The Jungle Place — Attraction in Quintana Roo

Absolutely the gem of our vacation. I stumbled upon reviews for this place with only one day left on our playa del Carmen vacation. It was a long shot, based on reviews, but I decided to reach out and see if there was any chance they had a slot available for the next day. They responded quickly that they did. We were thrilled. We paid the donation online and quickly received confirmation on our visit and directions to the sanctuary. The drive is windy and a dirt road but our car did just fine. It was about 45 minutes from our place in south Playa. When you arrive at the gate, it is like driving into a jungle paradise. Make sure to wear your mosquito repellent cause as soon as we opened the car door, we got kinda swarmed. Once Joel took us upstairs on the back deck, we didn’t really see the mosquitos again. It was just the first few minutes. We visited with Joel and Heidi on their deck for a bit while we were entertained by the baby monkey on Heidi’s lap and the one monkey that has managed to escape the enclosure but never leaves, visiting above our heads.

After chatting for a bit, they brought us in the enclosure with the monkeys. You sit right down in the floor in the enclosure with them and there were five of us and about 8-9 monkeys. They are so sweet and cuddly. Way way more so then I expected. They get right in your lap (or shoulder or side) and cuddle up and go to sleep…and not because you are holding food. This was LONG after the snacks were gone. They have such cute and unique personalities. Joel snaps hundreds of photos with your phone or camera and introduces you to each one. We had a total blast. They had us in the enclosure for close to two hours. It was an amazing experience that we would recommend to anyone. These people have devoted their whole lives to these monkeys. They are well loved and cared for and the enclosures they have build are gigantic and stimulating for the monkeys. This is not a commercial place, it’s someone’s home and you are their guest. Very very different than a commercial place that advertises on busses. Can’t wait to recommend this place to everyone we know visiting the area and to come...

Amazing life changing experience. Myself and my husband booked to visit the sanctuary and have a tour of their facilities a couple of months in advance. Booking was easy I emailed and spoke with David and paid the fee via PayPal. They only let one family in a day if that. In fact they only let people come and tour just enough to cover the costs of their monkeys. It is not about making money for them. Just what is best for their babies.

Getting to the sanctuary was a bit difficult but we booked a taxi from our hotel and then David was happy to talk the taxi driver to where he had to go to find them.

The family who run the sanctuary are such lovely warm people. The monkeys clearly LOVE their mumma. They are very well cared for and treated with the upmost respect for their welfare. Beautiful enclosures, tons of enrichment and lots of research has clearly been taken to create such a lovely home for the monkeys. They even had one monkey just hanging around the house (not in an enclosure) he knows where he is fed and is not very confident usually with humans. It was lovely to see a monkey choose to be part of their family.

The experience for us was such an eye opener. We had a safety talk about how to conduct ourselves around the monkeys, their names, personalities, how each came to live at the sanctuary. We were invited into the family home.

Then we were invited into the spider monkey’s home. Monkeys either chose to interact with us or they didn’t. Luckily we were welcomed with cuddles!! It was incredible.

We will 100% be back for our anniversary and hope to stay in contact with Heidi and her wonderful monkey loving family.

We wish them all the best and sending special kisses to Luna, Nina...

I've already gone on to the website and put up a comment through Facebook but I will never forget this experience! This was well worth the $80 I left wanting to give them more to help them to care for these lovely animals. Heidi and Joel made us feel at home and very comfortable with them and the monkeys. They made sure we were safe and that they were safe. You can't wear Sun screen or perfumes or mosquito repellent into the enclosure because it can make them sick. They also showed us how to protect ourselves to make sure that the monkeys didn't hurt us because we were trying to hide something from them. There were absolutely no problems with our visit and we enjoyed every minute of it. I definitely recommend a visit to this place if you're ever in the area. It's about an hour South of Cancun and a rather bumpy road but they left it like that on purpose because they wanted to keep the jungle a jungle all the way around them. We were there at the very end of April and the weather was perfect. Everything was excellent and well worth a visit. Thank you again Heidi and Joel for this time that we could share with...