I booked the Mayan Ball Game, Mexican Show & Lunch excursion through Carnival for a couple of reasons. First off I had a lot of onboard credit on this particular cruise. Secondly I have visited quite a few Mayan ruins sites and I’ve always been interested in their ball game. Seeing a reenactment of a game has been on my list for a couple of years. The tour is priced at $85 for adults and $75 for children. Let’s go.

When you exit the pier all of the Carnival excursions will be right in front of you with signs. You just need to find the right sign.

This is mine. 

There will usually be someone with a clipboard who may take your ticket and sign you in or give you a wristband. They may even tell you to go to a different area. This one gave me an orange wrist band and sent me over to Pedro.

At 9:28 Pedro informs us we will have 41 people on the bus. Right now we have 28. He must have found the others quickly because we left at 9:30 and the bus was packed. 

I got stuck with a hump seat and the guy in front me was a recliner so I was packed in.

They gave us stickers so they could identify the group members. There are a total of 180 people doing this tour in four different groups.

On the way Pedro mostly talked about languages comparing English, Spanish, and Mayan words.

Tourism is the number one industry here. They have no factories or farms. They can’t grow plants because of the humid weather and the fact that the island is made of limestone. Everything comes from the mainland. Even electricity comes through a cable in the ocean. 

We arrived around 10am but it was almost 10:15 before I got off of the bus due to the photo op line. We were told we could leave our belongings on bus and they requested we keep the same seats on the return trip (yah!) We were given 10 minutes to use bathroom and get drinks.

I got two beers. They have servers following us around the whole tour if anyone wants to order drinks. I held off after the first two beers because it was 2 1/2 hours before we got back by the bathrooms.

Ku-Che means Protector of the forest. The the first station we went to was a Mayan purification ceremony.

At this point she’s dipping the flowers in the pot and throwing water on us.

Here is a clip from the ceremony.

Then we proceeded to the ballgame.

 

They had another photo op outside of the arena. 

This is the ball they use. It’s actually quite heavy.

 

This clip is from the beginning of the game up to the first point scored.

 After the game they did a fertility dance.

After the show you could get photo ops with the players on the ball court.

Next, we are going to a Mayan village.

 

This is a traditional Mayan home. When you see pictures of the ruins sites that I’ve posted, this is why most of the regular houses are just foundations. The rest of the house was built like this.

This is a Mayan food. It is made from pumpkin seeds and corn. I would have it but I don’t want to ruin my appetite for Big Chicken so I’m going to pass on the pak.

The next station is Mayan tamales.

The next station is chocolate. Mayan chocolate was made with water, honey vanilla, cocoa beans, and human blood.

There is no blood in this chocolate.

This is a liquid chocolate that they mix with a Mayan liquor. 

Our final stop is the tequila station. This is basically the same tequila presentation I got at the Tequila Academy downtown. Their tequila is real. The mass-produced tequilas like Patron and Don Julio are not because they take shortcuts to mass-produce it.

I recorded the presentation at the Tequila academy last year so I’ll just insert that here.

We got to taste their best tequila. I don’t like tequila, but this was good. This one is a 22-year process. They charge 169 dollars/bottle. You save $40/bottle if you buy 4 or more. They say you can drink an entire bottle and not have a headache or hangover unlike the mass-produced tequila.

The cheapest they have is the 11-year for 79 dollars. There are other options In between the $79 and $169 bottles.

Photo op pictures.

I skipped the buffet and went with a beer.

This dance is similar to the one I saw at the tour last March.

On the way out they walk you through the gauntlet of vendors.

It’s easy to find my seat.

Pedro talked all the way back. A lot of guides call it quits on the way back.

                     

They dropped us off at the pier at 2pm.

I enjoyed the tour. I was mostly in it for the ball game. I did enjoy seeing the Mayan house because I always just see foundations. I didn’t really need the food or dancing but I do know a lot of people enjoy having that lunch included in the tour price. They did have that here.

 

 

• Cozumel
• Mayan Ruins