Cozumel question

[TW6cruiser]

I did check the ports of call boards but did not find an answer. We are considering the Chankanaab park when in Cozumel. Princess has an excursion thought that also includes Discover Mexico. That stop does not really interest us from what I have seen online. Has anyone done this? thoughts? is it better to just try for a cab to Chankanaab from the port?

[RNGALNG]

You might want to try the section with the ports of call. You might have a better chance of getting a reply.

 

Good luck!

[oldjetdriver]

I did check the ports of call boards but did not find an answer. We are considering the Chankanaab park when in Cozumel. Princess has an excursion thought that also includes Discover Mexico. That stop does not really interest us from what I have seen online. Has anyone done this? thoughts? is it better to just try for a cab to Chankanaab from the port?

 

DW and I like to learn about the history and culture of the places we visit and we found 'Discover Mexico' very interesting.

[caribsun]

Very easy by cab around 16.00 ea way.

[busymom_ot]

We went to Chankanaab last year & enjoyed it. I looked at their website before sailing & printed a coupon for $2 off/ person. Inside all activities were a la carte. Very nice outdoor spa area with very reasonable massages- most tranquil setting ever for a massage!

 

 

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[medsed]

We also printed the coupon, took a cab and found it so easy to do. There are cabs ready when you want to return to the ship. We had a wonderful day there snorkeling and participating in other activities.

[srpilo]

Very easy by cab around 16.00 ea way.

 

Agree...

 

 

Very easy, plenty of taxi's always available

Srpilo

[Cuizer2]

I did check the ports of call boards but did not find an answer. We are considering the Chankanaab park when in Cozumel. Princess has an excursion thought that also includes Discover Mexico. That stop does not really interest us from what I have seen online. Has anyone done this? thoughts? is it better to just try for a cab to Chankanaab from the port?

 

You can do Chankanaab Park on you own. It is a short taxi ride. Here are the prices from April 2016 ...

 

 

 

Here are links to the many pictures I took of Chankanaab Park ...

 

Album I ... http://s18.photobucket.com/user/ZefH/slideshow/RC%20Liberty%20OTS/Chankanaab%20Park%20I

 

Album II ... http://s18.photobucket.com/user/ZefH/slideshow/RC%20Liberty%20OTS/Chankanaab%20Park%20II

 

The following is from my cruise review regarding my visit to Chankanaab Park ...

 

Today is a day I am really looking forward to. The last time I was in Cozumel I swam with the manatee. It was great, my new favorite. My old favorite is feeding the stingrays at Stingray City. I book the 10:00 visit with the manatees online at a discount. The problem is, when you book you have to state which hotel or ship you are on. You can’t book without providing this information. You also can’t book if you are on a ship. The ship doesn’t offer the swim with the manatee as a shore excursion, so I decided to slightly misstate things. I said I was at a hotel and the name of the hotel was the “Liberty of the Seas” (since the ship really is a floating hotel). It worked. Booking online gave me a 10% discount. It got better once I got to the park.

 

But before I go to the park there were two things I wanted to do. One, have breakfast, which this time was steak & eggs at Chops. The other thing was to find out if we are one hour head of Cozumel or not. For Roatan and Belize the Compass (which is the ship’s newspaper) said we were one hour head. However, for Cozumel it did not say this. I saw Jorge (the Diamond Concierge) on my way to breakfast. He said Cozumel in the same time zone as Roatan and Belize so he thought the ship would be one hour ahead, but he would have to check. My reply is that Galveston is in the same time zone also. I saw Anis (the Concierge) in the Suite Lounge. I asked him and he used a very simple method to get the answer. He logged on to the computer and checked the local time. Cozumel and the ship’s time are both the same.

 

So after breakfast I head out to Chankanaab Park (also known as Dolphin Discovery). The taxi ride was $12 each way. Once there I didn’t have to pay anything extra for admission and I got a 25% discount on the 12:00 swim with the manatee session. Yes, I am doing the same thing twice. I have four wrist bands. Yellow and Pink are admission bands (apparently the park is both a commercial park (like Sea World) and a national park (like Yosemite). So there are two admission fees. Perhaps that is the reason for the 25% discount, since apparently the $59.00 swim with the manatee includes the price of admission. Who cares, I’m in.

 

I was here is 2004 and did the swim with the dolphin and swim with the seal programs. The last time I was here was March 2013 and that is when I swam with the manatee. The swim with the dolphin program has clearly become more popular. Unfortunately so has the swim with the manatee program. In 2013 there were three of people and two manatees. Today there were fourteen people in the first session and four manatees. I don’t know how many people were in the second session. I would guess at least eight. Fortunately, the manatees eat 10% of their body weight per day. So a 450 pound manatee eats forty-five pounds of lettuce and I don’t think both groups combined came to that amount, and there are four manatees. So I didn’t have to worry about the manatees being not hungry (or fed-up - ha ha).

 

In the first group there was a group of eight family/friends and six of us not with the group. So the family/friends where sent to feed three of the manatees while the other six of us interacted with the fourth manatee. When we finished interacting with the manatee, the two groups switched. As I finished feeding the manatees I wondered what to do next. Squirting the kids in the other group seemed to be a good idea. I can squirt water from between my two hands, a skill that takes some time to perfect. So the kids tried, but they could not squirt me back. Then I noticed two stalks from the lettuce. I know the manatees will eat that also. So ask for the two stalks and get to feed the manatees again.

 

A word of warning. You are not allowed to bring your own camera. They will take plenty of pictures of you. Their taking the pictures is free. Your taking the pictures is not. I believe you can buy individual pictures (print or digital) but I wanted them all in a digital format. No problem, that came to $70 for each session ($140 total for both sessions). It cost more for the photographs than it is for the swim with the manatees experience. Between the two sessions I ended up with 96 photographs of me with the manatees. That works out to about $1.46 per photograph, which isn’t a bad price on a per photograph basis.

 

After my second swim with the manatees, I decided to walk around the park and take pictures. I don’t think I covered all of the park, but I believe I was able to photograph more than ninety percent of the area that most people would be interested in. As I got ready to leave I noticed that the 2:00pm swim with the manatees was the smallest group. Small groups are nice, however, the manatees’ appetite insures that if you have a head of lettuce, you will find that one or more of the manatees will become your friend.

[the_dylaness]

I would do Chankanaab on my own- you can come and go at the time that pleases you. It is super easy to get to any of the taxi locations on the above pictorial.

[GRAYTech]

We did Chankanaab Park on our own. As noted, you come and go when it works for you. We had two small children at the time and when it's time to go, it's time to go. No issue at all getting a taxi either direction.

 

The posted pictures showed it pretty well. It's a park and not a long expansive beach like you would find in Cancun. They have a few swimming areas that have a sandy walk in but like the rest of Mexico in this region, it's very rocky. No big deal but it wasn't what I was expecting the first time we went there.

[TW6cruiser]

Thanks everyone for sharing the information and photos! much appreciated!

[Michelle19]

You might want to try the section with the ports of call. You might have a better chance of getting a reply.

 

Good luck!

 

 

I disagree, In my experience here, asking questions to the ports of call boards sometimes gets zero replies. Asking in the main boards always gets at least 1 or 2 positive replies. I agree, taxi is the way to go. ;)