Questions re: tours to Tulum

We are scheduled to dock in Cozumel during our January cruise. I am interested in taking my mom to see the ruins at Tulum but the Princess excursion implies an 8 hour timeline for the tour where the visits for shopping and the beach are at the end of the excursion. Does anyone know if it would be possible to take the ferry back to Cozumel and return to the ship immediately after the tour of the ruins? Any insight would be much appreciated.

I'm sure there won't be much beach/shopping time. When I looked at private tours, they were pretty much all day affairs as well. If Costa Maya is on your itinerary, I would go to ruins there. We went and it was 4+ hours round trip to some great ruins. Or you could all day ones like Tulum.

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We did the Princess tour to Tulum. It is an all day excursion. We didn't have time to shop after the tour. The tour did stop at a big emporium on the way for some shopping and there is some stalls in Tulum as well. We had about 45 minutes in Playa Del Carmen to shop as well. It's definitely a long day. The ruins were really nice and the setting beautiful. I would only do it once though.