Summary: DO NOT DO THIS TOUR. Anyone is honestly better
off just Ubering to Xochimilco or the Stadium at the
University and just navigating it on your own. You'll make
better use of your time and learn way more. They budget 90
of the tour to be unsolicited and uncomfortable shopping,
our guide taught us only one thing and kept repeating it at
each location, and it makes no sense to go 30 minutes North
to one location to see it for 2 minutes, and then to go 45
minutes South to the boats/other location where they want to
kick you out after half an hour. Full description below:
Horrible tour. We started at 8am and went to see some
Aztec ruins about 5 minutes from the starting point, where
we learned what we would later find out to be the only piece
of historical information on the tour: Mexicans were born
out of the Aztecs and Spaniards. We asked what the ruins
were and the tour guide didn't know. She then went on to
tell us about all the atrocities that had happened around
these ruins, such as the student massacre a few decades ago.
Super bright way to start our day.
We then got on the bus and tried to shake it off,
thinking we'd go to the stadium or the gardens, you know,
the two things on the itinerary for the day. Instead, we
were taken 20 minutes away to this random store where they
had clearly been expecting us. Our guide went on to say this
is where the son of the guy who made the Heart of the Ocean
in Titanic works. She literally said this is important for
you to learn about our culture. Ok then. After a horribly
uncomfortable 30 minutes at this store, we got back on the
bus and waited for this woman to reappear. When she did, we
asked if we could go to one of the actual points of our
tour. She was actually upset we didn't want to go to the
three other places she was trying to take us to buy her
friends' things.
We decided to go to the University and that we'd be in
the area for the floating gardens. Come to find out when we
got on the bus and googled it, they were taking us 30
minutes North, and would then be taking us 45 min south to
Xochimilco. We tried to keep sunny for our friend who we
were celebrating on this trip, and could do ok until this
point. We get to the university and all file out of the bus
to go check out the stadium. We looked at the mural and our
guide reiterated the factoid about Mexicans being an Aztec
and Spanish mix. Cool, we thought, can we go check it out?
We got a resounding No from our guide. At this point, we
were upset. They literally took us a ridiculous distance to
get out and look at a stadium for 2 freaking minutes. This
shouldn't even be part of the tour when the guide knows
nothing about it and doesn't have access to the actual
venue. Unbelievable.
Angry and tired since we got up at 7am to get to the
starting place by 8am, we finally headed down to Xochimilco.
Since we passed on the shopping detours, we got there around
10:30am, and there was basically no one there. We got on the
boat, went down the waterway, and after 30 minutes they
tried to take us back. We told them we had just gotten food
and asked if we could go back since it was 11:15 and the
tour was supposed to go until 2pm. They charged us 5 USD a
head and let us stay, but then tried to take us down this
completely abandoned waterway when we could hear the main
one getting full of people and the things we actually wanted
to see. We had to beg them to take us back down that way,
and they did until a halfway point and then took us back.
Total time on the boat was maybe 1hr and 15min.
We got back on the bus and then sat in traffic for an
hour and a half trying to get back to the start point. This
company doesn't use toll roads, so you just get to sit and
stare at nothing while trying to get home to salvage your
trip. We realized that not only did we learn nothing, but
the total amount of time doing the activities advertised was
less than an hour and a half. Infuriating. Again, I highly
recommend doing these activities on your own on separate
days if you want to have a good experience.
