Chacchoben Ruins tour

[rileyreb]

i've been in contact with Ivan this week to book a tour. i filled out the reservation form but didn't hear back after two days so i emailed and he wrote back the next day.

this is what he said "Unfortunately, technology practically

doesn’t exist in our village and after hurricane Wilma, we lost the

only connection with the outside we had."

[efofan]

Thanks so much for all this information. I just sent Ivan an email asking if he'll be able to hold tours on 11/5, in case we do get rerouted there. I'll let everyone know what's up if I hear back from him.

[misfit cruiser]

If you hear from him, please let him know that we're thinking of them!

[Host Caroline]

We had heard on another board that there was no damage in Costa Maya area and ships are there thisi week! But inland I'm sure it was worse with the power and all that rain.... hopefully they will get all in order soon.

I think we are planning on this for the Explorer group and this company sounds like a good outfit to do it with!

[efofan]

Good news - Ivan and his family are safe. Here's what he wrote me today:

 

"Thank you very much for taking a few minutes of your time to email me.

As you say, hurricane Wilma hit us very bad in the area of Cancun.

Fortunately, back in Costa Maya and Chacchoben, there weren't any

serious affections.

As you can imagine access to information is not easy in our village and

the first reports we received indicated that most likely hurricane

Wilma, would affect our area, so we decided to scape. Let me tell you

that we worked very hard to convince my mother to leave the village and

come with us to Cancun, where we were supposed to be safe!. It turned

out that when we knew it was heading to Cancun, it was to late to head

back. Finally, we had to stay and witness how the place was devastated.

We got trapped there without communications and the possibility to go

back home. Fortunately, we did well and other than material losses

we're healthy and that is the most important part."

[deb18]

Hi. I have just returned from David and Ivans tour of Chochoben. Took the ships tour a couple of years ago and this one just blew me away. I have learned so much about Mayan and Mexican culture that the other tour did not even touch. The tour lasted about twice as long as the ship one. Although the ruins were unchanged from when I last saw them, my knowledge of the Mayan people (and my respect) increased tenfold. I highly recommend them. I had no trouble getting to Mahual (sp) from costa maya and they met me getting off the bus. Could not have been easier. We did the tour with Ivan, now I want to go back just to get David's version of the tour. I am still in awe. deb

[Host Caroline]

That's great to know.. I definitely want to check into doing this tour with them next year!! thanks for posting this:D

 

For some reason I thought David and Ivan did the tour together??? do they go to the same place??

[capeboy96]

Caroline,

 

I was on the tour with Deb last week. I would echo her comments and give this tour 2 thumbs up. Those 2 guys were great. The usual, from what I could tell, is that they have 2 groups of about 8-10 each and David leads one and Ivan the other. Ivan grew up right next to the ruins and specializes in history. David specializes in herbal medicine as it relates to the rain forest. David was on our van heading to the site but needed to leave us to head back to some type of big meeting with the port authority. So we had a larger group than normal and just David but didn't feel slighted in the least. I've been to Tulum and Chichen Itza in the past and thought I knew a lot about Mayan culture but these guys just blew me away with all their knowledge. A wife of one of the guys was in our van for the ride back and gave us even more insight on modern life in the area. This tour was one of the most educational and fun I've ever been on. Stay away from the ship tour which blows through the site in record time. Go with these 2. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

 

Yes, it did take a few days to hear back from them when making a reservation. They have to go into town to use the internet and a connection is not always available.

 

Rob

[zeke11]

We just returned from this excursion and had Ivan as our guide. He was great and the tour was just awesome.

 

One downer, though. We rode back in the van with Luis. We requested to be taken back to the village rather than the port so we could have lunch. Figuring that Luis would be pretty familiar with the area, we asked him for a recommendation for a good restaurant. He had the driver drop us off at a restaurant that was not quite all the way to the village.

 

YECCH. It was awful. We had very Americanized nachos, there were bees all over our food and drinks, it wasn't very clean, I could go on and on. Plus, it was quite expense at $30 for nachos and 6 sodas.

 

My husband feels that they probably wanted to just dump us off ASAP and this restaurant fit the bill because it was not all the way into the village.

 

It ended our experience on a sour note.

 

Kris

[Monny]

I sent off an e-mail 3 days ago, but have yet to hear anything. Have learned we will only be in Costa Maya from 8-5 is this going to be long enough? And how about if we include the lagoon tour they offer? How long do you think I should wait to hear back or am I being pushy to send another e-mail?

