New to cruising...help

Can anyone give me some help with my plans? We will be in Progreso and traveling with our 6 year old. The cruise excursions are crazy expensive. If anyone has experience with getting around Progreso with a younger child and knowing what is cool for them to see, I would appreciate your guidance.

Thanks

Rick

Just keep reading this board. Also visit http://www.yucatantoday.com, probably the best destination guide I've seen for anywhere. There are lots of options and research helps alot.

Hi Rick, We were in Progresso in May 2006 and we were on a budget as well. We opted to take the free bus ride (you catch it at the end of the shops on the pier) and it takes you into Progresso. Before we got off of the bus we were told that we could get a bus tour for $10.00 a person and it would show us the following. It would take us to a small ruin site and we would see salt flats and we would also view Progresso. We really enjoyed it, but you get what you pay for and others may not have been as impressed. As we were driving out to the ruins, we stopped on the side of the road and the tour guide got out and ran to the salt flats that are right on the side of the road and got a handful for all of us to taste if you wanted to. We arrived at the ruins and I enjoyed them. It was a small cluster of about 6 or 7 ruins but since I have never seen the large ruins I thought they were great! Now the tour of the city of Progresso ended up being the tour bus driving down a few of the streets and showing us a grave yard (reminded me of the New Orleans grave yards) and then back to town. After we got off we had time for a little shopping and back to the ship. There is a free market just as you get off of the bus in town where the locals are selling there goods and the beach is only about 2 blocks away from where the bus drops you off if you just want to swim the whole time. The beach is nice but the water is not as clear as in Cozumel. Hope this helps.:)

Lynette

My hubby and I went to Pregreso this week. I can tell you plan an excursion with a child or swim on the beach. Reason I say that is the free bus ride into town takes you to the local flea market. And there down town is very poor. We enjoyed ourselves but did see the decline in the society. The guide on the free bus ride will tell you they are not set up for tourists. Most of the people were very friendly but also very pushy when it comes to buying souvieners. Don't get me wrong, the prices were the best at Progreso then any other stop we made at the other ports of call. There was a $2 double decker bus tour that took you around the town that was about 20 to 30 minutes. The beach stop was beautiful even though they were hit with the storm we were following on our cruise this week. They stopped a couple of times to get photo opts when passing their Catholic church and at the beach. Watch out for the power lines if sitting on the top even though that has the best view.

We had a couple friends that went on the ruins tour and they said it was good but they felt very rushed. They did get to eat and do some shopping on that tour.

I know from looking at the shore excursion list there is only a few things. If you want to make it simple, swimming might be the best. Or even renting dune buggies, we saw that in town while on the double decker bus ride and looked to be fun, but not aware of the prices.

What I can also tell you that if you book at shore excursion it might be best to wait until you get into port because it's nearly half the price that the cruise offers. But then again having a child go, it might be easier to book with the cruise line to be less of a hassle. I have a few pictures that I will be posting soon. We've only been home from our cruise barely 2 days. If you have any questions feel free to ask. We had alot of good experiences and a couple of not so good experiences, but over all we had fun.

Do check out your cruise line's website to see excursions or even check out other members threads for links to Progreso's sites. There are loads on the site to different things. It helped my husband and I out when looking at things to do.