Question about Mayan ruins in Cozumel

[CleoV]

Hi all! I'm new here, but have been very impressed with the level of knowledge on the boards and thought I'd go ahead and as a few questions. :)

 

My husband and I are taking a Western Caribbean cruise in a couple of weeks, cruising on the Caribbean Princess. One of our stops is Cozumel, and we are quite interested in the Mayan ruins shore excursions. We're considering Tulum, Muyil or Coba, but can't decide between the three.

 

Coba interests us, but we can't determine if you get to explore the temple or if you can only look at it from a short distance. We would be most interested in exploring a bit (which seems to be the case with Tulum).

 

Can anyone give us a steer in the right direction? All thoughts welcome!

 

TIA!!

[AdrianCZM]

If you are stopping in Cozumel, Tulum will be your best bet. You can do it on your own by taking a ferry over to playa and then a bus to tulum but make sure you schedule parfect so you dont stay behind or book an excursion with the cruise line and worry free.

 

Cozumel, has also some ruins, not as big as Tulum but very important because they are the temple of the Goddess Ixchel, goddess from love, eath and fertility.

 

 

Hope this help a bit

 

Adrian

[photocruiser]

Here are a couple of photos of Tulum.

The first is the beach by the ruins...great swimming and refreshing as it is very hot at Tulum. The second is the main ruin at Tulum. I shot these in '05

 

 

 

Enjoy,

Photocruiser

[trippy]

Tulum is wonderful to visit and quite special because of its location on the ocean, however it is not on the island of Cozumel but on the mainland, some ships will stop in front of Playa del Carmen and have a tender pick up passengers for Tulum before going on to Cozumel. This means that to join the ship you take a ferry over to Cozumel at the end of the tour in most cases, well worth it if you are interested in Mayan ruins but realize that it will take most of your day.

On Cozumel are ruins as well: San gervasio ruins, in my opinion not nearly as impressive as Tulum and much smaller but they are easy to do as part od a tour of the island and leave time for beach or shopping, see a picture of San Gervasio here:http://www.excursionworld.com/tours/63.htm

[aprildawnmwc]

From what I've read Tulum is the better of the 3. However, you have to ferry over to Playa Del Carmen as its not on Cozumel.

 

We did a ship excursion and it really did take most of our time at port. The ferry ride tooke 45 minutes. Then we had a 10-15 min walk to our bus. Drive to Tulum, with a half hour stop at a shop place to do shopping and bathroom break. This plus drive took about an hour. Another 10-15 min walk to the ruins. Our guide talked to us for maybe 45 minutes or so and then we had an hour on our own to explore.

 

Once we got back to the pier at Playa Del Carmen we had about 40 minutes to shop (but I wasn't too impressed with the shops there). And then took ferry back. At that point we had about 40 minutes before we needed to be back on ship. So really we had no time on Cozumel.

 

I would have liked to check out Cozumel, but I still really enjoyed going to Tulum. It was annoying to spend so much time traveling, but I think it was worth it. Tulum was really beautiful.