Tulum Maya Ruins with Island Marketing

[cukoobananas]

We just booked the privat Tulum tour with Island Marketing. Has anyone done this before? Any reviews on the tour, the ruins, or the company?? What about the weather in Mid December? Thank you in advance for your help!!:)

[driftwood]

We have visited Quintana Roo at several different times of year, and we have come to the conclusion that December and January are the most pleasant--not just because we are usually escaping rather unpleasant weather here!

 

The rainy season is over, the sky is blue, the temperatures are usually much milder than in May or later--and as Tulum has very little shade, a lower temperature is very desirable.

 

We are not familiar with your elected tour company, but we assume that as with most tours to Mayan sites, you will have an "Official Guide" [Guia Oficial] sent with you. These are trained, licensed and skilled professionals, required to take refresher courses given by INAH on a regular basis to keep them up to the state of research on Mayan antiquities, many of them Mayan themselves and personally interested in new discoveries. You may ask them anything about the Maya and get a reliable response. They usually team up with their bus driver and supply you with ice water in plastic bottles kept in a huge ice-filled cooler. Often they will supply canned soft drinks--even Diet Coke--and bottled beer as well. They are cheerful, friendly, quite proficient in English and Spanish (although they may themselves use a Mayan dialect); some of them speak German or Japanese as well. They may and should be tipped at the end of your tour. I try to be generous with them, as they have always been generous and helpful with me!

 

Don't forget to keep your camera ready, as Tulum is one of the most picturesque sites in the Caribbean. As it is perched on the edge of the Caribbean Sea, it catches every hurricane that runs across the Yucatan, so making a permanent record of it now, before the headland collapses (and you will see part of it collapsed already at the South end of the site), is probably a good idea. It is a small site quite easy of access (if the coast road survives the hurricanes), and you may walk all over it at a leisurely pace in an hour or so. Very nice beach there running the length of the site, but it is not wide.

[LHP]

We just booked the privat Tulum tour with Island Marketing. Has anyone done this before? Any reviews on the tour, the ruins, or the company?? What about the weather in Mid December? Thank you in advance for your help!!:)

 

May I make one recommendation?

 

We never use a ship excursion. However, this tour requires that you leave the island (45 minute ferry ride each way).

 

We have been to Cozumel 4 times since October and at least 2 times, this tour was late getting back to the ship. Of course, the ship waited for them because it was booked through the ship.

 

Just something to consider. Personally, I would not leave the island unless I was on a ship excursion...simply because you never know what is going to happen with the ferry, the roads or the equipment.

[driftwood]

When we visited Tulum we went from a resort on the Mayan Riviera, so we didn't have to think about missing a boat. But both our first visit to Coba (when we had nearly a sixteen-hour window, and used about seven) and our visit to Muyil were made as cruise line shore excursions, and it did make me feel more comfortable to believe that the cruise ship would not Shanghai its own busloadful of passengers--who would eat up all the lobsters crawling around the ship?

 

You get no guarantees.

 

But most visiting Cozumel probably have at least a seven-hour window, and for Tulum, if the road is all right, that should provide almost a four-hour window for the roundtrip ferry. Any tour operator with passengers on the mainland is going to be nervous as a cat in a roomful of rocking chairs anyway, which is more nervous than any passenger should be!

 

Coba would be another matter, as quickly touring the shortest route on the site takes about two hours, and the bus trip takes a little longer than the trip to Tulum. Cruise lines don't offer that tour unless they know they will be in port for quite a while on the date in question.

 

I think it is advisable that you let your cabin steward, and perhaps someone else on board, know where and with whom you are touring, if you are not on a cruiseline-booked tour. Emergencies can happen. Cruise lines track their own "sponsored" tours, but the others are--independent! :eek: