Thinking of going to Tulum

[1stsailing]

Coming in on the Carnival Victory and was thinking of doing the Tulum thing. Can you actually climb to the top? Is it worth the time and money?:confused:

[solita]

Tulum was the only Mayan city built on the water. You can not climb any of the ruins there. But it is still nice. The beach area is just beautiful. Expect an 8 hour tour - time from pier to return.

[divadiverfl]

We just got off the Holiday and we took the Ruins tour by ourselves. The tickets were 3.00 dollars. Make sure you bring sunscreen and have water. Plenty of film.. If my 80 year old mother-in-law can do it any one can--she has arthur really bad all over her body but that is what she wanted to do.

[BamaEagle]

Diva,

 

My wife and I are sailing on the Hoiliday May 9. Just curious, how did you travel from Calica to Tulum? Have read a lot of alternatives and are trying to find which is the best, and most economical. We would like to go to Tulum first, before it gets TOO hot, then proceed to Xel Ha' to cool off with some water activity. We don't care to see Playa del Carmen, unless we have to for transportation purposes.

[BamaEagle]

I should have pointed out that we are docking at Calica one day, then Cozumel the next. Obviously we would do Tulum on the Calica day. We are in port from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm at Calica.

 

Thanks.

[Margara]

How do you do Tulum by yourself? Taxi? Car rental? Suggestions?

[jaycee200]

I just wanted to put my 2 cents in regarding Tulum. I'll be doing a "write up review" later on on a separate post, but saw the question regarding this... My Mom, sister and I took the cruise ships excursion (NCL Sea $109) last week when we docked in Cozumel. I had read it was best to do it via the cruise ship because of time restraints, etc.

 

Anyway, I would NOT recommend this tour. It was VERY long, and while interesting and slightly informative, I read more from the "Daily" sheet we got on the boat prior to arriving about the ruins and Mayas, etc. There was a lot of "switching transportations" (Get on a bus, drive for 20 minutes. Have a 30 minute "rest stop" at some random shopping place. Get back on bus for 30 minutes. Transfer to a trolley thing, pulled by a tractor. Wait in one line, wait in another line. And then do all of the above over again once "tour" is done).

 

Now, they gave us "lunch" which was in a box, and I have no idea what the sandwich was, but it was unedible, especially since they handed us our 'box' right off the pier, where it had been sitting in the sun for at least an hour. I'll post a picture of "sandwich" (I'm guessing some sort of tuna or fish by product?) and some granola bars and a bottle of water. Anyway, as mentioned, you can only walk by the ruins, you are no longer allowed to actually explore around or even take the steps up to the actual ruins here, they are all roped off, so its kinda like just "wandering around from site to site, to be able to take a picture, hopefully your camera has a good zoom, so you can get a good look.

 

Anyway, they ARE very cool ruins, and it would've been 200% more fun if we could have explored them (as I was not aware BEFORE we got there that we could not), so I admit that my disappointment was quite large. Our tour guide was fine, just hard to understand, and tended to ramble, so lost my attention quickly. Plus, most of the "tour" consisted of the entire group (I'd say about 50 people) standing in a hut structure gathered around the guide (not even in front of a ruin, etc) and he talked and talked for about 30 minutes. Mind you, it had to be 90 degrees plus with the thick humidity, so being stationary made the heat even worse.

 

Just for the record, I did find the ruins themselves impressive. Just not impressed with a) the cost of the tour b) the amount of time it consumed c) not being able to explore the ruins d) not being able to hear or understand the guide most of the time e) that it was more of a walk around and take pictures, instead of either a learning experience OR an exploration experience. I might note that my sister and I are 27 years old and my Mom is 54 and we were all more than a little disappointed in the cruise's excursion.

 

Sorry, I didnt mean for that to be so long! My 2 cents seems to have grown to 50 cents ;)

[solita]

Just FYI...your ship provides the boxed lunch...not the tour company. And the cruise line has a special deal with the rest stop store...the tour is required to stop there.

[Mike2131]

Coming in on the Carnival Victory and was thinking of doing the Tulum thing. Can you actually climb to the top? Is it worth the time and money?:confused:

 

The other posters have given an accurate portrait of the important points - no climbing, spectacular seaside setting, a gorgeous beach, a very poor "sack lunch" etc. Also I suggest that you bring water and wear good walking shoes (boots are overkill) since the ground is uneven in places.

 

The one point I will add is that the wide open nature of the site makes an interesting contrast to others sites like Lamanai in Belize that are in the jungle. If you are anticipating visiting more than one Mayan site, this will prove an interesting starting (or finishing) point.

 

Enjoy Tulum!

[Jeanne B]

Margara - My DH and I did Tulum on our own in January by following instructions a cc member posted on these forums. We took the ferry over to Playa del Carmen, walked 2 or 3 blocks to the bus terminal and bought bus tickets (I think they were $3 one way). It was quite a long bus ride but I thought it was worth it for the magnificant views at Tulum. Now had we paid $110 per person to do the ship tour I don't think I would have been nearly as satisfied but doing it on our own cost us abot $65 total for the both of us and we were able to do it at our own pace. We were back at Playa by 2:00, took the ferry back over to Cozumel and still had a few hours to shop in Cozumel (plus we ate a late lunch there).

 

If anyone is interested I have pictures of Tulum in our online photo album (there are a lot of pictures - the Tulum pictures start on page 6).

 

 

http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeANmblk0cNHDio

 

 

 

[Margara]

ng to this company called Fantasy Travel Experts and they will set up a Tulum Express tour for us (we are 12) for $65 per person. Their website looks good and they answer their e-mail quite promptly but i have not been able to find anyone who has used them so I can get some references. Might try it anyway.

[AIMS312]

Margara - My DH and I did Tulum on our own in January. We took the ferry over to Playa del Carmen. We were back at Playa by 2:00, took the ferry back over to Cozumel and still had a few hours to shop in Cozumel (plus we ate a late lunch there).

 

 

JeanneB, what time did you get to Cozumel? My aunt & uncle want to tour Tulum, but we don't get to Coz. until 9:30am. I know they'll have to do it on their own, just not sure they will have enough time.

BTW, we leave Coz. at 6:00pm.

TIA

[Jeanne B]

AIMS312 - It looks like your aunt & uncle could be cutting it a little close although we did it in about 7 hours total (would have been 6 if we hadn't missed the 2:00 ferry). We docked in Cozumel at 8:00 and it was about 9:00 when we got on the ferry to Playa del Carmen (we booked our ferry ticket through the ship as a shore excursion and had to meet on the ship at 8:45). If I recall, the ferry back to Cozumel runs every hour and we took the 3:00 ferry and we were back in Cozumel by 3:30. We probably spent about 2 hours total at Tulum before getting on a bus back to Playa. There's a VERY small bus terminal outside Tulum where you have to buy your bus ticket back to Playa - as we were walking to the bus terminal there were a lot of taxis lined up with drivers offering to drive us back but we declined and they weren't overbearing. I was a little nervous about doing Tulum on our own because neither my DH or I know any Spanish and this was our first trip to the Caribbean but we didn't have any problems. We didn't get pesos ahead of time but we made sure we had enough $1 bills on us so that we would get minimal change back in pesos.