[Linda8818]

We took this tour on November 9th with my family of 5. There were over 20 people total who showed up for the tour and they needed 3 vans to accommodate everyone. David had an appointment with 'officials', so he couldn't go. Ivan said his usual alternate tour guides, students, were 'taking their exams'.

 

The other two taxis had guides on the way in: Ivan and Carolina. We took our van ride -to- the ruins, with no 'guide'. Our taxi driver spoke almost no english. We mentioned this to Ivan at the site. He said he would ride back with us to make up for it.

 

Once there, Ivan guided the entire group of us and he gave a great tour of the site. The other guide, Carolina, was there as well.

 

On the way back, Carolina got into our taxi for the ride back, she was from Mexico City, and she was very pleasant, but we had expected Ivan.

 

I did write an email to David and Ivan, and they were very apologetic about the situation.

 

When booking, I would make a specific request if you want your taxi ride to be 'guided'. It was a fairly long ride, and it would have been nice to have a guide on the way.

[MKMagic4229]

I sent off an e-mail 3 days ago, but have yet to hear anything. Have learned we will only be in Costa Maya from 8-5 is this going to be long enough? And how about if we include the lagoon tour they offer? How long do you think I should wait to hear back or am I being pushy to send another e-mail?

 

Monny,Have you heard from them yet? I emailed them last Friday and have not heard a thing. I am really woried because I sail out on Sunday and I leave for Miami on Saturday. I am anxious too.:confused:

[Monny]

Got an e-mail from Ivan last night. We are on the tour 12/21 and I am so jazzed. They will only have the ruins tour available, no lagoon or lunch with Mayan family. Hope all goes well for you too MKmagic!:)

[Monny]

Got an e-mail from Ivan last night. We are on the tour 12/21 and I am so jazzed. They will only have the ruins tour available, no lagoon or lunch with Mayan family. Hope all goes well for you too MKmagic!:)

[minisann]

Just in case it's not posted anywhere... The pricing (as of this week) is $43 for adults & $40 for children (12 & under). The ruins tour runs about 3-4 hours. After all we've heard about D&I guided tours, we can't wait!! I would think that 99% of the feedback for them is positive! Very reasonable considering what other tours (with no feedback) are charging!!

 

D&I: looking forward to meeting you on Wednesday! Our ship gets there at 7am and we're scheduled to join your tour at 8am... Can't wait!!!

[pearlybaker]

I've sent them two e-mails regarding a tour for 12/15 but haven't received a response. I even sent the last inquiry in Spanish!

 

Does anyone know if they usually max out on the tours ahead of time? Is it possible that I could get four of us on a tour that day if I can't connect with them via e-mail?

 

Thanks and enjoy

[minisann]

I only "found out about Native Choice" last week via the CC message boards. I immediately sent an email to David & Ivan (via their website-posted somewhere on this thread) and Ivan responded w/in a few days. I asked him to reserve 3 spots for us on 12/08 (next week!!!) and they did and even followed up with a reservation confirmation. There was a tiny lag (days) between emails; but nothing intolerable.

 

So, if you're planning a tour, try to do it as early as you decide what you want to do. However, in our case, since we didn't know until just 1 1/2 weeks before our target date, it still wasn't a problem...

 

I have heard RAVE reviews of David & Ivan's guided tour to the ruins and am very excited about joining their group with my family! Can't wait.

[pearlybaker]

Sure enough as soon as I posted - I heard back from Ivan this morning!

 

All good - Thanks for the suggestions.

[m61376]

Those that have gotten back a response- was this the e-mail you used: info@chacchobenruins.com ? I have sent 3 e-mails without a response, so I was wondering if there was a different address.

Thanks

[Sheffie]

Try this one: dvillagomez@chacchobenruins.com

[visitor21]

I read quite a bit of the threads on this message board before my cruise and must admit I was a bit worried about some of the things I had read (port authority quarrels etc..). But I just got back from my trip and I wanted to let everyone know that the tour was absolutely awesome. I took the tour with Ivan and 14 of my extended family members. Every one of them remarked how glad they were that I had booked the tour as Ivan's guided tour was fantastic.

