Fun tour of Merida's many neighborhoods - seeing beautiful colonial mansions, churches and parks in…read morean open bus - in English and Spanish

Great tour, in Spanish and English. Great prices and our guide was knowledgeable and funny at the…read moresame time. Was the only one that explained to me the meaning of Bomba, a say in Mérida. The takes you through the historic areas as well as the plazas and parks. It last almost 2 hours, but the pass by very easily, really had a great time. The Gua Gua is a fun bus, open and at a level that still makes you feel close to the people walking around. And most importantly, quite affordable.

Their website is full of lies! This tour is only available in Spanish, unlike it says on the…read morewebsite. Even on the registration, it asks for English or Spanish, but it did not matter. Unless you speak Spanish, do not take this tour unless you just want to drive around the city for an hour and a quarter (which was also shorter than the website claimed). Also, it is not a hop on and hop off ride like it says on the bus and on the website. The bus never stopped. I am giving it to stars because it was nice to see the city and one of us spoke Spanish and they understood the history. We took the barrios tour.

Schedule is not correct online. Barrio circuit doesn't actually seem to exist. Bottom level is not…read moreair conditioned. That said it is decent enough tour for the price. Only Spanish though so beware.

Ralf, from Lawsons Original Yucatan Excursions, and I have been emailing each other on and off for…read morea couple of years, looking for the right adventure and the right timing. We finally found it. We started off our day at the Punta Laguna Monkey Reserve where we wandered along numerous jungle trails trying to locate some of the elusive spider monkeys after participating in a traditional Mayan ceremony, asking for permission and protection to enter the jungle. Our guide, Julio, finally managed to locate a few mammas and babies high in the trees having a morning siesta. Even if we hadn't seen any the hike thru the jungle was lovely. We didn't rappel into the cenote - access in and out was via a rope ladder and neither of us have that kind of upper body strength! Next up, we headed to the lagoon and a lovely cooling breeze. The plan was to canoe - we ARE Canadian after all - but both my mother and I were exhausted. However, someone was looking out for us - when we arrived, a local Mayan family were at the docs and a couple were getting baptized. It was beautiful to witness their faith and be allowed to share in their experience. A huge orange butterfly also flew around the gentleman as he was baptized. After a rest and a Coke to bump up our sugar, we headed even deeper into the jungle for an afternoon visit and lunch with a different local family. This experience... it didn't hit me until after we left and I was back at our resort alone in my room but I came very close to crying. Not with sadness but with joy. Located beside a lagoon with no electricity, no plumbing, they seemed so perfectly happy. They were genuinely pleased to share their way of life, their history, their home and their food with these random strangers. We chatted about the family (immediate and extended), day to day life, shared laughs about our differences and I think, bonded over similarities regardless of culture. Then it was lunch time! We were invited to try making our own tortillas before sitting down to probably the most enjoyable meal I can remember (pollo pabil). Kept company by their beautiful children and their adorable dog, Tobacco, this family made us feel incredibly welcome and it was our honour to meet them. As a sweet treat to end our visit, we got to see their beehives where they harvest their own honey made by the local, stinger-less (and oh so tiny) Mayan bees. FYI, its delicious. A HUGE thank you to Ralf for putting together this incredible, life changing day for us. Finally getting to meet you was like getting together with an old friend.

Our family enjoyed a tour with Lawson's Original Yucatan Excursions on May 22…read more We were picked up at our Airbnb in Chuburna by Ralf and our driver, Jose. By the end of the day, they both felt like old friends! Early in the day, we went to a market to shop for food with Inez. She then instructed us on what to do to prepare an authentic Mexican lunch, giving each of us jobs. Once the prep was done, the chicken needed to cook (underground!), so we headed to our next stop - Uxmal. We had a very knowledgeable guide at Uxmal, and we enjoyed it very much. Next, we stopped at Choco-Story, where we fed monkeys, watched a Mayan cacao ceremony, and sampled drinking chocolate. After Choco-Story, we traveled back to our foodie experience with Inez. The food was delicious, and we were ready for our next adventure - a cenote. It was a beautiful day for the cool water and the perfect way to end the day. Ralf was the ideal guide. He made stops along the way, was engaging, and full of fun stories/information. If we wanted to talk, he did if we wanted quiet, he sensed that as well. There were little touches throughout, like providing cold drinks in the cooler and making sure we tried ice cream and smoothies after the heat at Uxmal. Ralf heard us talking about the birthday of our son-in-law on the ride to meet up with Inez. She and her helpers provided a cake complete with a candle and sang 'Happy Birthday' at our beautifully set lunch table. It was a magical, memorable day, and one our family will always treasure. Thank you, Ralf! 5 stars only because there isn't an option for more

I did not get what I paid for at all. I bought tickets to take a semi-private van (four families)…read morefrom my hotel in Mérida to my hotel in Cancun with a stop in Chichen Itza to see the ruins and have lunch. But they had no intention of taking us to Cancun. At Chichen Itza, the tour guide informed me they were going back to Mérida and we had find our own way to Cancun (they recommend a bus company). So they stranded me, my wife, and my special needs child half way to our destination. They lied to us and stranded us probably because they didn't have enough people booked to Cancun. They should have been honest with me so I could make proper arrangements but their greed outweighs their decency. I urge everyone reading this review to look elsewhere for a tour of the Yucatan. Estos descgraciodos quebradon mi contracto. Deberian llevar me de mi hotel en Mérida hasta mi hotel en Cancun. Estos larones me dejaron en Chichen Itza y me dijieron que nesecitaba consiguir un bus y taxi para llagar a Cancun.

