving with the wind, I thought I might die for real.
· There was a long wait between each activity.
· The horses seemed malnourished.
· This was a pathetic looking cenote compared to the ones we saw in Chichen Itza and Tulum.
· Food is the last thing on the agenda, so you are hungry for a while.
Rating: 10/10
Description: The Chichen Tour was a visit to the ancient Mayan town of Chichen Itza and swam in a cenote (sinkhole).
Pros:
· I enjoyed learning about about the Mayans’ religious beliefs with the temple, El Castillo, their sacred bird, Kukulcan, and the cenotes. (But, you’ll see below I had some problems with the delivery of that information by the tour guide).
· The cenote was absolutely breathtaking.
Cons:
· The bus picked us up at 6:35am from Cancun for a 2-hour drive to the site (Being picked up early was not the con but I am setting the scene). The guide talked too much on the drive there and back, which made sleeping hard. It was unnecessary for him to talk on the bus as he said the same information at the site as he did on the bus.
· It was hard to follow along to the guide story as he told half the story in Spanish and half in English. So, anyone that only knew one language on the bus was screwed.
· Once we arrived at the site we separated into Spanish and English groups, so I was finally able to understand the full story. But we stood in one spot too long for me. If I’m in a constant motion and looking at different scenery, then I can listen better.
Description: Tulum is a Mayan town that translates to ‘wall.’ We explored the Tulum Ruins and learned about its history.
Pros:
· These guides were much better at handling a bilingual group. They would say a statement in Spanish and then repeat the same statement in English, so no one is confused.
· We only spent a short amount of time at each spot.
Rating: 9/10
Pros:
· Affordable
· All-inclusive
· Tons of resort activities during the day
· Escorted us to the nightclub strip in Cancun
· 5-min walking distance to the nightclub strip and restaurants
· A lot of young groups to socialize with
Cons (kinda):
· The food could be better, but for the resort price I was perfectly content with it
