Scam--foreigners beware. These people are pirates.

We had an Uber to embarcadero Nuevo Nativitas, which I've been to before. It's the recommended pier for avoiding scams--go there, if you're gonna go. As we were nearing the exit for the pier, a guy on a motorcycle (you can't make this stuff up) came up to our driver's window and told him that Nativitas was closed because of an event in the city, that only 3 piers were open, and that he would guide us to them. The driver didn't know any better, as the motorcyclist pretended to be a tour official of some sort. He took us straight to Caltongo, ushered us onto their boat, and of course Nativitas was open, as we later found out on the water. There was no event, and all the piers were operational. He got paid well, I'm sure.

The guy booking trips at Caltongo then told us 4,000 pesos per hour! We immediately said, no, and he brought it down to 3,000. That was repeated until it came down to 700 pesos for 2 hours (smh). We unwisely agreed to that.

Once on the boat, they offered us drinks and we agreed to four alcoholic cocktails (they asked if we wanted alcohol, btw), but as you might imagine, they contained no alcohol. We should have known better, honestly. My margarita was literally sprite with limes in it. When we ended our trip, they charged us 800 pesos for four non-alcoholic drinks. We refused to pay for them, and they brought in, first, a bouncer to scare us, and then a kind of tourist overseer to settle the dispute (he wasn't attached to Caltongo). That guy agreed that the drinks had no alcohol (we hadn't drank them), and that we didn't have to pay for them. Meanwhile the people at Caltongo were lying through their teeth about the rates we agreed to, and that we had ordered 4 non-alcoholic drinks.

The overseer dude also revealed that the official rate was 600 pesos per hour. As of 2023, that's what you should be paying, no matter the embarcadero--and that's for the boat, not per passenger.

The experience was terrible. Even on the water people were charging us crazy prices. We tried to buy 4 beers and 4 shots from someone, and I asked repeatedly for the price before agreeing (I speak Spanish, btw), yet the vendor literally pretended not to hear me. I eventually was yelling at her, but she opened two beers before I could get the price and refuse, and so she insisted that we pay 300 pesos for the two beers. That was double the price, as we came to find out.

Even with a good embarcadero, Xochimilco kind of sucks. It's a slow, short ride down a dirty canal (with colorful boats, sure). Post-Covid you can no longer join the big group boats, which was way more fun, and everyone there acts predatorial towards foreigners. It's also far from the center of the city. There are a million great things to do in CDMX, so I'd recommend doing one of those instead. Or maybe try the ecological boat tours.