Valladolid

Booked this Chichen Itza tour from Cancun and had a great experience overall. Pickup was at 5:15 AM, and the van was comfortable enough to nap during the 2-hr drive. One of the highlights was arriving early at Chichen Itza before the crowds. Our guide, Kevin, was knowledgeable and shared fascinating insights about Mayan history, while our driver, Razel, made the journey smooth and comfortable. After Chichen Itza, we stopped at a cenote for swimming, lunch, and tequila tasting. The cenote and tequila tasting were enjoyable, but the buffet lunch was disappointing and below average. The final stop was Valladolid, a charming town and a nice addition to the itinerary. We returned to our hotel around 6:00 PM. It’s a full 12-hr day, but well worth it for anyone wanting to learn about Mayan civilization and visit one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

Luis fue fantástico, realmente hizo que el recorrido fuera genial para mí. Increíblemente apasionado por la historia de los mayas y su gente. Lo recomendaría encarecidamente.

There's an issue with Klook's listing title. It stated that a buffet lunch was included, but after I booked the tickets, the details showed that the cost did not include it. In the end, we paid extra for the buffet lunch on the day, but the food was completely not worth the price the restaurant charged, which was very disappointing. The tour guide had a very strong English accent. My husband, who has lived in the US for nearly 30 years, could only understand about half of his English. We often couldn't tell if he was speaking English or Spanish. However, we could definitely feel the guide's dedication. We departed from downtown Cancun, and it was truly a packed itinerary. We had to be at the meeting point at 4:45 AM and only returned around 8:30 PM, making it a very tiring day. Because Chichen Itza was unexpectedly closed that day, the guide took us to Ek Balam instead. We didn't realize we were running out of water and suffered from heatstroke after about half an hour without rehydrating. The weather that day was incredibly hot, which meant we didn't have the energy to properly visit Ek Balam; we just wanted to get back to the entrance as quickly as possible to buy water. The planning by the staff at Ek Balam was not good enough; many ruins lacked English explanations, and there was nowhere to buy water inside the site, only at the entrance and the parking lot. We hadn't originally planned to swim in the Ik Kil cenote, but we didn't expect that the staff would require us to pay for a life vest and locker even just to dip our feet in the water. Otherwise, entry was completely denied, and we could only view the cenote from the observation deck. Since the water quality inside wasn't very clean, we decided not to go in later.