Costa Maya Cruise Port Tour | No Excursion Needed

Hey everybody, I'm Josh.

And I'm Rachael.

And today we're gonna try to help you understand if you should get off your cruise ship at the 2nd busiest cruise port in all of Mexico. Let's go! Here we go! Good morning and welcome to Costa Maya, Mexico.

We're here for about less than 6 hours, right?

Yeah.

So we decided not to do an excursion today. Nothing was really speaking to us, but they do have a pretty built-up port area. So we're going to see if there's enough to do in this port to spend all 6 hours in.

Yes, or as much as we can.

Yeah, we do see that some things are under development, like they have a dolphin area that is under development right now and some bar areas, but there is a few restaurants, few bars, a few pools that are public access. So we're gonna check those out, but probably gonna walk through and get a lay of the land first.

Yeah, some shops as well. So depending if you want to get your souvenirs, you definitely can here. And of course your Diamonds International.

Yeah, which we're standing right next to. So if you're that person that gets the charms all the time, you can get it here. All right, so turning you around, here is the prices for couples massage. We are going to go do this. Right away. So $90 for 40 minutes. All right, so we had a feeling we would probably try to do a few different things that you can do here, and couples massage right away was open. So figure why not? There is a show here. We'll try to catch this later. But $90 for 40 minutes for a couples massage. On the cruise ship right now, it's about $250 to $300 for An hour's worth. So I think that's a good deal. Going into the healing tent. So we will return back to the tour.

To the start.

But that was a 40-minute massage, and it was really nice.

It was really nice.

I was thinking about the difference between this and getting it on the cruise ship. The difference is on the cruise ship, you have that really ambient sounds and mood lighting. And this, there was like a Mayan war chant in the middle.

I'm so glad you heard that too, because I thought at one time I was losing my mind.

I don't know how I couldn't hear it. I felt like they were coming for us.

And your face is just down looking at the floor, so you can't I really do like the cool ocean breeze and the sound of the ocean because you really can hear that as well. But there are other noises as well, such as children playing, um, and then this Mayan ritual, I think.

Yeah, so it, it costs a lot less than what you would pay on your cruise ship, but there are some downsides to it. But I mean, I thought it was really good.

I thought my masseuse did a really good job.

It was a great way to start the day. That's a great way to start the day. And now let's go ahead and walk around here a little bit more.

We do need to put on sunscreen though, because I do not think the oil all day long would be good for us.

I think I'm covered in baby oil right now.

Yeah.

Okay, let's go back to the beginning. All right, this is where we started, Diamonds International.

Perfect timing.

Yeah.

It is very important to remember that during the whole flight, they will not be using any type of safety net, cables, or harnesses. Every time they perform this ritual, they are literally risking their lives. So please give it up to the flyers. This ritual This ritual was originated in the Gulf of Mexico area. The reason for this ritual was mainly to please their gods and invoke fertility upon the community so they would have good rain and corn crops.

I can't believe they're hiding in the boat. I didn't even see them when you were shooting at them.

All right, the timing of that was pretty good. We think that it's Probably every 30 or 60 minutes.

Yeah. If you want to take a picture with them, please come closer and remember: Welcome to Costa Maya. Welcome to paradise.

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All right, over here we do have a cafe. You can get some Mexican coffee and Starbucks, apparently.

I was going to say, more Starbucks.

Uh, there's a bunch of shops, drugstores. Not sure what all you can get at the drugstore, but I've heard stories. They got your regular Del Sol, a lot of those shops that you would probably find in pretty much any Caribbean Yeah, I do see like an ice cream Mexican candy store though too. Oh nice.

Yeah.

Lots of jewelry. I do see at these, uh, restaurants and cafes that they do have free Wi-Fi if you do that.

I also see like the coconuts.

Oh yeah, you can get a cigar, get a fresh coconut.

Leather goods on one side. Your normal t-shirt on the other.

There are 4 ships in port today, so it is a busy day.

It's very busy.

Oh, fish spa. We talked about doing that. What are you thinking now about fish spa?

I, I think I'm a little freaked out about it, but yeah, I mean, I just got a massage. You could probably talk me into anything right now.

Yeah, we feel a little bit fuzzy-brained right now. Uh, we might have to come back to that because we did talk about doing Fish Spa. But you can see Pandora. There's more gift shops. It does look like you can set up some tours and experiences while you're here. There is a bigger restaurant just straight ahead there. There was a pool right outside of the, uh, spa area.

