My primary motivation for booking this tour was to get to the San Gervasio Mayan ruins. I saw the taco lunch and getting to stop at a spot I haven’t been to on the east side of the island as bonuses. 

I booked this tour on the ship on the first day of the cruise for $78. The ticket was delivered to my room that night.

 

I was on the Glory. As you can see we were in port with Carnival Breeze and Carnival Ecstasy.

My excursion ticket says meeting spot 9 at 9am. I got off of the ship at 8:45am and made it to the meeting spot in less than 10 minutes. 

The guy holding the #9 sign told me to meet my tour between those buildings.

Great it’s only five people. I love small tours.

Actually that was just the people who hadn’t checked in yet. This is a large tour.

We have boarded the bus. It’s a good size bus. The air conditioning works. I have the entire row to myself. I’m comfortable.

Our first stop is a place I haven’t been to on the east side of the island. Previously I had only been to this side of the island on the Cozumel Barhop Tour.

Since I booked this tour for the Mayan ruins, getting to see a different spot on the east side of the island is a nice bonus for me. Keep in mind my phone is an hour ahead of time for any screenshots I post.

El Mirador is the first stop. El Mirador means “The lookout.” I only know that because El Mirador is also a set of Mayan ruins in Guatemala.

They have a free tequila tasting inside.

And plenty of shops outside.

We only had 25 or 30 minutes here so you really needed to decide what you wanted to do. I was going to grab a beer but I didn’t seen a bar or servers. It was just the tequila tasting. So I went exploring.

They have plenty of spots for photo ops on the beach. The shop owners will come out the back door and use these spots as a way to lure you into their shops.

I’m keeping them out of the pictures but some of them were approaching with cameras. One was blowing a seashell horn he was trying to sell. I just want to see what I can see in my limited time here.

I decided to go out on those two rock formations. I think they’re coral actually.

You have to be extremely careful here. This can be a bit treacherous.

I made it back to the bus just in time. 25 minutes after I got off of it.

At 10:35 we arrived at the ruins. 

This is why I booked this excursion. For my full tour of the ruins see San Gervasio Mayan Ruins. It was the highlight of the excursion and deserved it’s own article.

After the ruins we boarded the bus to head to the restaurant. Once we arrived we had to go through all of these stations before we could get to the taco lunch.

First you have to take picture with dancers that they’ll try to sell you while you’re eating. They try to sell you the pictures, not the dancers.

Then you have to go to the tequila tasting. Then the chocolate tasting. Then the black coral store. Then they let you go to the restaurant.

This is the picture line. I don’t take any pictures. What I did was wait in line. Then when it was my turn simply bypass the pictures so I’m not cutting in front of anyone.

While I was in the picture line I could see the chocolate tasting going on.

My first station after the pictures is the tequila tasting. Between the first tequila tasting and this one, you can get a decent amount tequila included on the tour.

These are the different types of tequila we tasted.

First everyone took a seat. Then they started bringing around the bottles.

This is about how much they gave me of each tequila.

I am not a big tequila fan. The chocolate tequila was pretty good. But for $60 just spike a yoohoo.

After the tequila tasting they sent you over to the chocolate tasting. I tried dark, chili pepper, and coffee. The dark tasted like regular dark chocolate. I didn’t taste any chili pepper in the chili pepper chocolate. I would say the coffee flavored chocolate was probably the best of the bunch.

There is one final obstacle between us and tacos. You just have to listen to a short presentation about the black coral. You don’t have to go inside the store or anything.

Now we’re getting there.

That was actually just a handwashing station outside of the bathroom. It was weird not having a mirror by the sink though.

I come back to my seat and some guy has his grubby hands in my chips. And I didn’t see him at the hand washing station. I grabbed my drink and re-seated myself.

They brought me new chips and salsa. Pretty soon they bring a couple and seat them with me. It’s clear they aren’t going to allow me to sit alone.

They start eating the chips and salsa. At that point it’s their chips and salsa. Then they brought tacos, rice and beans.

They also had dancers for entertainment.

We were late leaving the restaurant so the excursion ran 30 minutes over.

The biggest complaint I read about this excursion was that they just tried to sell you things. I would agree with that. The ruins were the only part where they weren’t trying to sell you something.

I just booked the tour for the ruins and lunch. I thought it was good for that. I got a little free tequila and some photo ops at the beach. But if I wasn’t interested in the ruins, I wouldn’t book this tour. If I had 2 or more people and just wanted to do the ruins, I would take a taxi. This is just one of those situations where the taxi costs so much that it’s a better deal for a solo to book an excursion.

It was nice to get a little exposure to the east side of the island. But if that’s what you’re looking for you will get a much better experience at a lower price with Cozumel Barhop.

 

 

 

 

• Cozumel