Progreso HELP

[Pechez]

I have checked the POC board on Progreso, but not a lot of people have good things to say. Can ANYONE suggest ANYTHING to do other than a tour from the ship? Is there an all-inclusive hotel with beach? anything? Or are we better to just stay on the ship.

 

Going Monday.....

 

Thank you in advance

[lgerrish]

I have checked the POC board on Progreso, but not a lot of people have good things to say. Can ANYONE suggest ANYTHING to do other than a tour from the ship? Is there an all-inclusive hotel with beach? anything? Or are we better to just stay on the ship.

 

Going Monday.....

 

Thank you in advance

...I could offer you some suggestions, other than "Wish I was going too!"

 

Hope you find something to do in Progreso.

 

See you in April!

[Pechez]

...I could offer you some suggestions, other than "Wish I was going too!"

Hope you find something to do in Progreso.

See you in April!

 

 

Guess we will call it a "Chilaxen" day and just stay on board. We will see what weather is like. I MIGHT need the rest before meeting up with y'all in April. hahah

[dan40]

The only problem with Progreso is that it does not cater to American tourists. It is a Mexican tourist destination mixed with old Mexico. It is safe, different, and unusual, therefore I like it. There is a beach with lots of bars. Not a white sugar sand beach, a beach the way Mama Nature made it. Ride the DOUBLE DECKER TOUR PICKUP TRUCK. [REALLY!!] :D Its probably $2.00 now [was $1.00] for a tour all around town. Or negotiate a cab/tour of Merida out at the pier [should be around $20-$25. pp]. Merida is about 25-30 miles inland and is the capitol city of Yucatan. It is a 500 plus year old city of over a million people. It has wide tree lined blvds. monument circles and ancient, ornate, buildings that look like they were built yesterday. And the city is spotlessly clean. And again, they do not cater to Americans, it is a real Mexican city, and it was there before there was an US of America. It might be too different for most Americans to appreciate. But I like it.

 

Dan

[luv2cruise123]

Debbie in MS

 

I'll be on the Fantasy leaving Monday!

[cruisergrandma]

We loved Progresso. It is truly small town Mexico. We took the shuttle from the ship into town, took the double decker tour for $2 each and then just walked around town. We loved it. What a change from normal tourist traps. Don't stay on the ship even if you don't book an excursion. You will miss a truly Mexican experience.

[LisaT12]

We were in Progresso with Carnival 2 summers ago. We had a great time!! First, we went to the open market and shopped around a bit -- there were great t-shirts and others neat things that we bought -- because it was our first port, I did not buy everything I wanted too...but if I knew that in Belize and Grand Cayman the prices were so high and not very many stores....I would have bought more. From there, we took a double decker, bright green bus tour. It was very inexpensive - I think $2.00 a person--they sell the tickets at the market. The driver gave us a tour and showed us some very beautiful areas and sights of interest. We then were dropped back off at the market and walked to the beach (about 3 blocks). We stopped by a local cafe for a snack, a couple of beers and soda (in a bottle) for our daughters....everyone we met was so nice. After a stroll along the beach we took a taxi back to the ship.

It was really an awesome port....very relaxed and casual.

[Pechez]

the others. I will have to rethink this.

[yst347]

Progreso is a nice little beach town. It is certainly worth a stroll around. You can see some pictures here: http://travel.webshots.com/album/497246697mtDHHv

 

Merida is a lovely colonial city 40 miles inland from Progreso. You can book a tour or travel there on your own.

 

There is an all-inclusive near Progreso. I haven't been there but it has received some good reviews. http://www.yucatantoday.com/destinations/eng-reef-yucatan-hotel.htm

[YucatanToday]

Read the comments on this board! I've seen a lot of good feedback about Progreso!

If you are looking for an all-inclusive resort, there are day trips offered to the Reef Yucatan in Telchac Puerto. I believe you can purchase them on the ship, or just take the free shuttle from the ship to the center of town and there will be plenty of options there.

[goin_solo]

My son and I just returned from Progreso on the Fantasy yesterday (1/17/08). We chose to play it by ear and not pay the high prices for the ships excursions. At the end of the pier there is a tour group called Auto Progreso, there we decided on the Reef Yucatan Resort. $45 US included the bus ride to the resort with an optional trip to mini ruins close by, also inluded was an open bar and mini buffet which was pretty good in my opinion. The resort included a gorgeous pool with the option to lounge on the very nice beach. This is the 2nd time I've been to progreso and really enjoyed this visit. By the way the same excusion through Carnival was $71 I believe. Good luck and enjoy yourself!