Yeah.

And here's a second pool. Seems like a bit more of a club scene.

With a swim-up bar though.

Yeah, swim-up bar. And I do believe all these seats are first come, first serve. A mojito bar. Here you'll see a sign that does point to— so Cantina Latina is the restaurant I think we just passed, and then Flavors of Mexico is another one. It's just across from the pool.

Oh.

But then you continue walking. There's more shops, restrooms. And we do think you probably do have to purchase a drink to get a chair, but we have not tested that yet. More shops. Again, more jewelry. You can see there are some handcrafted leather goods coming up. And then t-shirts right after that. This whole area just really seems like a lot of shops. It's kind of alternating between jewelry, leather, random American sports goods. Uh, we've seen some spots where you can get some food items. And here we just came upon some flamingos. They are taller than I thought they would be.

They're very tall. Just hanging out.

This looks like a pretty good all-around gift shop if you're looking for one. It's Fiesta Mexicana, right across from the flamingos. Get your vanilla if you need it, but they kind of have a bit of everything. Get a sombrero even. They do have a Dolphins Encounters area, but it does look like it's is under development, and it did show that on the map when we got here. As you come around the corner, more shops. There was some clothing stores, there was another restaurant, but it was right next to a ton of sargassum, which if you don't know what that is, it's a bunch of seaweed algae that kind of stinks and it builds up.

Not kind of, it really does stink.

Yeah, so that's part of the reason why we don't intend to get into the ocean this time. All right, got some gelato over here. Get some tequila.

Oh, look at how pretty those are!

And he—

there, that guy got one and it really does look like a flower.

Oh, it does look like a flower. And if I remember right, when we came here last time, there was a taco place over here.

Yeah.

And I think it's still open.

So as you can see, you do have to get through like a lot of shops to get to the taxi area. Yeah, we have used this taxi and shuttle before.

We have. Get some tacos here. Those look good. Here you can see you do have to get food and drink to use these chairs. This is another pool further away. And then there's another restaurant just over there. More souvenirs.

There's—

it's pretty well built up. Oh, and there's a fish spa right there.

Another fish spa.

We are getting towards the end, and you can see this is a sign pointing to where the exit is. The walking to downtown is 40 minutes, 2.2 miles. We did do a taxi before, and you can do a group taxi Just double-check to make sure where they're going to drop you off. Otherwise, sometimes they'll take you to a specific club which maybe you don't want to be a part of, and negotiate before you get in.

Hi, no thank you.

Yeah, right here you can see this is where you got the signs to the exit. Taxi and shuttles, uh, taxi and shuttles, you can get a better price for Unless you want single. I remember when we were here before, you could rent those golf carts. I don't really think that there's a lot of things to drive to with the golf carts, so I would recommend a taxi.

Yeah, it depends how adventurous you are, I guess.

Yeah, I don't know where you're going, but if you want your own control, you can get one of those golf carts. Alright, we're gonna grab a bite to eat and I'm not gonna kill you with this wind sound. So here's a quick look over at this and I'll show you the drink prices. And here are the drink prices. Rachael's probably gonna get a Yard Dog, huh?

Yeah, it's exactly what I need after that massage.

Right?

A Yard Dog.

Check out this view though! We're currently aboard Star of the Seas right there.

It's pretty windy, but it's been windy since we got up this morning, so it must just be that kind of day today.

Yeah.

Some cheese sticks.

I think Josh was hoping for them to be Mexican cheese sticks. I don't think they are. I mean, they're in Mexico, so that makes them Mexican.

I love those anyway. And then I got some kind of meat bowl with some cheese and And I think there's cactus too there. Tortillas, guacamole, hot salsa, and Rachael got like an enchilada.

Yeah, cheese enchilada or chicken enchiladas with some beans. Frijoles.

All right, that was a good start, but we did just do some Cokes and I think we need some margs.

Yeah, but we know where there's good ones.

Good margs and good tacos. It is chillier than I thought it would be because it's so windy and a little overcast. It says it might rain.

I think—

So we might not go in the pool. So just food.

Maybe.

2-handed.

2-handed.

All right, we found one of the only almost quiet spots in this port.

It's a very busy port.

It is a very busy port. All right, let's talk about some tacos and margaritas.

I love them.

They were fantastic.

Yeah, we had them a few years ago when we were here, and they're still here, still consistent, still great. Highly recommend. And we got these ginormous fishbowl margaritas for $23.

