Parque Nacional Tulum — Attraction in Quintana Roo

We did the boat tour and snorkeling, to start off the tour was pricy, about $90 Per adult. At the time of sale, we were promised crystal clear blue water with lots of fish and sea turtles. There’s a “little bit” of seaweed problem but it’s not serious. But once you enter the parking a lot, you were on your own. This entire place was littered with people trying to get you to buy something. I get it, it’s a tourist attraction, it’s inevitable but being approached every 5 seconds by someone to sell you something was a bit much, I felt like I had to make a run for it. But that was not the worst part. We found our way to the beach and all we saw were miles of seaweed and I’m not even talking about just one or two feet into the short line, I’m talking about 20-30 feet onto the beach and into the water, the stench was awful. We eventually found our “captain” Manuel who barely looked at us when we arrived. He told us to just wait, maybe 30 min, maybe 45 min. We said for what? He said to wait till the boat is full. Mind you, these are tiny motor boats that fits maybe 7 or 8 people, we had 5 in our party. At this point, we were all just waiting on the stinky beach, not knowing how long we will need to wait for as they also have no idea who else is even going to be joining us. We were told to just to the plastic chairs in the 90 degree weather while 30 feet away from rotten seaweed and waited. After about 40 min and feeling completely scammed, I went to the “captain” again and he told us to go wait for 10 more minute. Eventually no one else came and we finally went out to sea. There was no tour, besides a 5-10 sentence intro of where the Ruins are which we barely understood. There was no crystal blue water but murky green water. There were some turtles and stingrays, and some gray fish while we snorkeled but that was it. I also saw some fish carcass at the bottom of the water, as if someone threw dead fish in to attract the turtles into the area for tourists. Once we were done with the miserable “tour” we trekked our way out of the rotten seaweed slurry and that was it. Told we can go take a shower to wash off the sand and seawater but the shower didn’t even work. It was a terrible experience given how expensive it was, more of a joke. Be ware...

A couple things to know here. Do not get caught up buying more expensive and not legit "ticket" sellers out of the official gates. Just go in and park your car or bike and purchase tickets from the gates.

There is a large area of vendors and such before you go into the park. Some retail and some people selling photos to take with birds and monkeys. And if you don't have pesos you'll have to get them here to pay entrance to ruins.

You need to buy a pass for the park, it's a wrist band and you can use a card for this purchase. This is a small stand to the right of the entrance to park.

You cannot bring plastic bottles of water or food. So get rid of them before you start the walk to the ruins.

You then will need a ticket to get into the ruins part of the park. This ticket needs to be bought in pesos. They will not take usd and do not take a card. You buy this ticket at a building on the right and usually has some sort of line. Again you need pesos and they do not offer change. They also offer private tour guides that you can hire there and price depends on group size and those tours are about 1 hour.

Entrance to the park is around 60 pesos (again you can use card here) Entrance to the ruins is around 100 pesos. So if you're doing it right and follow directions you can see the cost here is much lower than those stands at the entrance or the tours that are led.

You are then able to explore the ruins on your own pace and there are lots of signs and great reads about the ruins. There is also very little shade and only a few places to sit so plan accordingly.

You can no longer get to the beach from the steps from the back of the ruins. There is a other entrance for that down a longer road and does have an additional cost ( I don't know what that cost is as we didn't go)

As of January 2024 they are doing a lot of work on the area tons of construction and improvements. I did put a couple of photos...

This was an enjoyable day trip. The guide was very informative and knowledgeable with his ancestors history. I highly recommend too take the guided tour because you will get more out of this trip. When you do this tour, the larger the group, the less you pay. Look for another group who want to do the tour and join in together as a larger group. It was first going to cost $52 for 3 of us. We then found a group of 5 more and it costs us each 10 dollars per person. That's $22 dollars saved for me. Plus they saved as well.

After the tour, then take all the pictures you desire and stay longer if you liked to. One thing to add is, this area is hot. So take water, comfortable shoes, lite clothing and try to keep as cool as possible.

My only issues with this tour was, it was during seaweed season and there was a lot. The water by the beach was brown and the seaweed was piled high and it was smelly. No one cleans it up. The seawater was murky green and visibility was not good at all. That's my reason for 4 star rating. All the pictures posted showed the beautiful blue water but that didn't happen on my trip. One other issue I had, was they got me when I was entering this place. I took the Happy Hour Tour and that was not worth the price due to water quality with the seaweed. Plus it was a get you on the boat, rush you through the tour and get you off the boat and get the next group in. So don't do this part of the tour, that's highly recommended not to do with...