A booze cruise with the best view in Cancun. Sounds like it's too good to be true and in many ways, it is.
From Tulum, this tour starts with a 7 AM pick-up. It is painfully cold and dark as we cab to the giant gates of Dream resort. Indifferent guards stop us in our tracks as only paying guests are allowed inside their towering gates. We the peasants will await our tour van under a straw-thatched bus shelter in 50 degrees of Fahrenheit misery.
We grabbed muffins from Bean Bagz Cafe last night, and I am eternally grateful for the crumbly Coffee Muffin comfort that keeps my blood sugar up during these trying times.
The Mixed Berry Muffin is pretty great as well. It stayed impressively moist without losing a single crumb of flavor all night.
At long last the van arrives. The driver exits, squinting against his own headlights. "Who are you?" he shouts, a bit too loudly. His eyes are red and appear a bit glazed, and I hope it's from lack of sleep rather than a stronger spirit. I point to my name on his list and I present my voucher, brightly backlit on my phone. "MAKE IT BIGGER, I CAN'T SEE!" he shouts. At least five times. It has not occurred to him that no one in their right mind would freeze outside at this hour without a voucher.
We finally hop on, and I make a mental note to ask the tour company to get his vision checked. We watch apprehensively for the next three hours, as the names of every resort between Tulum and Cancun passes by. We drive through three different sprawling resorts to pick up the remaining guests.
Three hours in a van has me seething - this is the kind of thing they should tell you about in the tour description. Before we can escape, the driver announces, "Don't forget to tip your driver!" And suddenly everyone forgets. I would have tipped him to not be my driver.
Herded like sheep through a Disneyland-style line, we mill inside to pay an additional port tax, which they find impossible to include in the price of the tour. Some scammers waste more time selling organic sunscreen, claiming you can't go into the water with regular.
The catamaran ride is beautiful, and things look up when we finally get aboard. The sun emerges eventually, and the crew keeps the drinks coming.
They drop us off in a tourist containment area for lunch, but hey, the food is included and it's not half bad.
The Pibil Fish tastes just fine in a tortilla with a side of rice and beans.
There's a Pibil Chicken too, and it's a solid white meat chicken which not too dry.
Back on the boat and on to the real Isla Mujeres. The beach is beautiful albeit crowded, and the streets are lined with tourist-trap shops selling all sorts of want-but-don't-needs.
There's a clear sky and more drinks all around on the way back. The crew dresses in drag and throws down harder than we can imagine, and with a view like this, I almost lose my desire to file a complaint.
Alas, I have more complaints than praise. Once we reach the Cancun shore, we once again board a 3-hour van with plans to dump us in front of Dream, which is a busy highway in the middle of the night, not a cab in sight. Our driver, Angel the angel opts to take us back to our hotel, an inconvenient 40-minute round trip out of his way when we voice our concerns. We don't forget to tip him.
I could almost recommend this tour for those looking for a smooth sailing out of Cancun. But if you're already in Tulum, there's no reason to leave. Isla Mujeres is beautiful, but IMHO Tulum beaches are better, and despite an enjoyable catamaran crew, most of this tour is tourture.
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