For our Honeymoon,  my husband and I spent 10 days in Cancun.  We loved every minute of it!  Obviously, the best part of the honeymoon was the hotel we stayed at, Secrets The Vine.  It was a luxury adults-only all inclusive resort, so our stay was all about indulgence.  You can read all about our experience at the hotel in my last post:  Honeymoonin’: Our Stay at Secrets The Vine Cancun.  I totally expected to spend most of the vacation laying on the beach eating all the food, but my husband made sure to arrange plenty of exciting activities for us.  Here are some of the highlights!

Guided Tour of Tulum and Xel-Ha

Tulum

My husband booked a tour through experiencias Xcaret, where we got to join an English speaking tour of the Tulum Ruins, as well as the beautiful beach it sits on.  The package included pickup from our hotel in Cancun and transportation to and from the Tulum ruins.  The tour guide made sure to make all his announcements in both English and Spanish, so that no one was lost.

Everything seemed really organized until we got to the entrance to the park.  They kept stressing how limited our time was (I believe we had 2 hours to see the park before it was time to head to the next stop), but then kept holding us up with unnecessary instructions.  For instance, after their 30 minute speech about what we should expect in the park, they wanted us to wait in line to buy tickets for the children in our group (they had the adult tickets ahead of time –why would they wait until we get to the park to wait in line for 45 minutes for children’s tickets?? Or better yet, while they were talking our ears off about what was in the park, why didn’t they have someone run ahead and buy the tickets so they’d be ready by the time we got there?)

My husband and I decided not to waste the little time we had to explore, and separated from the group.  Between the signs they had posted around the park and eavesdropping on other English speaking tours, we were able to make it through just fine!

Xel-Ha

Next, we hopped back on the tour bus to head to Xel-Ha, which is a huge natural aquarium located in Rivera Maya.  The entry fee included snorkeling, floating down the lazy river, and unlimited access to multiple restaurants.  You can also purchase additional activities like swimming with dolphins and snuba.

Renting a Car

We had so much fun on our day trip to Tulum and Xel-Ha, my husband decided to rent a car via the Kayak app so we could explore on our own.  I would recommend this for everyone looking to explore Cancun.  You have the freedom to come and go as you please, and you don’t have to worry about keeping up with a group.  While we definitely had fun on the guided tour, it would be MUCH cheaper to put these trips together on your own.  We got the car for $1/day.  No joke — although you’ll probably want insurance, which you can get from the car rental company for about $16/day, or elsewhere.  I like Allianz for my international rental car insurance.  Keep in mind that the rental car company will want to hold a deposit on your credit card if you don’t buy their insurance.

The entry fee to the Tulum Ruins is about 30 pesos, or $1.47.  The entry fee to Xel-Ha is $80 if you purchase online.  We could have saved $40 per person had we known this up front.

Tacun

We decided that although we were staying at an all-inclusive resort with amazing food, we couldn’t leave Mexico without trying authentic Mexican food.  We visited Tancun twice.  Once to try the tacos, and another to try this humongous lobster.  Both were delicious!  Service was great, and drinks were strong.

Chichen Itźa

The Tulum Ruins were cool to see, but we heard that the structures at Chichen Itźa were much larger and the park was way bigger.  We decided to get up early one morning to take the 2 hour drive to Chichen Itźa ourselves.  The drive wasn’t so bad, but keep in mind that you will have to go through a toll booth from Cancun.  It was about $275 pesos to take the more direct (and nicer) road, and $147 to take the “free” road, which adds about an hour to your trip (we learned this the hard way lol).

The entry fee to Chichen Itźa was about 216 pesos per person, or $10.52.  The park itself was huge, and so were the structures.  I was so glad we went to visit!  Everything was beautiful.

On the way back, we decided to stop at a random restaurant, once again to try some authentic Mexican food.  It was DELICIOUS!  But, unfortunately I was too busy eating to take a picture of the sign outside so I can’t tell you what it was called! 🙁  The point is, don’t eat at any of the restaurants inside the park or immediately surrounding it.  They’ll only serve you a bunch of stuff you could get at home (they had the nerve to sell Cup of Noodles! Smh). We drove about 20 minutes back into town before stopping at a random place.  Here are some pictures of our food though!

Tacos Al Pastor

Grilled Pork

Flyboarding

Towards the end of our trip, we decided to get one more adventure in, and try Flyboarding!  I’ve been wanting to try it for a while, but I almost chickened out the day before we were set to go.  Of course my husband talked me into it anyway.  We went to a place called AquaWorld, which was about 3 minutes from our resort.  They offered plenty of water sports and tours, but I was most interested in FlyBoarding, and my husband wanted to HoverBoard.

It was a lot of fun, but its sooo hard!  The boots were really heavy, which made it kinda hard to get your bearings in the water and prepare for them to push you into the air.  It took me about 10 minutes of trying and failing, but eventually I started to get the hang of it.  The instructors were very patient with me, and they had a photographer on the boat nearby taking lots of pictures and video!  They were a little pricey, but I think the memories are worth it.