$23 US dollars. And then the tacos were 3 $18. So I mean, you're paying some high port prices. Yeah, but they were delicious.

And I will say though, one of the downfalls is I use the Apple Touch to Pay or Tap to Pay, and I've been able to use it all week without any concerns. And here at both restaurants, not able to use it.

All right, we're gonna try to do a couple more things, maybe look at some shops and maybe get our fish Spa on, maybe. Never done it before. We'll see. We'll see. Bye. We did talk about doing the tequila and chocolate experience. Unfortunately, it does not appear to be open. Door is closed, but it might be open when you come, so you could do tequila and chocolate. Look at these.

I think these are super cute little salt and pepper shakers. Aww.

Rachael's mad. We're getting a fish spa. Looks like they wash Rachael's feet first. She's going in that one and I'm going in this one. This guy said he didn't feed them all the food. They're still hungry for me. Oh, you're sticking them in?

Yep.

How does it feel?

Weird. It's so weird.

They're going after her.

Josh, it's weird.

There's Rachael's foot being eaten.

People pay extra for the mess. People pay extra for this on like feet fetish websites, I'm guessing.

So if you want to give us a tip, you can do it. Uh, you just click down below. I'm sure it says donate or something. Check out that foot getting eaten.

Gross.

So it is so weird feeling.

Do you love it?

Not yet. I don't hate it as much as I thought I would. I would, but I don't love it.

I wore my swim trunks to get in the water. I didn't know it'd be this water. We're not the only people looking to do this, apparently. Oh God, I told you that is gross. Oh boy, oh boy. Trying to tell you, I don't know.

Oh boy, that's—

tell you. It's worse than I thought it would be.

Ah! It's weird.

That is kind of scary. Actually, what's most scary is that we paid for it. Yeah. Rachel just reminded me that this is 20 minutes that we have to do this for.

Yeah, this was your idea.

It was. Yeah, we thought about this before we even got here. Because where else are you gonna do it, I guess? But I don't like it.

I'm not a fan.

No, but I'm not gonna call it early.

No.

No, they just keep biting me. How do you feel it's been?

It's an experience. You?

I don't like it.

He really doesn't like it. Like, it's weird to me. But I, I mean, I, I'm used to it, but Josh really doesn't like it.

Why are you used to it?

Well, because my feet have been in it for 10 minutes now, and I love the soap. Who doesn't like it?

Yeah, no, it's ticklish, and it's just weird. It's just weird. I don't like it. But we did get to pay for it.

True.

And everybody should do it.

Yeah.

All right, one thing left to do. We're gonna get in the pool, and we just ordered 2 drinks, so we're in a daybed. For the cost of 2 fancy guard dogs.

We have a place to sit our crap.

Back on the ship. I feel like we did a good amount of things to really show what you can do in the port of Cozumel.

I agree.

Yeah, we, we had to push ourselves a little bit. Uh, the fish thing Rachael did not want to do.

I did not.

Um, and we went that pool at the end, which I think was good if you don't have a similar experience on your cruise ship. Now there's 2 questions that we really want to be able to answer this. One is, should you even get off your cruise ship in Costa Maya? And the second is, if you do get off your cruise ship in Costa Maya, do you need to get an excursion? What's your answer to those?

Okay, for the first one, do you need to get off your ship in Costa Maya? No, I don't think you have to. Especially if you've been on multiple cruises and this is just another Mexico port stop for you, I don't think you need to. For example, we are on Star of the Seas right now. It's an over $2 billion ship. You can stay on and explore it. Now for us, we'd already had 2 sea days and we'd had 2 port days. We— I like having my feet on the ground. Yeah, so it doesn't hurt me to go outside.

One of our port days was canceled this trip, so that plays into it. I wanted to leave the ship.

Yeah, and we had— we've spent 2 days exploring the ship. So for us it wasn't a necessity to do that. Now I will say, if you're on a budget, anything you do outside of the ship here at the port will cost you money. Even renting beach chairs.

That's true. Yeah, so if you're on a budget, you should— you can go over there, walk through. But I don't know that you're gonna get anything different than what you're gonna get in a normal area. Yeah, uh, the pool areas are nice. They're, they're better than generally what most cruise ships are going to offer. But yeah, like Rachael said, everything's going to come at a cost. I thought it was enjoyable, but I don't know that it would have been that much different than if we just stayed on the cruise ship today, especially because we're on Star of the Seas.

