I signed up for Native choice on the basis of this thread, but was very disappointed and wanted to offer an update. This was my Dec 2022 experience:
The moment my husband and I arrived, managers told us that the tour we signed up for was not possible due to wet roads. Even if this was true, they should have given us advance notice. Second, the ride to the site was awful. The van was dark and cramped: I barely got half a seat to myself. There was almost no information given to distract from the discomfort. The “guide’s” English was very difficult to understand and not informative anyway. She also left us halfway through the drive, so we had no guide. The site was then incredibly overcrowded and our small van of people was lumped into a group of 60-70 people (with one very quiet guide). After we reached the ruins, we split into 3 groups, but it seemed like our new tour guide had very little guiding experience. He didn’t seem to know much history about the ruins. However, even the main guide (who we were split off from) didn’t seem to know much either. He made lots of grand generalizations about all ancient civilizations, but not specific, evidence-based inferences based on the actual site we were visiting. We wanted a native perspective on the ruins, not just a native person giving personal opinions. Also, unlike tours with natives we did in Belize, our tour guide had very little control over our group. For example, he let other guests damage ancient ruins and break off branches of trees without saying anything about how to behave in an ancient site. Finally, the long bus-ride home was completely quiet, with the guide reading his phone instead of talking to guests. If you want to support locals with your business, try to find a company that puts more effort into giving you a good, educational experience.