This business has no ethics and won't think twice about screwing you. We booked a tour from Merida…read moreto Cancun with a stopover at Chichen Itza. Instead of taking us to Cancun as promised they dumped us at Chichen Itza and told us we had to take a public bus to Cancun. We were shocked, horrified and angry. Luckily, I paid with a credit card and I'm fighting the charges. Unscrupulous liars.

I rented a small Chev for 10 days in Feb 2020 and found the car reliable and the price very…read morereasonable at 500 pesos a day. Just as important they were very professional in all ways and flexible about pickup and drop off locations. James

My wife and I rented a sedan from Unirent car rental in Merida for about ten days in February,…read moredriving around the Yucatan. It was an excellent experience. Diego and his team were timely, reliable, efficient, cost-competitive, friendly and personified great service. They have my highest recommendation. The good service started when I contacted them just a few days before our trip. At first, Diego said they did not have any sedans available. But a cancellation opened up a rental later that same day, he promptly emailed me to let me know. Once we were in Merida, he brought the car to our hotel (the Hyatt), patiently and efficiently explained the details of the rental agreement and answered all of our questions without any rush. His English is not absolutely fluent, but certainly more than good enough for our purposes. The vehicle performed fine. Upon the completion of the trip, back at the Hyatt, he returned to the hotel to pick it up. The only minor glitch we had was that the GPS system for the car didn't always work great, with a couple of problems along the way. (We thus used our Googlemaps GPS on our phones more often; it was better, though not perfect.) When I mentioned this to Diego, he took the charge off of our bill. I wasn't asking for this, but appreciated it nonetheless. Two other minor matters were that the website does not seem to have an English option, though Google Translate works pretty well on it, and that it wasn't immediately clear whether a rental request using the online form was actually sent out to Unirent (though they replied promptly, either that day or the next, obviating that difficulty.) But really, these are trifling items. I wouldn't hesitate to rent from Unirent again, and wholeheartedly recommend the company.

Beautiful boutique hotel steps away from the cathedral with lots of shopping, restaurants and…read morebusinesses nearby . They didn't have meals only breakfast and drinks . The pool area is tiny but gorgeous

Lovely 4 star historic hotel with 5 star staff. Everyone was so incredibly accommodating and…read morehousekeeping was quick to tidy up our room with charming touches. Food only ok but beds are comfortable, hotel is quiet, and the location is in the heart of the city. A great choice!

I am so disappointed that I will be filing a complaint with my bank. Nothing is as advertised. They…read moretook my money and gave me watered down drinks and even watered down cheese. I have never been so disappointed on vacation in my lifeI wouldn't come here if it was free. I do not recommend

We went with auto progresso not thinking we would do any excursions. They offer a free bus to the…read morecity of progresso. When we got off we were surprised that they offered the same package as carnival for half the cost. So we booked it and we didn't regret it. The tour guide was awesome. Ivan. The city was awesome. We were able to see a ruin, swim in a cenote, and see the city of Merida and eat at an authentic Mexican seafood restaurant. So worth it.

I had been wanting to visit a salt flat for a while. We were staying in Merida and wanted to do…read moresome day trips, and Laguna Rosada is an easy drive from the city. We drove our rental car and used Google Maps, and had no problem finding it. It is only $1 USD to get in, and there is no tour, so we explored on our own and took lots of photos. Very interesting and scenic! There is also salt harvesting actively taking place at the flats.

This location is a few minutes from the Mayan site of Xcambo. So you gotta drive right past it…read moreanyway. We were there on Jan 3, 2021, not much in the way of pink water but there were a couple of Flamingos pretty far out in the water. No real place to park on the side of the road so be careful on traffic & people both ways. There is some shack right after the turn off from from 27 but from the looks of it they didn't have anything more that we could see from the side of the road. Again maybe its better during a different time of the year.