[tisabee]

Hey Mary, I can't believe you two sweeties couldn't make it on my recent cruise (just got off the Ecstasy yesterday) but I'm glad you are getting a cruise fix before your big April adventure! We did the most fabulous private excursion I've ever done this week in Progreso. Check out the info on Los Dos cooking school. David Sterling is a fabulous chef who grew up in Oklahoma, lived in New York for 25 years & after 9/11 left to visit a friend in Merida & never came back, so to speak! We didn't do any actual cooking as there was just no time but we were given an over view on Mayan cuisine & culture, he took us on a walking tour through an authentic market (completely awesome!) and then to the most beautiful 16th century Hacienda (turned Yucatecean restaraunt) for a fabulous authentic lunch. It was worth every penny we spent! Honestly it was difficult to head back to the ship to eat as this cruise the food wasn't as good for whatever reason. Anyway, let me know if you have any questions. It was an experience I will never forget. (We would actually love to go back to visit Merida again for a land vacation & take a cooking class or two from him, he is engaging & wonderful & loves what he does!)

Teresa

[clackey]

Hola Pechez,

 

We've done Progreso 3 times and have found something different each trip. You can do plenty of tours from town without booking a ship tour. AutoProgreso offers a trip to Reef Yucatan Resort that is nice and also has a short trip to Xcambo, some small Mayan ruins. RY is a gorgeous place with a huge pool, plenty of beach to comb and an open bar. I also saw a volley ball area and plenty of kiddie toys. Not a bad trip for $35. There are trips to Uxmal and Dzibilchaltun ruins and a tour of Merida. All are considerably less than the ship tours and are not as crowded.

 

Remember: When in doubt, Google!

[mckinna]

Hola Pechez,

 

We've done Progreso 3 times and have found something different each trip. You can do plenty of tours from town without booking a ship tour. AutoProgreso offers a trip to Reef Yucatan Resort that is nice and also has a short trip to Xcambo, some small Mayan ruins. RY is a gorgeous place with a huge pool, plenty of beach to comb and an open bar. I also saw a volley ball area and plenty of kiddie toys. Not a bad trip for $35. There are trips to Uxmal and Dzibilchaltun ruins and a tour of Merida. All are considerably less than the ship tours and are not as crowded.

 

Do you know if Auto Progresso does tours to Uxmal? We were looking to do Uxmal but without doing the ship's tour. We checked on Yucatan Travel, but they are more expensive than the ship, but not much. However, with them, we also are doing a tour of Merida/Progresso after Uxmal, and it is just us with our own tour guide, so it may be worth it.

 

I had heard others say they booked Auto Progresso, but I hadn't heard of anyone who went to Uxmal with them.

 

Thanks!

[lisaland15]

Hola Pechez,

 

We've done Progreso 3 times and have found something different each trip. You can do plenty of tours from town without booking a ship tour. AutoProgreso offers a trip to Reef Yucatan Resort that is nice and also has a short trip to Xcambo, some small Mayan ruins. RY is a gorgeous place with a huge pool, plenty of beach to comb and an open bar. I also saw a volley ball area and plenty of kiddie toys. Not a bad trip for $35. There are trips to Uxmal and Dzibilchaltun ruins and a tour of Merida. All are considerably less than the ship tours and are not as crowded.

 

Remember: When in doubt, Google!

 

Here are pictures from the AutoProgreso tour:

 

 

The Xcambo ruins were really neat (small compared to others) and accessible (you could climb if you wanted).

 

 

At the Reef Yucatan Hotel, you could go down to the beach or hang around two different fresh water pools.

[mckinna]

Regarding Auto Progresso- were you on a bus with others or in a private vehicle? Did you have a tour guide?

 

Does anyone remember is Auto Progresso goes to Uxmal? I'm sure they do, but we are such planners, that we have everything booked and scheduled before we leave. I just want to be sure.

 

Thanks!

[clackey]

Regarding Auto Progresso- were you on a bus with others or in a private vehicle? Did you have a tour guide?

 

Does anyone remember is Auto Progresso goes to Uxmal? I'm sure they do, but we are such planners, that we have everything booked and scheduled before we leave. I just want to be sure.

 

Thanks!

We had a private bus and a guide. They stop at the resort and drop off the people that don't want to see the ruins, then return after the ruins tour. They also offered a trip to a flamingo sanctuary. I think that they also had a trip to Uxmal. I've had 3 cruises since Progreso, so things get a little foggy, don't ya know?

[hdawson]

Hola "C". Good to see you continueing to inform. Also good to see someone from Yucatan Today posting. I honestly think that is the best visitor's guide I've seen for any destination. More and more folks are researching and enjoying this port call.

 

I'm finally home from the hospitol again with my new hip. Very uncomfortable.

It's an amazing procedure.

 

http://www.yucatantoday.com

 

I guess I can start looking at the calendar and picking a date to return to Merida for two or three weeks. Long therapy first.

