[JMcLellan]

Going on a family trip this coming week to Riviera Maya. Anyone else here been to this area of Mexico and can recommend any excursions that are must do's? My kiddos want to go snorkeling and do some fishing which options seem plentiful. Golfing would be fun but not sure anyone else in the group will want to go.

I'm probably good for half the days just staying at the resort but will need a couple days to go explore elsewhere.

Any info or opinions from experiences would be helpful.

[UncleWede]

Been there 3 times, always at Moon Palace.
Golfing, I always saw crocodiles. I don't do little white ball anyways, so
There was a circus across the street from MP, but not sure how regular that is.
Snorkeling was neat, but we rode a bus 30+ minutes into downtown, got on a little skiff, thru the mangroves to right back in front of our resort. I was very tempted to just leave the boat and swim back

Those mangroves seem like that could be a great light-tackle fishing area!

MP also had some sort of dolphin interaction thingy. I was a bit too deep into Cuba Libre! to mess with any dolphins.


My wife is fluent in Spanish, so she arranged for a taxi to pick us up from MP and take us into the local area that wasn't quite so touristy. I think it cost us $20 for the guy to drive us, stay around, and take us back.

It's been a decade, so YMMV

[Kowalski2011]

When we were there the humidity was incredible.

If you stay at a resort that uses a wristband and go down to Playa Del Carmen be sure to cover the band so the 'hawkers' don't see it, though we certainly stuck out like tourists anyways. Also, be careful not to call each other by name 'cause the hawkers will pick up on that and start calling you out.

True story in one of the pottery shops this plate just suddenly fell off the shelf I was standing next to, guy says, 'you break it, you buy it'. Yeah right, I'm sure they reset the string after I left for the next you break it, you buy it victim. Then they were just going to toss it, I said 'Oh hell no, I bought it, I'm taking it with me'.

A couple blocks off the 'strip' the bars are more peaceful, though tend to get dicey toward dark.

The strip is on the way to the ferry to Cozumel, best snorkeling is here. We rented a jeep for the day and explored the island.

Xcaret was a day well spent, floating the underground river was definitely the highlight here.

We used resort provided transportation when we needed it, I can't recommend hailing some random taxi off the street.

All said we had a great time, many adventures and good memories!

Enjoy your trip.

[unluky]

We did a catamaran down to Tulum which was a beautiful ride. Ride was a little rough and several people hanging over the side, but I think they went too hard the night before. We had no issues. The beach we landed on in Tulum was still one of the prettiest sands I have ever seen. Pure white and like baby powder - never seen sand like that in my life. The tour was cool, but the bus ride back was not great - but I hate busses, so might have just been me.

We learned they were having a light show the next night, so we rented a car and drove back down for that. I will say - we stopped for water on the way down and I was not a huge fan of that, we (me & GF) were in a pretty sketchy area. But the ruins lit up with different lights and carry along speakers telling stories was pretty cool. Bugs almost carried us off, but still fun.

We also took the ferry out to Cozumel and rented scooters for the day and rode the ocean road all the way around the island stopping at all the beach clubs along the way. GREAT day, but prob not for kids. The ruins on Cozumel were very MEH after being to Tulum. You can skip those if you want, but we had fun stopping. I have no desire to every go back to Mexico again, but if I do I'd like to redo that trip - that was a great vacation day.

[Ninetres]

Playa Del Carem--Alux Restaurant if you are into special/fine dining restaurants.
It's located smack in town, and is in an underground cave complete with a Cenote. Food and drinks were great, albeit expensive. But very cool experience dining under ground, and touring the cave after dinner.

[Fly320s]

Originally Posted by JMcLellan

Going on a family trip this coming week to Riviera Maya. Anyone else here been to this area of Mexico and can recommend any excursions that are must do's? My kiddos want to go snorkeling and do some fishing which options seem plentiful. Golfing would be fun but not sure anyone else in the group will want to go.

I'm probably good for half the days just staying at the resort but will need a couple days to go explore elsewhere.

Any info or opinions from experiences would be helpful.

For the kids and snorkeling, look into Xel-Ha. It is a mostly natural water park. And they have various side attractions such as zip lines.

[Pauldunlop13]

I usually do a 1 day trip while I am there

my favorite is the combo trip - Tulum ruins in the morning, followed by Xel Ha in the afternoon

Xel Ha is a pay one price - all food and drink included - it is somewhere we hit every time - in 2019 we did the whole day there

have a great trip - I will be there next Feb/Mar

[JMcLellan]

We got back from our trip this past weekend. It was a great experience with the wife's family (13 of us). We only ventured out one morning and did a catamaran ride up to playa del carmen and did some snorkeling. I had been snorkeling several times before in other places and that was my top 2 experience (hard to beat the Maui Molokini crater snorkeling).

I thought we would do more exploring, and for sure get to Xel-Ha but the pools, beach, and booze at the resort kept sucking us in every day. Oh well, it was awesome!

[tom2021]

Hi JMcLellan,
Glad to hear you enjoyed your vacation there.
We went to Cancun over a decade ago.
It was safe back then.
We always want to go back (Cancun or surrounding area) for a winter vacation.
However, we heard many bad news about the area recently.
Is it still safe now?
Thanks.

[JMcLellan]

Originally Posted by tom2021

Hi JMcLellan,
Glad to hear you enjoyed your vacation there.
We went to Cancun over a decade ago.
It was safe back then.
We always want to go back (Cancun or surrounding area) for a winter vacation.
However, we heard many bad news about the area recently.
Is it still safe now?
Thanks.

Yes it is safe there. For the most part I believe people are mainly hanging out at the resorts and going on guided excursions. I suppose if you rented a car and ventured off there could be a risk of getting lost or maybe getting robbed if you look like a tourist? We all felt safe there would go back.