While this is the first time my husband and I visited on August 12, 2019 about 1230p, I felt like…read morethere were drawbacks that weren't worth the 5 star compliments written by everyone else who went.
As we came into the establishment, we realized that we only had enough money for 1 cenote. They persisted that we needed a guide being our first time there; but I mentioned that we didn't have enough pesos to even give a proper tip, because we spent most of our money at Chichén Itzá and the tolls and the gas to get us from Cancun and back. The gentleman stated that it was ok anyway. So away we went.
They insisted that we needed pictures taken by them and that we could look at them later. We politely declined because we had no money to give them above and beyond the cost of the tickets.
I had noticed that previous reviews had stated that we would have to have a life jacket and to rinse off. I was expecting both but had no money for a life jacket anyway. He asked us if we wanted to use the facilities and we politely declined. He shared with my husband the history of centote's; which it was fairly interesting (he decided that walking really fast and talking to my husband and not really bothering for me to catch up, was the best idea). So while my husband told me of some of the history afterwards, I didn't hear much of it straight from him. He also showed us the top of the cenote and asked us if we wanted to be a daredevil and jump down into it. Again we politely declined.
As we headed down the steps, he told us to cautiously walk down since it was slippery and to hold onto the rope. We did do both. But again, I was being left behind. He did take our picture with my iPhone; so that was nice. The picture wasn't the best quality but it was nice to have anyway. Then he expected a tip. All we had was 25 pesos. While I know that wasn't a lot and I had told him, he asked "Is this it?" I really wanted to state that I could have it back and you could have nothing; but I kept my mouth shut.
Anyhow, the cenote was much much cooler than we expected. It took awhile to get into the water but we finally did it. The black fish in the emerald water is actually cat fish. We were one of the few that didn't have to have a life jacket. We got some great pictures and we were glad that we did it; but I don't think we will be coming back.
I did use the bathroom on our way out; and I realized that they had no toilet seats. While squatting was fine for me to do, I'm trying to figure out who takes the toilet seats and what they do with them.