Mexico 2026
Arrival
Back in 2019, we had decided that we were going to visit Mexico that Summer. We hadn't booked anything, but there was time to do that.
Then, COVID! We didn't travel far for a couple of years and when we booked holidays over the next few years, while Mexico hadn't dropped off our radar, somewhere else always got preference.
Then Mandy's sister booked a holiday in Playa Del Carmen and her photos were so good that we decided that we would definitely be going to Mexico soon.
'Soon' turned out to be January/February 2026 and after an 11 hour BA flight (which wasn't bad at all) and a 2.5 hour wait at the airport for our transfer (followed by the hour long transfer) , we finally arrived at our hotel, the Iberostar Waves Tucan.
This was the same hotel Mandy's sister had stayed in and, while we looked at some others that people recommended to us (two of my dive club had, separately, been to Yucatan the previous summer), we decided on the Tucan and had no regrets about doing so after our 10 night stay.
It was 9PM by the time we checked in, and we'd effectively been up at 2AM, so we just went to our room, unpacked and went to bed!
Thursday
Of course, with the 5 hour time difference, we were awake very early and I decided to walk down to the beach and see a Mexican sunrise as I was wide awake.
Walking through the dark gardens (not untouched, for sure, but certainly similar to the deep forest-like jungle we found else where in the Yucatan), it was eerie to hear growling coming from the trees. What could be making noises like that and was walking to the beach in the dark, really a great idea?
The Iberostar Waves Tucan proved a pleasant place to stay for 10 days.
I survived (the sounds were made by Howler Monkeys, which we heard each morning and evening, but never saw) and was rewarded with a near empty beach and a glorious sunrise over the nearby Cozumel island.
Glorious sunrise
We made our way to breakfast in one of the buffet restaurants and enjoyed the varied selection of breakfast options. At one point, a Spider Monkey appeared, causing a lot of people to get up to photograph it, including Mandy, who left her apple on the table. The monkey didn't need a second chance, it grabbed the apple and hopped away to enjoy it!
The Monkey who came to breakfast!
Coati in the hotel grounds
I had planned to do some diving on this holiday, so I walked down to the beach to find Dressel Divers, who are based at the hotel and I had arranged two dives with. I thought I had agreed to dive on the Saturday (this was a Thursday), but they thought I'd agreed to dive the first day. I said I wanted to dive on the Saturday and it was changed, but they warned me it may not be possible due to a 'storm' coming, closing the port!
The grounds of the hotel are very natural, with some additions
The view from our ground floor balcony
We ate lunch in the hotel and explored the grounds and the beach for the rest of the day, before heading to the Japanese restaurant in the hotel (there were a number of themed restaurants as well as the buffets), where we were entertained by the chefs preparation of the food, but despite the show, the food struck us both as rather lacking in flavour, something we certainly didn't expect in Mexico!
Mayan style statues and architecture in the hotel reception
The pool area
Plenty of nature around the hotel
Friday
The next day, I grabbed a taxi into Playa Del Carmen proper (not the prettiest resort town, but with all the facilities you would expect of a resort or a decent sized town, supermarkets, banks, restaurants, car hire firms, garages, shops of all kinds, for both the locals' daily needs and tourist 'tat') and met up with TheCenoteGuy operation who were taking me diving in the Cenotes for a couple of days.
Read about my Cenote diving, here, if you are interested.
Me at Dos Ojos, Cenote, about to take the plunge.
Meanwhile, Mandy spent the day exploring the area around the hotel, hoping to find some butterflies, with mixed success. The Monarchs she had hoped for aren't usually seen here, especially as it turned out to be unseasonably cold (although still in the 20s except in the mornings and after dark), but she still managed to see one and a Blue Morpho on a nearby building site! She goes all the way to Mexico to visit building sites!
Blue Morpho
We ate in the first-come, first-served fish restaurant that evening. I had a white fish (catch of the day, although its name now escapes me) and Mandy had a shrimp paella, both were pretty good, so we booked for the Italian on the Tuesday evening. It was, though remarkably chilly in the restaurant, the aircon seemingly not adjusted to the fact that the air temperature outside was only 15C!