[mckinna]

hdawson- it's good to hear from you. I had noticed you hadn't posted in a while. Hope your recovery and therapy goes well.

[lisaland15]

Regarding Auto Progresso- were you on a bus with others or in a private vehicle? Did you have a tour guide?

 

Does anyone remember is Auto Progresso goes to Uxmal? I'm sure they do, but we are such planners, that we have everything booked and scheduled before we leave. I just want to be sure.

 

Thanks!

 

We were on a nice A/C bus with a tour guide. The tour is $45 and around 3 hours. It was a large bus, but not more than 20 of us on it.

 

The bus first went to the Reef Yucatan Hotel and dropped off anyone who wanted to skip the ruins and flamingo sanctuary. The ruins and sanctuary are very close. They were not pushing the flamingo tour because the flamingoes weren't there this time of the year. Another passenger said she was there in Sept. and they were around then.

 

Here AutoProgreso's website: http://autoprogreso.com/trips.html.htm

 

I didn't find anywhere on the site to make reservations--I'm a planner, too.

But from what I could surmise, AutoProgreso is the only company that provides transportation (free) from the pier into Progreso (it's far, you can't walk it).

 

Now, they also provide tours if you chose. A rep. for them was at the cruise ship dock and at the downtown Progreso bus drop-off location (a central market shopping area). It would be pretty hard to miss them.

 

I hope this helps.

[rokymtns]

I just got back from Progreso - loved it. I have the little flier that autoprogreso tours hands out. They are the company that runs the free shuttle from the ship to Progreso and they will give you a sales pitch before you get off the bus in Progreso. Here are their prices:

 

Merida City Tour: $25

Duration is 3 1/2 hours with one hour free time. Visit cathedral, main avenue, historic downtown and colonial buildings.

 

Dzibilchaltun: $29

Duration 3 hours.

 

Merida and Dzibilchaltun: $40.00

 

Resort / Ruins: $45

Duration 4 hours. visit a ruin and 5 star resort with open bar.

 

Flamingo Tour: $18

Duration 2 hours. The downtown area, bird sanctuary, pink flamingos, mayan ruins site Xcambo, flat salt.

 

Chichen Itza: $55

Duration 5 1/2 hours

(You must not stay there long since it is a long bus ride???? - or the flier is printed incorrectly)

 

Uxmal: $55

Duration 5 1/2 hours.

 

I can't recommend any tours as I didn't take any. Was thinking about the Dzibilchaltun tour but the second tour left at 11:30 and it didn't fit into our time schedule. I can scan and e-mail the flier if anyone is interested.

[In the Pink]

We just returned from Progreso a few days ago. Our second stop there. The first time we had read so much negativity about Progreso that we just booked a ships tour to Merida. We thoroughly enjoyed Merida and have looked forward to returning ever since, so we planned to do Merida on our own on this cruise. However, since we didn't have to be anywhere at any certain time, we decided we'd take a little time and see Progreso first. We took the double decker bus (who said it was a pick up truck?) tour and were pleasantly surprised by what we saw, so we decided to stay in town rather than going to Merida. Both towns are very authentic Mexican towns (so far), rather than the Americanized Cozumel, etc. I saw parts of Mexican life I've never seen before, such as the hardware store, the mall, the cloth store where goods are purchased for sewing, the appliance store (where we purchased a second memory card for our camera). We speak very little Spanish but found it fun to be able to go and communicate with them when they speak little, if any, English. Also, have plenty of small denomination dollars, $5, and $10, because they don't even have change in US dollars.... you get pesos. We also enjoyed the architecture and the fact that other than very close to the pier, people weren't hawking at you everywhere you went. I definitely recommend you get off the ship.

 

HDawson..... glad you made it home and hope you feel more comfortable very quickly.

[clackey]

Good to see you back on the boards, H. I've been worried about you.

[dan40]

Hola "C". Good to see you continueing to inform. Also good to see someone from Yucatan Today posting. I honestly think that is the best visitor's guide I've seen for any destination. More and more folks are researching and enjoying this port call.

 

I'm finally home from the hospitol again with my new hip. Very uncomfortable.

It's an amazing procedure.

 

www.yucatantoday.com

 

I guess I can start looking at the calendar and picking a date to return to Merida for two or three weeks. Long therapy first.

 

Hello fellow Merida lover,

I hope your recovery is as swift and as sure as can be. Just this afternoon we made an appointment for Barb to see the joint [hip] specialist next week. With the amount of pain she's experiencing, we pretty well know what he's going to say. Any tips you care to pass on would be appreciated.

We're cruising with a family bunch in Mar. They all wanted Eastern Carib. and I couldn't talk them out of it. So no Progreso or Merida for a while for us.

 

Dan

[mckinna]

lisaland15 and rokymtns- thank you for the Autoprogresso info. Just what I needed!