And if you're talking price comparison, we have the drink package, so we don't really think about the drink prices while we're on the ship. However, I did look at them and most of the drinks here on the ship are between $14 and $15.

Yeah!

So that right there is a total difference than what you get in the port where they were $20 to $25.

Now they were large ones. But yeah, it's gonna come at a cost. Uh, the fish thing was neat. I never need to do that again. It did not feel good to me. Even though I was the one that said we should do it.

Yeah, it was his idea!

The massage—

Compared to what we would pay here on the ship is the massage.

Yeah.

A 40-minute massage for $90 for the two of us is pretty good deal. Now you're not going to get the ambient spa music. It's not going to be very quiet, but it's not obnoxiously loud.

But it's also at a third of the cost.

Correct.

So I think that was worth it for me because I feel like I can generally tune out things other than that Mayan War chant.

And I think they did a great job. We don't get massages often, but I think they did a great job.

If you're a big souvenir person, you should definitely check it out. And actually, compared to Cozumel, which we were at just a couple days before, I like the shops here a lot better.

And I like the less pushiness.

Yes, less pushy, but it is crowded.

It's very crowded.

Yeah, if you're going for an authentic Mexico experience, you're probably not on a cruise ship. Let's just be real. Cozumel is not an authentic Mexico experience in the cruise port either. So just think about that. Like, this is not going to be like, oh my God, it was like I was in this third world country. Or— yeah, you're not.

And in general, you have to realize, I think we said at the beginning of the video, this is the second largest cruise port in Mexico with over 1.2 million visitors a year. Yeah, that's a lot of visitors. So this is going to be on a lot of different cruise itineraries. We had 4 ships today in port that were all— look like pretty big ships.

Yeah. Next question is, should you get an excursion if you are in Costa Maya?

So far we've been here twice and we didn't get an excursion either time, and I would say yes, with the caveat of knowing you're probably going to spend a little bit of time within a shuttle, either a bus or transportation of some sort, to where you're going.

Yeah, whether you're going to a beach club Or Bacalar Lagoon or Chacchoben, which is the Mayan ruins, you are likely to spend up to an hour on a bus each way. So especially like today where we only had 6 hours in port, that's a hard sell for us.

It is a hard sell for us. But with that being said, with it being a shorter cruise day, I would recommend going through your cruise ship in case something comes up. Now the next time we come, will we? There's a good possibility we would.

Yeah, I could see that. And originally we, we truly planned on just staying on the ship all day.

Yeah.

But then a couple weeks ago we were like, screw it, let's check this out. We didn't spend enough time in the port last time. We feel like we did now.

Yep, we got all the experiences today.

All right, on that note, what was your favorite bite of today?

Oh, my favorite bite of today has got to be the tacos at the second place. Specifically, I really like the al pastor with pineapple.

I am going with the taco that I made at the other place first because it had that really thick cheese. Yeah, the chunky cheese. I threw some chicken on there, some peppers, some sausage, uh, some salsa, some guac, and it was fantastic. At the second place, I liked the steak taco better.

Which is surprising.

Yeah, but for me, the key was that thick Thick, chewy cheese.

Yeah, I can agree. I wish we would have gotten a whole plate of just that cheese.

I agree. And what was your favorite moment of today?

Oddly enough, my favorite moment, because my feet were already in with the fish, is when Josh put his feet in with the fish because he's like, oh God, this is awful.

I hated it.

Yeah, I've been sitting here for 5 minutes letting them eat my feet. It was so weird. And I knew you wouldn't want to put your feet in if I was like, bleh.

It's true.

So I was trying my best to hold it together so you would put your feet in without an experience already written on my face.

All right, well, I'm just gonna go with the massage. It's not hard to say. Yeah, you know, a nice 40-minute massage. It felt really good for the most part. It was quite relaxing. I did enjoy that quite a bit. But we are almost finished up with this cruise. We only have one sea day left, and we are going to be doing a full-on review of this cruise ship. So if you are interested in seeing what that is like, or if you want to see us in Cozumel or Honduras, which were the previous 2 days, you can check those out as well.

We also have a bar crawl and probably some tips on what's included on this cruise ship.

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And now we're headed up to the pools on the ship deck. So that's the key, especially if you're done at 1:30, you can still go to the pool on your cruise ship.

Yep.

You're not missing out.

Bye!