San Gervasio Mayan Ruins, Island Tour and Beach ~ mostly ruins or mostly beach ?

[letscutitout]

Hi.

 

Wondering if we will spend more time at the ruins or at the beach.

Hoping you say the ruins!

[c-leg5]

1 minute ago, letscutitout said:

Hi.

 

Wondering if we will spend more time at the ruins or at the beach.

Hoping you say the ruins!

If your cruise line allows independent tours why not just set tour own schedule with a private driver? You will be able to stay as long as you want and pick your own beach club.
 

You will be able to see the outlying ruins,  and can pay for your own guide or just tour yourself. 
 

However you tour don’t forget water and bug spray.

[Coralc]

San Gervasio is not one of the big fancy ruin sites with pyramids and such. It has an altar stone and some structures. But it is nice, and gives you some interesting insights. It is about an hour drive, and worth an hour or two. It would be nice to combine it with some beach time.  

[WVHillbilly]

We did it several years ago along with a chocolate tour, there was ample time at the ruins as it is a guided tour.  As some have said there are no great pyramids but the tour was very interesting and educational.

[zdad59]

25 minutes ago, WVHillbilly said:

We did it several years ago along with a chocolate tour, there was ample time at the ruins as it is a guided tour.  As some have said there are no great pyramids but the tour was very interesting and educational.

Agree.   We did this tour when we stopped at Cozumel a couple cruises ago.     We didn't want to do the long ride to the mainland sites.    This was a smaller set of ruins but very informative and interesting.   The chocolate tour was fun but not earth shattering.    The beach stops were "hey look at the water" stops, not lay on the beach stops.   We felt it was worth our time and money.

 

Here are a few pics from that tour....

Edited September 1, 2021 by zdad59

[DaveAlpern]

We booked that very tour when our bigger one got canceled.  We're doing it Wednesday (next week), I'll try to remember to post a review.  

[DaveAlpern]

Hi, we got back from the cruise last night and did this tour.  It seemed to take forever to get going.  We were 10 minutes early to the meeting point, and we didn't head to the bus until like 30 minutes after the listed assembly time.  Temperatures were upper 80s (fahrenheit), but the humidity was 100% and you really felt it any time you got off the bus.

 

It's about 20 minutes from ship to ruins, tour of ruins took about an hour, the ruins were some of the smallest in the area with a few buildings and that arch they show in the ads.  The guide kind of rushed us out past the gift shops at the ruins, then a 20 minute bus ride to the "beach" which was really one of those restaurant/beach club places.  I suspect the tour company has a deal with the restaurant to bring people there right at lunch time.  

 

The prices at the "beach club" were really high but the food was amazing - I think $18 for 3 shrimp tacos, $26 for lobster.  Sodas were $3. We knew we were getting ripped off, but we also knew these places rely on tourism and hadn't had any in over a year, so we were pretty cool about it.  The beach area was pretty small, but there was a nice sheltered tidal pool with not much surf.  There were lounges and hammocks, but I think there were signs saying only for customers at the restaurant.  Vendors constantly came by with displays of bracelets, hats, anything they could try and sell you, but they were pretty cool at taking "no" for an answer.  Total time at the restaurant/beach club was like 90 minutes. 

 

After that another 20 minute bus ride to the port.   

Edited September 12, 2021 by DaveAlpern
Clarified one sentence

[c-leg5]

On 9/12/2021 at 8:41 AM, DaveAlpern said:

Hi, we got back from the cruise last night and did this tour.  It seemed to take forever to get going.  We were 10 minutes early to the meeting point, and we didn't head to the bus until like 30 minutes after the listed assembly time.  Temperatures were upper 80s (fahrenheit), but the humidity was 100% and you really felt it any time you got off the bus.

 

It's about 20 minutes from ship to ruins, tour of ruins took about an hour, the ruins were some of the smallest in the area with a few buildings and that arch they show in the ads.  The guide kind of rushed us out past the gift shops at the ruins, then a 20 minute bus ride to the "beach" which was really one of those restaurant/beach club places.  I suspect the tour company has a deal with the restaurant to bring people there right at lunch time.  

 

The prices at the "beach club" were really high but the food was amazing - I think $18 for 3 shrimp tacos, $26 for lobster.  Sodas were $3. We knew we were getting ripped off, but we also knew these places rely on tourism and hadn't had any in over a year, so we were pretty cool about it.  The beach area was pretty small, but there was a nice sheltered tidal pool with not much surf.  There were lounges and hammocks, but I think there were signs saying only for customers at the restaurant.  Vendors constantly came by with displays of bracelets, hats, anything they could try and sell you, but they were pretty cool at taking "no" for an answer.  Total time at the restaurant/beach club was like 90 minutes. 

 

After that another 20 minute bus ride to the port.   

Thanks for the  review. A few questions:

 

At the ruins, Did you walk through the arch through the jungle to the outlying ruins, or did the tour stay in the main area?

 

Did the bus tour go round the island and have any other stops, “photo shoots”?

 

I know different beach clubs have been used over the years for this tour - was this one on the east side? Sounds like it maybe  Punta Morena, ( prices sound about right!) with small pool although if it was, I wouldn’t describe the beach as small.
 

Was the chocolate tour the facility next to Playa Mia?

[DaveAlpern]

On 9/13/2021 at 12:27 PM, c-leg5 said:

Thanks for the  review. A few questions:

 

At the ruins, Did you walk through the arch through the jungle to the outlying ruins, or did the tour stay in the main area?

 

Did the bus tour go round the island and have any other stops, “photo shoots”?

 

I know different beach clubs have been used over the years for this tour - was this one on the east side? Sounds like it maybe  Punta Morena, ( prices sound about right!) with small pool although if it was, I wouldn’t describe the beach as small.
 

Was the chocolate tour the facility next to Playa Mia?

 

Sorry, now that we're back I don't check in every day anymore!

 

The tour stayed in the main area.  The guide took us to the arch, pointed out the remains of the road that the Mayans had built there, and explained that the road used to go all the way to the coast, but only a small part had been cleared by archeologists.  You could see the ancient Mayan road extending through the arch to the edge of the jungle, but you didn't actually go through the arch, you just stood by it for a picture, then the tour went back to the main area, and back to the bus.

 

We only stopped at the ruins and the beach club.

 

I think you're right about it being Punta Morena, we didn't catch the name but my wife took a picture of same cross I see in some pictures on Trip Advisor for Punta Morena.  You may be right about the size, since we were only there for an hour or so we didn't bother changing into swimsuits and didn't explore it much.  There was a LOT of seaweed/seagrass all over the waterline, workers were using pitchforks to fill plastic crates with it and move it away from the one tidal pool area, the rest of the beach looked covered with it.   There was also a lot of damage from a recent hurricane.

 

There was no chocolate tour on this excursion.  Just the ruins and the beach club.  We had actually booked a much bigger Mayan ruins tour, Kohunlich-Dzibanche at Costa Maya I think, but it was cancelled a week before the cruise.  Then we tried to book Xcaret instead at Cozumel, that also got cancelled an hour after we booked.  We searched through all the excursions listed on the site, ALL of the longer ones seemed to be unavailable, even the one with the chocolate tour, but we really wanted to see at least some ruins and this seemed to be the only excursion we could book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ellaleah]

Were these Carnival excursions?

[DaveAlpern]

On 9/15/2021 at 11:25 PM, Ellaleah said:

Were these Carnival excursions?

No, Royal Caribbean, we were on Symphony of the Seas, although j suspect Carnival offers similar ones.