 

To recap our tour:

We arrived at the Costa Maya dock and walked into the shop/swimming/port area. There yellow taxi's were not allowed so you paid $3 per person to be driven into the town of Majahual in a large truck. (We found out later that if you just walked 50 yards outside the ports gates we could have taken a taxi into town for $2 per person.) The truck apparently drops you off in one of two parts of the town. Sometimes they drop you off at the front of town which is about a 1/4 of a block from the Cat's Meow and where David/Ivan are set up. However in our case they drove us to the back part of the town and dropped us off there. We were a little worried at first as we weren't exactly sure of our walking directions to Cat's Meow. But our worries were soon over as we stepped off the truck and one of David/Ivan's employees came walking up to us to greet us with "The Native Choice" sign in her hands. She had seen our truck approching town, and when she saw it drive to the back of town she ran down the street to meet us. Even if she hadn't been there to meet us I don't believe it would have been a big deal as the "city" is only 2 blocks by 6 blocks big.

Once we made it over to the Cat's Meow, not only were David and Ivan very friendly and helpful but even the owner of the Cat's Meow greeted us (reassured us she used all distilled water and fresh meat from the Walmart 2 hours away) and overall just made us feel right at home.

 

We took two vans out to the ruins. Ivan was our tour guide and rode in the van I was in. He filled our hour ride out to the ruins with story after story of the Mayan history as well as his own personal history and experiences in the area.

 

The tour itself was breathtaking and again Ivan was an absolute wonderful tour guide. As I told some of my friends when I returned home, I felt like even if I had been able to stay on the tour for 2 more weeks, I wouldn't even have begun to scratch the surface of all the amazing and wonderful tales of history and experience Ivan has to share. Ivan himself was even born and raised on the side of one of the hills that made up part of the ancient Mayan temples. I think that fact in itself shows you the credibility that he has for the area.

 

When the tour was over the vans drove us back into town and Ivan was even courteous enough to drop us off back at the port, rather then in the city of Majahual, as we were running a little late.

 

Two Thumbs Up!

 

PS: As most of you know by now, David and Ivan have to go into town to use the computers to check email etc as they dont' have their own personal email. I have heard some people have not seen responses in a timely manner but I wanted to add that when I booked my tour with them a week prior to the trip they replied to my emails within only a couple of hours of me sending them. Excellent service!

 

Secondly, I had booked my tour for 9 people. On the cruise ship, 3 more of my family members decided they would like to go if there was room. When we got to Majahual, it was no problem at all adding 3 more people to our group.

[jcemom]

For those of you who have done this tour...what ages of children would you recommend it for? I'm assuming that my 4 year old is too young and probably would not be interested, not to mention the long trip to get there, but what about an 11 year old? Interesting for him, or boring? I think I would LOVE it!

[SunFunCruiser]

For those of you who have done this tour...what ages of children would you recommend it for? I'm assuming that my 4 year old is too young and probably would not be interested, not to mention the long trip to get there, but what about an 11 year old? Interesting for him, or boring? I think I would LOVE it!

 

I'm taking my eight year old in a couple of weeks. I have shown him the web site & talked about it. He seems interested?? We'll see. At the very least, it will be educational & he'll have to suffer through it! LOL

[larkwind]

Has anyone done the village part of the tour? Our older kids (teens) are game, but we're wondering if the little one (4yo) will be too tired....any thoughts?

Thanks

[dberg1]

Just got off the Valor and our excursion with David and Ivan. What a wonderful experience! Ivan is extremely knowledgable about the ruins, the Mayan people and sociological perspectives of people visiting the ruins. We met at the Cat's Meow after a short drive into Majahual. Ivan was our tour guide on the way there and spoke to us about the local peoples and his experiences with the local toursist ministry and police. He and David have worked extremely hard to get thier company up off the ground - and it shows. There tour is not to be missed.

 

The ruins are a beautifully fascinating and mysterious place. While other big tour companys hurried 50-60 people through at one time, our small group of about 10 took our time learning a little bit about archeology, and mayan life, past and present. Ivan is very emotional about the ruins - in part because they rest on his childhoom home.

 

He waited patiently while we looked at some of the local works for sale - and then asked us if we wanted to go back to the Costa Maya port or to Majahual. Our group voted for Mujahual and we were dropped off in front of the Cat's Meow. The Cat's Meow is owned by Barbara - a Canadian out of Vancouver, British Columbia I believe. We ate lunch and had a couple of buckets of Corona and Sol to top the day off while playing on the beach and in the water. It was a wonderful day and I highly reccommend this tour!