Saturday
Next morning I was told by Dressel Divers, that the second dive of the day would be cancelled, so I arranged to move both dives to the following week. That left us with the need of something to do for the day. I considered a taxi to Tulum, but it was probably going to cost us 50 GBP each way and I soon discovered there was a bus service!
I booked tickets and we walked down to Playa Del Carmen, around 45 minutes through the swanky-ish Playacar area, and found the Tourist Bus Station.
We were there in plenty of time for our bus to Tulum and a sign stated that a bus would depart from stand 8, but there was no bus there. There was a small mini-bus at stand 7, but the driver shook his head when I asked if it was going to Tulum (maybe he didn't understand, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt with my near zero Spanish). Then the bus disappeared off the display board. I managed to find someone in the ticket kiosk who spoke some English and she said "It's gone, it was at stand 8"!
Clearly it wasn't , but anyway we'd missed the bus. Luckily there was a different (even cheaper) bus going about 10 minutes later and we managed to get on that one without too much trouble, travelling down to Tulum and then taking a taxi back to the ruins.
Map of the Tulum site
Here we encountered one of the most infuriating things about Mexico.
If you look on websites for the Mayan ruins, they nearly all list a price for foreigners and a different one for Mexicans. We didn't mind that, but they usually fail to mention the 'tax' imposed on these locations. In most cases this is 2 or more times the price of admission and applied by the Mexican state, rather than the local state.
El Castillo
House of the columns
At Tulum, you pay at one kiosk, which accepts Credit Cards, for access to the Jaguar Parq and then at another, which only takes cash (credit cards was very much the exception!) to get into the ruins themselves. Why we couldn't pay for a combined ticket at the first kiosk was beyond me...
Anyway, we headed down a track, boarded a little road-train like machine and paid for our second ticket and made our way through a gate that led to the ruins themselves.
Not sure what's going on here!
Tulum is one of the most picturesque Mayan sites, especially on websites, because the ruins overlook the sea. The thing is, though, that the shots showing temples with the sea in the background you so often see are obviously taken with drones, because, at ground level, you can see ruins or the sea, but never both in the same view!
View of the house of the columns and the castle
Wide view of the site
That said, we enjoyed walking around the ruins, exploring each one, and taking in the sea views from the viewpoints, the lovely clear blue water of the Gulf of Mexico looking very inviting.
If only they came up with an elevated viewing platform or tower, so you could look down on both at once, it would be idyllic.
We headed along a road to a 'lighthouse', again with lovely views of the sea and then made our way to the exit.
Lighthouse at Tulum
We had a couple of hours until our return bus was due, so we walked back to town along the very busy road, which wasn't lovely, but did kill some time before we reached the bus station.
Fortunately, things were less confused in Tulum and we had no problem boarding the right bus back to Playa Del Carmen.
After a shower each, we ate in the Buffet and found the food tastier there than in the Japanese restaurant, as well as offering a wide selection of foods.
We had booked a trip to Chichen Itza the next day. The organised trips from the hotel were eye-wateringly expensive, but I found a reasonably affordable one online, with decent reviews and they picked up from our hotel, so it seemed a good option.
Sunday
Pick up for the trip to Chichen Itza, the foremost of the Maya ruins, was slated for 7AM, but they didn't arrived until 7:30. Luckily, we'd had some breakfast as we spent the next hour plus travelling to other hotels and pick up points collecting the rest of the people on the tour and it was close on 9 before we managed to head out of Playa Del Carmen.
OK, we thought, it's only 2 hours to Chichen Itza, be there by 11:30, lots of time...
Sadly not. We stopped for around 1.5 hours to have a 'Shamen blessing' and a rather lacklustre lunch at a restaurant-cum-shop. To be fair, there was no hard-sell at the shop, but we could have done without that time being spent there, for sure.
Lunch stop was something we could have lived without.
So, it wasn't until mid-afternoon by the time we arrived at Chichen Itza and we were told we'd have a half hour guided tour and an hour or so to look around on our own.
