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Booking tours thought cruise line vs. DIY
My husband and I have had a bad experience booking a tour thought our
cruise line. We went on a shopping trip, were driven over bad roads for 1 1/2 hours, dropped off at a big tourist store and left in that area for 3 hours. There were very few places open beside the big store and an open market where everyone drove you nuts to buy stuff. The trip was expensive and a total rip off. We will be cruising Thanksgiving week 2006 . This time we have researched our destination to Calica (Playa Del Carmen) and Cancun. We know we want to go the Tulum, Xel-ha or Isla Mujeres. We have seen people with signs offering to take you to various points of interest as we left the dock area. We would like to save some money as we have 5 people going. Can anyone advise us about using these local vans, cabs to go to these places? Is it less expensive this way? What about entrance to the parks? Some of the trips are $110 per person if you book through the cruise line. The trip to Tulum through the cruise line is $65 each. We will greatly appreciate your knowledge in this matter. Walter & Faye Nettles |
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Booking tours thought cruise line vs. DIY
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Booking tours thought cruise line vs. DIY
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Booking tours thought cruise line vs. DIY
Thus spake "LeeNY" :
wrote: We will be cruising Thanksgiving week 2006 . This time we have researched our destination to Calica (Playa Del Carmen) and Cancun. We know we want to go the Tulum, Xel-ha or Isla Mujeres. We toured Tulum independently, and we came over from Cozumel. So, to do it from Playa del Carmen should be a piece of cake. We didn't use a tour van...we rented a car and drove there on our own. I don't know where the cruise ship pier is, but coming over on the ferry, the rental car office was right there...probably 50 steps from where we got on land. We prebooked the car through National Rental Car...it was a late model VW in excellent condition, so we had little worries about mechanical difficulties. Car ran about $35 for the day.. There is absolutely nothing (NOTHING) at Calica except for some vendor tents and busses that take you to the various destinations. After about 9, taxis show up, but you have to hike in the sun and dust to get to where they stop. Note that it's about a 15-20 minute taxi ride to Playa del Carmen. Make sure you allow time for this if you go to Playa. We saw four people miss the boat because of this error. -- dillon JAFO |
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Booking tours thought cruise line vs. DIY
In article , Dillon Pyron
wrote: There is absolutely nothing (NOTHING) at Calica except for some vendor tents and busses that take you to the various destinations. After about 9, taxis show up, but you have to hike in the sun and dust to get to where they stop. Not quite true. If there is nothing there how come when I looked out my porthole I saw the Xcaret theme park? You do need to take a shuttle or taxi to the park entrance. Below is a picture of the area. http://www.locogringo.com/maps/xcaret.html -- Charles |
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Booking tours thought cruise line vs. DIY
Thus spake Charles :
In article , Dillon Pyron wrote: There is absolutely nothing (NOTHING) at Calica except for some vendor tents and busses that take you to the various destinations. After about 9, taxis show up, but you have to hike in the sun and dust to get to where they stop. Not quite true. If there is nothing there how come when I looked out my porthole I saw the Xcaret theme park? You do need to take a shuttle or taxi to the park entrance. Below is a picture of the area. Like I said, there's nothing at the port. The only way to get to Xcaret is to take one of the State sponsored (oops, ship sponsored) busses or a taxi. And getting a taxi back to the ship is problematic unless you make arrangements beforehand. The port effectively bans "walk off" excursion sales and I don't think people like Shoretrips even have anything there, although I'm just too lazy to look right now. http://www.locogringo.com/maps/xcaret.html -- dillon JAFO |
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Booking tours thought cruise line vs. DIY
"Charles" wrote in message d... In article , Dillon Pyron wrote: And getting a taxi back to the ship is problematic unless you make arrangements beforehand. I had no problem getting to Xcaret and back from the port. There were plenty of cabs at Xcaret. Xcaret is a huge park with people coming from everywhere. Also, I don't know if they still do it but when I was there Xcaret was running a continuous shuttle back and forth between the port and park. -- Charles It's been a few years since we were there but I remember the brightly colored buses that took us there. We booked the tour thru the cruise ship at the time & the bus transportation was part of the package. It really wasn't that far a ride to the park. |
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