TOUR HIGHLIGHTS

The Mayan ruins of Coba contain the largest network of white roads known from the ancient Mayan world. You visit the site by travelling along these roads to the, fairly spaced out, different ruins. Much of the site is unexcavated, so it can be hard to envisage the structures as they would have been. But with a good guide, the site can come alive and you can experience the amazing Mayan City.

You will visit several stops around the site, including the ball court, several ancient tablets and the final stop of the Nohoch Mul Pyramid which visitors can climb.

On the way back to the ship, the tour stops in the town of Playa Del Carmen on the mainland, where you can enjoy a meal in a cave restaurant in the town. 

PRE-TOUR

If booked as a cruise excursion, the tours start at many station points along the quay, your ticket should explain roughly where your point will be. Then it is a matter of finding your tour name amongst the many, many, tours on offer! This is not as hard as it might sound, they are all well signed and there are many people around who can offer assistance. Once you’ve checked in, we waited a short while before being transferred to the air-conditioned ferry to the mainland which takes almost an hour.

On the mainland, our guide was waiting who escorted our small group to the waiting mini-bus for the drive out to the ruins which took about 90 minutes.

On the way out to the ruins, the guide provided information about the country and the ruins that we were headed out to see. Only about 25% of the Mayan ruins are actually open to visitors and he reminded us that the Mayans didn’t predict the end of the world- it was just the end of their calendar! Coba is also one of the few remaining sites where you can climb the pyramids.

THE MAYAN RUINS OF COBA

At its height, Coba was home to 45,000 people and was an important link and trading post between the cities on the coast and those inland, but after about 900 AD it was abandoned for reasons yet unknown. It missed discovery by the Spanish so it wasn’t found until about the 1890s with excavations not starting until the 1970s. It is believed to contain up to 6,500 structures, though only a small percentage of those have been restored and uncovered from the jungle. Most of it is still in great condition and many people would like it since it isn’t as excavated or reconstructed as the more popular sites of Chichen Itza or Tulum.

Amongst the jungle vegetation, there are also a number of carved stelae (vertical stone tablets) that are on display to see. Also one of the mysteries found in these ruins is the Sacbe- which means “White Road“- that are perfectly straight stone-paved roads that go through the jungle connecting major cities. People wonder how they were able to make them so straight with hardly way of getting their bearings.

BALL COURTS

One of the best things you’ll get to see at Coba are some ball courts which were important to the Mayan society. The courts are basically an area with a slanted stone wall on either side where the teams tried to get the ball through the hoop. The really interesting bit about the story of these ball courts is that human sacrifice was part of the game! Different theories are out there as to who actually was sacrificed- the losing team or the winning team? Or just the captain of the team? 

CLIMB A PYRAMID

The tallest pyramid we climbed is called “Nohoch Mul” which means “big mound” and is about 42 meters high. There is a rope up the side to help you climb but the steps are quite uneven so your attention is a must. Also, many people find coming down harder than going up. If you do make it up to the top, you’ll be rewarded with stunning views across the forest, which looks like a green carpet laid out beneath you.

NOTE: Whilst photography is allowed at the site, if you want to take video there is a small additional charge.

All told, you spend around two hours exploring the ruins.

CAVE RESTAURANT

After a couple of hours wandering the ruins, it was time to get back on the road for a lunch our guide promised us was in a very special place. And it was! We made our way back to the city of Playa del Carmen and stopped along the street outside a big metal door. Honestly, we were thinking “Really, this is it? We’re just along the city streets”. But then once inside we were taken below ground to a restaurant called Alux that is in a cavern complete with stalactites and everything! The lunch itself was good, but the real treat was the tour of the restaurant once we were done. Our little group was the only one in there at that time so we had the place all to ourselves. 

HOW TO BOOK THE TOUR

For Royal Caribbean, from your reservations page on the website or through your Crown and Anchor account, you can goto to the excursions section and find this tour. You can enter the number of tickets you want to purchase and your tickets for the excursion will be in your stateroom when you board the ship.

WHAT TO BRING WITH YOU

For our tour with Royal Caribbean, we could leave items on the bus between stops, so if you do the same tour then at each stop, we would suggest you should bring as little as possible and leave backpacks and bigger bags on the minibus or back on the cruise ship.

Things to remember to bring are:

• Your ship access card and government-issued photo identification
• Water: The tour lasts around two hours and can be very warm, however, you can purchase drinks at the Mayan ruins.
• Camera! You’re allowed to bring cameras and phones and there will be lots of opportunities for photos and videos.
• Insect repellent: The area is a natural home to bugs which might see you as lunch, so bug spray is worth bringing.
• Sturdy/grippy shoes to walk around the ruins, the ground is not especially rough, but it is not the same as a paved path. Climbing the pyramid in anything other than sturdy shoes is not advisable.

CHECK-IN

You need to arrive at your assigned meeting point within the port compound around 10-15 minutes before your tour is due to depart. Check your excursion tickets to identify the precise meeting point for your tour, once in the vicinity, all the tours are well signed and you should find “Mayan Ruins of Coba Tour” quite easily and be able to make contact with your guide.

WAS IT WORTH IT?

We feel this tour is a good value for what you get. It was well organised and the guide we got was excellent. The time at the ruins was enough to see a good chunk of the available sights and the guide described the places we stopped well. His advice to rent the bikes meant we could see much more of the site than would have been possible if we had walked between the different areas.