Map of the Chichen Itza site
By the time, though, that people had gathered, someone sorted out child price tickets at the site and we'd got in, that was down to around 40 minutes on our own.
Chichen Itza's pyramid
To be fair, the English speaking guide at Chichen Itza (not the guy who took us on the coach) was very good. In half an hour, he guided us around the main sites, gave us a guide overview of the history and purpose of each structure and answered questions in enough detail to satisfy.
His guided tour meant that, although far shorter than we would have liked, the time at Chichen Itza was informative and much of what he told us would be helpful at the other sites that we visited alone later in the week.
After this, we rushed very quickly to the cenote on site (Cenote Sagrado), which when explored in the early 20th century revealed a gruesome collection of bodies, believed to have been human sacrifices, although selection for this role was, apparently, considered an honour and hard fought by a ball game played in the large stadium, with a stone hoop in the middle of each side.
Chichen Itza's cenote
Players would use hips and elbows to play the hard rubber ball until someone got it through one of the hoops. That player would then be selected as the sacrifice and his (always his) family would receive a social status upgrade. Somehow, I think I'd probably have thanked my lack of footballing skills!
The ball stadium at Chichen Itza is the biggest
We went down to the large structure at the far end of the site, where a possible sacrificial altar remains atop it and then worked our back around the pyramid itself, an impressive structure, with two sides restored and two left, more or less, as rediscovered.
Another of the buildings at Chichen Itza - it's believed people were sacrificed atop this one.
Sadly, the days of being allowed to climb the pyramid are in the past, but it was very busy on a Sunday and the crowd, no doubt, would have made it a difficult proposition.
Panoramic shot of the site
One of the unrestored sides of the pyramid
We then hurried back to the bus (with dire warnings that we'd need to take a taxi to the cenote we were next to visit, if we missed it). Again, the cenote (it was Ik-Kil) proved to be a stop we could have managed without. The place was packed with coach trippers and, although our entry was included and we were told about the need to hire a lifejacket to swim, we weren't told we needed to pay for a locker, so after I changed, I was faced with a walk back to the shop to buy ANOTHER ticket. Looking down into the cold, murky looking pit, I decided I could pass on the experience of bobbing on the surface with dozens of other people, having already explored a couple of cenotes as a diver.
The overcrowded cenote we visited
Mandy went in, very briefly, but wasn't very impressed with the experience.
Again, we hung about for ages, this time waiting for some people who obviously didn't understand the time they were supposed to return to the bus...
At this point, we hoped we'd just head back to Playa, but the itinerary said there would be a stop in the town of Valladolid. This proved to be another hurried, unenjoyable experience.
The local police forbid coaches stopping in the main square, so we were dropped and, with more dire warnings of expensive taxi rides back to Playa Del Carmen if we weren't back in 25 minutes, left to walk around.
There was just time to photograph the fairly pretty church, grab a snack and visit a filthy toilet in a nearby food court, before returning to the coach, which...wasn't there! We spotted it circling and the driver pointed us to return to the original drop off point (being a square, it was easy to forget where that was and there were at least two identical coaches to ours!). Luckily, everyone found the guide again and we got back aboard the bus without losing anyone, but it would be a lie to say we enjoyed our stop in Valladolid, although it did look as though it may be a pleasant place to visit in a less rushed manner.
The church in Valladolid
After that, the driver took the fast road back to Playa and, luckily, after being the first pick up, we were the first drop off too, so back in our hotel at 9PM.
Mandy was too tired to eat, but I decided to visit the buffet, where a huge salmon had just been cooked and I ate some with some salad and a beer. It was one of the best meals of the holiday!
Monday
I was back to the Cenotes on Monday, taking in two that one of my fellow dive club members recommended after her visit. As a very experienced diver, I figured her recommendations would be good and so it proved.
Dreamgate cenote
Mandy spent the day visiting an aviary on the way to downtown Playa Del Carmen, looking for butterflies and doing some souvenir shopping for the children.
Birds at the aviary