Progreso shore excursion with kids

Picking a Progreso shore excursion with kids can be tricky and thus you can either make your own and just hire a mini bus or vehicle or book the excursion through a tour operator.

How much will it cost?
A lot of tour options which you can pre book are for $700 for a family of 8-10 people. Auto Progreso is one option which is very popular amongst the cruise goers. It charges about $40 per adult and $22 per child for the excursion. If you’re traveling in Carnival Cruise and are in Progreso for a day, you could potentially cover Downtown Progreso, Merida (Pase du Montego), Villa Beatrice and Dzibilchaltun Mayan ruins, museum and a connected Cenote. if you however prefer Chichen Itza or Uxmal, you will have to make do with only the Mayan ruins as reaching those ruins itself takes about 2hrs one way.

Check out this post to know what to expect if its your first Carnival cruise trip.

Travel Options
We took a mini bus for the flexibility with a wide age range in the family (3yrs to 67yrs) with a stroller, a wheel chair and a semi broken ankle. Yeah i know, we still continued with our trip. Also because we did not want to be tied up with any one excursion tour operator but take as much or as less time as we wanted.

Dzibilchaltun Ruins, Museum and Cenote

These are Mayan ruins and also include a 16th century Spanish church – after the Spanish invasion.
Ruins: What to see
Temple of the seven dolls is amongst the only Mayan ruin that you may see with windows. This temple worked as an observatory and was named after the the even ceramic figurines which were excavated. The temple has been constructed such that you can always see the full moon in exactly the centre of the temple. For instance, when one sees the spring moon or the Pink moon through the center of the temple it’s going to be easter.

This temple is worth visiting during 5 times in the year (solstice and equinox): The ancient Mayan civilization planned their lives with sun as the basis as they were an agrarian civilization. The planting began with the spring equinox and the harvest with autumn equinox. This temple is one of the complex structures Mayans built with their knowledge of advanced geometry as well as astronomy so as to make maps of solar cycles.

Central plaza where if you stand at a particular place and together clap your hands in unison you can hear the reverberations echoing against the pyramid structure at the back and the walls surrounding the plaza

Next to these ruins is also a 16th century Spanish church which used some of the blocks from the Mayan ruins. On the right you will also find a pyramid, albeit much smaller than its more famous cousins at Chichen-Itza which is also one of the 7 wonders of the modern world.

Ruins: Guided Tour
I recommend taking a guide as they charge around $30 – $40 as their official rate for a 45min or 1.5hrs guided tour and totally worth it as they tell a lot more about the Mayan civilisation as well along with the monuments and also show the pictures that give you a better idea of how these structures were being used.

Museum:
At the entrance of the Dzibilchaltun ruins you’ll find the museum. I recommend seeing the ruins first as it will still be not as sunny or scorching. The museum is completely covered so best to cover during the afternoon hours.
If you’re a vegetarian family, make sure you’re carrying some snacks and food with yourself as in the cafeteria connected with the museum and the ruins you will not find much.

Linked Cenote: Perfect for a cool swim or just fish therapy on your feet if you’re not up for a swim. We first did the ruins, followed by cenote and then went to museum and exited.

Paseo Montejo
After the Dzibilchaltun ruins we headed to Merida downtown where you can still see the erstwhile glory Merida had as a trading port. There are large houses (or haciendas) as they’re called all along this road but only one is open to public.

We then headed to one of the older hacienda which was converted to a restaurant Xcanatuan hacienda restaurant but got to know that they don’t serve any vegetarian food so we had to rethink and go to a pizza place for lunch.

Villa Beatriz: Only hacienda on Paseo Montejo which is open to public. Haciendas came into being when Yucatan became one of the richest provinces in Mexico emerging as the key trading port between this part of America and Europe (Spain). They built these haciendas as residential mansions from the money from agriculture and trading. A lot of artefacts were procured from different parts of the world including tiles from Italy, porcelain from Europe and chandeliers made of baraccat crystals from New York.

Monument of the Fatherland, Merida
The Yucatan historical monument in the Paseo Montejo with Mayan sculptures and history of Yucatan is a great place for taking lovely pictures amongst Mayan looking sculptures.

Shopping for Souvenirs
You will find streets full of souvenir shops selling sombreros, ceramics, masks and the like all along the port of Cozumel. We did not find anything much on the Progreso side so feel free to pick up something of your choice before getting on the cruise ship back when you visit Cozumel.

This was the last stop on our excursion which lasted almost 8hrs and we made it just in time back to our gangway.