Thank you quovadis and pepper131. I have already looked at the sites you recommended. Great ideas. q

How we use your email Fodor's may use your e-mail address to send you relevant information on site updates, account changes, and offers. For more information about your privacy and protection, please review our full Privacy Policy .
We have been coming to Cancun for the holidays for several years. This year more family members (total of 12 of us) will be joining us. Our age range is from the early twenties to late seventies and all relatively fit. We are looking for some non-touristy or "off the beaten path" ideas/guides/tours that might include snorkeling, ruins, cenotes, etc. that will entertain those that have been to Cancun before and those that have not. I am not interested in taking family members to swim with the dolphins or Xel-Ha or Xcaret. Another thought, has anyone hired a local university student as a guide or driver? We speak some Spanish.
Thank you quovadis and pepper131. I have already looked at the sites you recommended. Great ideas. quovadis, you mentioned that you hire guides/drivers, how do you contact these people? Do you just approach the cab drivers? I assume you don't go through your hotel.
pepper131, have you used Alltournative tours? I looked at their website and it looked interesting, however, sport car rentals when I looked a the cancunmap.com -Mayan sport car rentals Riviera, it mentioned something about the Nuevo Durango Cave Tour, Punta Laguna spider monkey reserve, and the Beel-Ja sport car rentals lagoon with hiking trail. Do you know anything sport car rentals about these places?
I have visited Punta Laguna sport car rentals on my own w/o an organized tour and really enjoyed it. The hike into the jungle is easy but you do need to watch for slippery tree roots. Somehow our guide easly navigated in flipflops. We did Coba in the morning and PL in the afternoon.
I haven't heard of the other places. I might need to update my cancunmaps and see what these places are about. We did an Alltournative sport car rentals Tour a while ago - before we figured out how to get to many of these places (or similar) on our own. We really like the tour, sites and guides.
I'd also appreciate advice about car rentals from the Cancun sport car rentals airport and back for a week. We're normally happier with the bus system sport car rentals but will be traveling with our daughter and her husband sport car rentals and they plan to rent a car at the airport.
We always rent a car. Since we stay in Tulum along the beach road - a car is a must. We drive ourselves around the area. Fortunately, we have never had any problems while driving. If you choose to visit Punta Laguna on your own, make sure you drive in the direction of Pac Chen at the Coba traffic circle. Punta Laguna will be on your left about 20 minutes from this turn (it seemed longer than how it's laid out on the cancunmap).
Renting a car is sometimes a crapshoot. I've rented mostly from cancunrentacar.com - they operate under 3 names: American, Continental and Cancun. I've had a couple of off experiences with them but continue to rent from them because they make it right eventually, and most importantly, they have the best prices.
I used to reserve a car for a week on-line with one of the major car rentals sport car rentals companies and never had any problems (maybe four times). Two years ago, I had a bad experience with Hertz plus we were pulled over by police who claimed sport car rentals we were speeding. We had to pay off the police officer, not a lot of money, but it put a damper on things. In addition, the Hertz rental agency claimed that they didn't have any of the bargain cars that I had reserved, but they did happen to have several Hummers available for about 4x my reservation. I eventually got my price, but upon returning the car, ended up paying too much. We have had friends use the smaller, local rental agencies that have had only good experiences. They also got quotes up front in writing that included all the necessary insurance.