XP: Day Trips/Things to do Close to/in Cancun?

Lisa7

We are going to be staying in Holbox (an island North of Cancun), Mexico for five days in February before heading to a wedding in Cancun & are looking for things to do while staying there. We will probably get antsy after a few days so we are looking for fun suggestions of things to do/things to check out while there? Thanks so much!!

hutchsl

I went to Cancun a long time ago. We took a local ferry to Isla Mujeres then a taxi down to the national park for snorkeling. We did an easy day trip to Tulum south of Cancun for Mayan ruins. A full long day trip to Chichen Itza which has even more Mayan ruins. We had a rental car but I would recommend a bus/tour instead as the roads are bad and it is a long way.

monkeygirl18

We've been two times and stayed in Cancun (hotel zone).
Tulum,Coba and Chichen Itza can all be done from that area. As PP mentioned, Chichen Itza will be a full day event. The other two are about 3/4 of a day (I think we left about 7:00am and we got back around 3:00pm). We did all of them on with tour groups, not on our own.

Wimomma

We loved Isla Mujerez.  We rented a golf cart there and cruised the island for a day.  We stopped at various beaches and ate lunch on one.  Highly recommend!

alithebride

are you looking for things to do ON holbox or in cancun? i can't say about holbox althought i've always wanted to stay. from what i understand it's not a fast trip to cancun from there.

we go every december (gosh this will be trip #12) and generally do one or 2 day trips per visit. some of our fave things is fishing (most resorts will cook what you catch), ek balam ruins, coba ruins, chichen itza ruins, tulum ruins, sian kaan biosphere.

there are some great parks south of cancun xplor, xcaret and xel-ha. they're all fun and all have different pluses and minuses. you can look online to see which has more of what you like. playa del carmen is about 90 minutes south of cancun. while years ago it used to be less touristy than cancun that time is over. it's cancun on a smallr scale.

if you want to head out on your own for dinner one night there are a few graet restaurants in cancun. cenacolo (in kulkulcan plaza) is some of the best italian food i've had outside of italy. their sister restaurant cenacolo de mare is across the street on the lagoon side and serves fish. puerto madero is a phenominal steak place,  i forget the name o fit but there's a thai restaurant in front of the marriott which is very good. there's a great piano bar inside the jw marriott if you want to get away for a drink.

have fun!! i still find new fun things to do there year after year.

 

latefortheball

Chichen-Itza is a great day trip! We did a smaller tour so it didn't take up the entire day and even managed to get the visit to Il Kil in there too.

We also did a local water park, which was fun and something different (rather than just hanging around the hotel). It was about 15 minutes from our hotel (we stayed at the Marriott). 

Another day we did a snorkeling tour. I really wanted to check out some of the adventure parks, but we didn't have time. They look really great, though!

Have fun!

chelsy31588

We just recently returned from that area was there in November for two weeks. One week on Isla Mujeres and then a week in Cancun. I would recommend Chichen Itza, we had a small private tour so it was very comfortable not rushed or cattle like for some of the big bus tours. We also went to XPlor which was pretty fun, zip line and swimming in underground river caves were my fave. Did a speed boat/snorkle tour but we did not like the snorkling there was nothing to see, it seemed to me that they started to take care of their reefs just a little too late. I didn't make it to the MUSA underwater museum snorkle/diving but it sounded like it was good from the people we were with that dove it. Otherwise if you shop in the hotel zone don't go to the flea market way too many vendors and not that great of prices unless you really enjoy haggling. We actually went to an outlet type of mall that had all the same things that the flea market had but for WAY better prices and no hassle. The one we went to was the Flamingo Plaza just down the road right around the corner from Coco Bongo and all the clubs going towards the airport direction. This mall/plaza had a Margaritaville and a Bubba Gumps Shrip restaurant next/inside of it so hopefully it will be easy to spot!