Xcaret tours from Cancun are day trips of twelve to fourteen hours, and most of that is not the drive. The park sits about 74 km south of the airport, roughly an hour away. The hours either side belong to the hotel circuit and to an evening performance that ends at closing. What the fares below differ on is the collection hour, the size of the coach and which ticket the figure buys.
The park operator's own coach, and the most reviewed way to make this trip by a wide margin. Your wristband is handed over on the bus. The headline fare buys the cheaper grade, so food and the private changing area are an upgrade you choose at booking.
From $185 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Two of four parks and sites on one booking, taken up to fifteen days apart. Hotel collection in Cancún, a guide who works in English and Spanish, food and drink, and lockers, dressing rooms, showers and a towel.
From $280 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Thirteen and a half hours, with fins and a snorkel mask in the fare alongside the beach, the aquarium, the butterfly house and the rainforest trail. Transport is a paid option rather than a given, so read that line before you pay.
From $186 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
The longest day sold out of Cancún at fourteen hours, and the one with the deepest review record of the coach days at the dearer grade. One meal with unlimited soft drinks, and the aquarium, aviary and butterfly house in the fare.
From $260 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Ten of its twelve hours are spent inside the gate, the longest stay stated on any card here. Collection from Cancún and down the coast at seven, up to sixty travellers, and one meal with unlimited soft drinks.
From $262 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Collects from Cancún hotels and nowhere else, which keeps the morning circuit short. Thirteen hours, fifty seats, round-trip transport and one meal with unlimited soft drinks, ending with the evening show.
From $267 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Leaves at half past six, earlier than anything else here, and caps the coach at thirty. The dearer grade is in the fare, with one meal at a park restaurant and a soft drink, plus the children's water park.
From $268 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Collection from Cancún hotels, the wristband handed over on the bus, the rivers and the beach by day and the evening performance before the drive back. The deepest review record of anything here.
See this tourThe distance is modest. Grupo Xcaret puts the gate 74 km south of Cancún International Airport, about an hour by road, and 6 km from Playa del Carmen, about fifteen minutes. So why does your day run twelve to fourteen hours? The circuit at each end. A coach collects from a string of hotels in the morning and sets down at the same string at night, and the park keeps you until the evening performance finishes.
Travellers describe both ends of that. One wrote that the day ran from seven in the morning to eleven at night, which is longer than most people picture. Another warned that the coaches leave the park at ten and that there may be a long line of drop-offs before yours. If you have an early start the next morning, plan your day around that rather than the drive.
Where you sleep changes the day more than which operator you pick. The table sets the two starting points against each other on the four things that differ.
| Leaving from Cancún | Leaving from Playa del Carmen | |
|---|---|---|
| Distance to the gate | About 74 km, roughly an hour | About 6 km, roughly fifteen minutes |
| Collection hour | Between 6:30 and 7:00 in the morning | Around 8:30 in the morning |
| Length of the day | 12 to 14 hours | 11 to 12 hours |
| Hours inside the gate | 10 hours on the fares that state one | 10 hours on the fare that states one |
| Return | Departs at 10 p.m., then a hotel circuit | Departs at 10 p.m., then a short run north |
See the Cancún coach day from $185
Two hours of your morning is the honest size of the difference. That is no reason to move hotel. It is a reason to take the earliest collection you can stand from Cancún, because the rivers close at 5:30 p.m. whatever time you arrive.
This is the one thing worth checking before you look at the price. Several of the fares above sell a choice of grade. Where they do, the headline figure is the cheaper one, while the description of what is included describes the dearer. A traveller on one of them found the buffet was not in the fare and paid $45 a head for it inside. Every card above prints which grade its figure buys, and the Xcaret Plus tours page sets out what the dearer one adds.
Hotel collection is named in the fare on most of these, but the address you give decides what happens. Operators collect from hotels on their own list and assign a meeting point to everyone else, and more than one reserves that right even for addresses it does list. One traveller on a fare sold from Cancún wrote that transport is not offered from every hotel. Confirm the point and the hour the day before, in writing.
Coach size is stated on some cards and not on others. The smallest here caps at thirty and the largest at sixty, and a traveller on one of the bigger coaches described a two-hour ride they found overcrowded. If that would spoil your morning, book the capped one.
Fourteen hours from your door, hotel collection around Cancún and the coast, one meal with unlimited soft drinks, and the aquarium, aviary and butterfly house in the fare.
Check availabilityOne fare here is not a single day at all. It buys two of four parks and sites on one booking, taken up to fifteen days apart, one a day. It is the only way you can reach the pyramids on anything sold here. Two cautions come with it. The pyramid leg and the zipline park are not offered on Sundays, so a Sunday booking narrows the choice. And a traveller reported the morning collection running so long that the group reached the gate an hour and a half to two hours after opening.
Do not book a Cancún day if a six-thirty alarm would ruin the holiday. Do not book one if you are travelling with small children who will be asleep before the performance that closes the day. Staying in Playa del Carmen and buying from there gives you two hours back at both ends.
Do not book one either if you have a car. Parking at the gate is free, the road is a single highway, and the entry ticket bought on its own costs a fraction of any coach fare here. The drive is what these fares sell; if you do not need it, you are paying for it twice.
Every fare, grade and collection hour sits side by side on Xcaret Tours.