Our Wonderful Day In Progreso On Our Own

[pammat]

Before I begin my review of Progreso, you need a little bit of background. From this board I found Sharon Helgason, shelgason@hotmail.com, she runs Chicxulub Food Bank http://www.chixfoodbank.com/. I contacted her regarding a possible donation of my daughter’s high school soccer team’s uniforms. She put me in touch with a couple who is responsible for the soccer program. With Sharon’s help we were able to donate uniforms to the kids in Progreso/Chicxulub who need them. She’s an amazing woman giving a great amount of her time to help those who are less fortunate. Anyway back to our day….

 

We were off the ship very quickly and onto the shuttle without any problem. We arrived in Progreso about 8am. We had about 30 minutes to kill before we were to meet up with Sharon, but we planned to meet with another family from Illinois who was also bringing a donation. We browsed the local market, and then proceeded to a street corner where we were supposed to meet. While waiting and “observing the locals” we met a very nice gentleman from Pablo’s Crater Tours. He had a cute “reindeer” hat and started by wishing us a Merry Christmas. Once he realized that we were there to meet Sharon, he asked what the rest of our plans were for the day, and proceeded to talk to us about Dzibilchaltun. He spoke mostly to our girls, telling them things to look for and history. We didn’t use him for a tour, so I can’t recommend him, but you might want to check him out. Here’s his website: http://rabbit777.tripod.com/pablo/. He was knowledgeable and seemed nice.

 

Once Sharon arrived, we visited for a while, took lots of photos, gave them the uniforms, and met Gustavo, our personal taxi driver arranged by Sharon. Gustavo was amazing. We arranged our “tour” with Gustavo before we left home. For $60 (plus we added a tip), we were to meet Gustavo, he was going to take us to the school where the kids go, to Dzibilchaltun, wait on us, and then return us to the port. We ended up also visiting several other areas, and made a pitstop at a Liquor Store, where Gustavo helped my husband purchase several gifts. Gustavo was an excellent driver, and his English was very good. He explained how he’s working with Sharon in a class where those who speak Spanish are teaching English and those who speak English are teaching those who don’t. I HIGHLY recommend him if you are looking for someone friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable about the area to drive you around for the day. He has a website: http://www.progressotaxicab.com/ and can be contacted thorugh it. He explained lots about local life and the areas we were passing through. We arrived at Dzibilchaltun before the cruise tours arrived and so mostly had the place to ourselves until we were almost ready to leave. What I’d read before we left wasn’t exactly what we paid to get in. We paid $8 each for my husband, myself, and my 16 year old. My 13 year old (who was then 12, birthday Jan 2nd), was free. Dzibilchaltun was the perfect place to go with the rest of our agenda for the day, and allowed us “a little taste of ruins”. The Temple of the Seven Dolls was really spectacular. We did hire a guide (for $20) to make sure we learned all that we could. I’m so glad that we did, because there were places she took us and things we saw that others might not have. I overheard one little girl say to her dad, “hey, we didn’t go down there, those people went through that door underground”. The museum was not open, we were there on Monday, so I am sorry we missed that. I heard here that it is really impressive. Overall it was a great excursion, and many times we found ourselves saying, wow, they (the Mayans) were really smart…. Anyway, we returned to the port, and there we did almost all of our shopping, you know, to spite Martin. (As a side story, Martin was our “expert shopping guide” who told everyone at the shopping show, “Don’t shop in Progreso, save all your money for Cozumel, that is where you’ll want to spend your money.” - full story in my complete review). It was a great day, we met wonderful people, saw amazing things, saw some heart wrenching things, and learned how very thankful we are to live the life we do.

 

For those of you who’ve wondered about doing an excursion on your own, we’ve always booked cruise excursions, but decided because of our donation in Progreso, and the location of our ports in relation to each other, we’d try venturing out on our on this time. After doing it ourselves, I don’t think I’ll ever book a cruise excursion again. The ability to do things on our own time was fantastic, and the savings were nice. I believe the trick to doing it on your own is being able to connect with people here and planning. We left the ship early and then planned to return to the pier/shopping area an hour and a half to two hours before we were to leave. That meant if there was an issue we had time to spare, if there weren’t any issues, we had time to shop.

 

I have posted pictures here: http://s950.photobucket.com/albums/ad342/pammat/?action=view&current=Day1PC190416.jpg&newest=1. These are from our entire cruise, but the Progreso pictures are labeled.

 

I hope this will help someone here as much as all your posts helped me before we left! Thank you all.

[markntara]

Thanks pammat for the review. My family and I will taking the Fantasy on the same itinerary, leaving Mobile on Feb 13th. We feel very fortunate that we will be in Mobile for Mardi gras, Marida for Carnival , Cozumel for Fat Tuesday, and Valentines is our elegant dinner night.

 

However, on top of all that, we feel most fortunate to be meeting Ms. Sharon Halgason also. We have collected some supplies for her.

 

My question for you, did you have any carrying your stuff off the ship, thru customs? Do you go thru a customs type process?

[pammat]

My question for you, did you have any carrying your stuff off the ship, thru customs? Do you go thru a customs type process?

 

 

We were a little worried about that as we had two rolling duffles (that we were just going to donate) with the uniforms inside. As we were departing the ship they did stop my husband and ask what's in those. My husband acted as if he knew exactly what he was doing, kept walking, and replied over his shoulder, "beach gear". It worked out just fine.

 

Depending on what you are taking, I might offer another suggestion. The other family that was there with us (there were 5 of them), each took a backpack with school supplies in them. It was easier for them to manage and looked more like what you might carry off the ship.

 

We did not go though any type of customs. Hope that helps, you'll love Sharon!