I booked this tour thru our resort as we thought they knew best. We did no prior research and the…read moreresort travel agent didn't give us really any info. We were scheduled for pick up from our resort at 7am. We arrived on time and were told that we had to drive to the transportation hub at Xal-Ha 1st(no one told us this). We were pretty pissed as it was an hour out of the way and we already knew it was going to be a long bus ride. We stopped at 2 other resorts and then to Xel-Ha. We arrived at the hub and got on another bus. We didn't leave until 8:30. We could have been most of the way to Chichen Itza by then. The transportation hub excuse is stupid. Have a hub closer to other areas instead of forcing everyone down to Tulum. They know people don't like this as well because the tour guides said it several times and explained why we had to do this. Don't force people to sit on a bus for 3 extra hours a day on their vacations, come up with a better business model, stop making excuses. It is clear that this company is all about numbers and care little about their customers. I felt like cattle the whole time. There were 52 people on our bus, with 2 guides. The guides were great, they did the best with what they had but another large issue I had with this is that the tour was in both English and Spanish. Great, you are bilingual, that is amazing, but, there were enough people doing this same tour that you could split the groups according to language. The guide talked a lot more in Spanish. It was hard to pay attention as I kept getting bored and distracted and missing the short times when they did speak in English. The information given to us was very generic. The guide had to talk the whole time to get all the info out and it was just too overwhelming to listen to her the entire time. If we could focus on 1 language per bus that would have been super nice. The talking could have gotten more in depth and it would have been a much better tour. On the way to the ruins, we drove thru many small-town areas with beautiful homemade goods, we didn't stop, and they explained that we would stop at a Mayan community and spend time there shopping. We arrived at this Mayan community and it was just another tourist trap. All the Xcaret tour buses stopped there and it was just a mess. The bathrooms were gross. The shopping was all the same crap you'd find anywhere else. The people in the shops were super annoying and followed us around everywhere. This stop was unneeded and just another way to get us to buy stuff we didn't want. We stayed for 40-50 minutes, just get us to the ruins already! We got to Chichen Itza around 11:45(12:45 before time change) and were told we had to leave at 2:10. We were harassed by vendors trying to sell us hats as soon as we got off the bus. They surrounded us. We were herded to the main building. They split us into the 2 groups, English and Spanish. We were then given tours of the ruins from our respective guides. We had John, I really liked him, and he did the best he could with what they had. We walked around with him for an hour. We had 2 people in our group who were handicapped, and he did great with them, accommodating them. We then were given free time to walk. The ruins are beautiful but for some reason they allow vendors in the ruins which really brought the beauty of the ruins down. We got back on the and headed to the IK-Kill Cenote. This place was tiny and cute. Lunch was included but for some reason drinks weren't and we had to pay in cash. The lunch was delicious and well needed because they really try to starve you on this tour. Lunch was close to 3pm after we got on the bus originally at 7am.... We paid 80 pesos for 2 pepsi's.. We had to buy a locker with cash as well. We changed and had to rinse off before going down. The Cenote was gorgeous, crowded but nice. We jumped in and got out right away as there were too many people and it was hard to move. All the buses arrive at the same time, so it was a huge surge of people. After that we headed back to the transportation hub. During this whole trip the bus had issues, it seems it had clutch/transmission issues and would turn off going at slow speeds. They did get us back to the hub. Before that they told us what buses we would need to get on to go back to our hotels. They called out of group and we were to stay on the same bus..... After all the issues it had. Fabulous. So we are on the bus, start heading towards our resort and the guide announces that we're are pulling over and getting on a new bus because ours has issues. Well we knew that already, but you left us on this bus anyways... So, we switch buses and finally get to our resort by 8:45. We were gone 13 hours and 45 minutes. Our guides were Karina and John, they were lovely, but beyond that the tour was a wreck. I do not recommend this company or these tours. I would go alone or with a smaller company next time. It was basically a long bus ride with some quick stops.

We were in Merida for a week and the best two days of our trip were the two we spent with Polo. He…read moreis from Merida and knows everyone and everywhere. He took us to Cenotes which were not super touristy but also very safe. He knows the history and geography very well and can explain so much about how things are. He speaks both English and Spanish very well. He can design your day and take you to spots you would never discover otherwise.

I have used Yucatan Excursions for private tours throughout the Yucatan peninsula. Although the…read morecompany does transport people between hotels and Airports or other transportation centers, I think the company excels in custom tours. I have used Yucatan Excursions several times in the past three years. The day trips I have taken are a great value. Not only did we visit the locations on my "to do" list, but Polo had excellent suggestions on places to visit that are off the beaten path. I saw Mayan ruins that are not publicized but are way better than Those swamped with tourists. My suggestion is for you to have an idea of what you want to see, and ask Polo for suggestions. You won't be disappointed. Polo speaks fluent English, and his a wealth of historical and cultural information. You may have heard of Rick Steve's Europe Through the Back Door. I see Polo as being Yucatan Off the beaten path. One thing I didn't mention in my initial review is that Yucatan Excursions is a locally owned small business. It is not part of an international hotel chain or travel company. When you use this business you are supporting a local business and the local economy. In the days of multi-national corporations I think it is very important for travelers to support the communities they are visiting. You are also getting personalized service that is tailored to your specific wants and interests, and not to a pre-determined set of criteria intended to cater to the overall assumed desires of all tourists.