Taxi's, Cancún

When departing the Cancun airport the first thing to remember is not to stop for anyone until you are outside where the vans and cabs are awaiting travelers to take you to your hotel. As soon as you are on your way past customs there will be people asking you where you are staying. They will say they have been waiting for you and will then escort you to a desk where you will then get your first taste of Cancun's timeshare hawkers. Ignore these people. This includes the seemingly official "Tourist Information" booths that are ripoff artists operating under the guise of the airport's legitimate facade. If you have pre-arranged transportation, they will have signs with your names on them, if not, still walk out of the airport where cabs are waiting instead of trying to find transportation from booths inside the airport (con-artists).

When in Cancun use the bus system. It is safe, very cheap, runs all the time and almost everywhere. It will not take you to the airport though. You will need to get a taxi or set up other arrangements with a private company such as Get Dita, Travelway Transfers or others.

There are several well known companies that offer Airport-Hotel-Airport transfers. like:

http://www.discoverymundo.com/transportation
http://www.cancuncheaptransfers.com
http://www.alvarotours.com/cancun-shuttle

And another option of course, is paying the transportation from the airport to your resort destination is to have it included in your package stay. As mentioned before, do NOT stop for anyone until your find your resort company desk which is always located OUTSIDE the airport terminal. Not only will you find time-share hawkers, but you will find people willing to "help" you or may even represent themselves as a member of your resort company. They will literally grab your luggage from you, walk you the 15 feet and hold it until you pay them.

When boarding your transportation, they may or may not wait for additional passengers. If you are staying further from Cancun (perhaps in the Riveria Maya section or Playa del Carmen), realize that the driver will stop at every resort in Cancun first. If you don't want to delay the start of your vacation, you may offer to tip the driver extra if he leaves when you are ready.

This type of transportation gauntlet manoeuvering is only upon arrival - your departure from your hotel will be a breeze.

Also, plan ahead of time your activities in Cancun, if you use any of the above companies websites you will save good money and time when purchasing your Cancun excursions.

E mail AGI Tours and they will take care of the transfers and the trip to Chitchen Itza. They are very reliable...Just google AGI Tours Cancun. We have used them for over 10 years and their service is excellent.

Ofcourse there are people that dont like to be taken to the hotel in a bus with all the other sweety people. They like to take their own car with a chaufeur....called a TAXI.
If you are one of them make sure you make a prize before you start driving.....
If you like to know about renting a car, going by taxi and more....see the website below.

Cancun Express are unreliable and can not be trusted!

We paid Cancun Express for a round trip from Cancun Airport to Playa del Carmen and back. The trip from Cancun was OK. However, there was nobody waiting for us at Playa del Carmen as arranged and paid for in advance. As a result we had to take a taxi which cost us an additional $45.

We have made numerous attempts to contact Cancun-Express but they were all ignored! Their website Cancun-Express.com only allows you to book a shuttle bus, car or van by using Paypal. Paypal has been useless at helping to resolve this so it looks like we are out of $45.

Furthermore, we found that taxis cost the same or less so do yourself a favor and use taxis or another carrier for your transportation needs!

Private tours by Carlos Flores Rodriquez from the US 011-52-1-998-860-5523. Hire Carlos for private tours around Cancun. Great driver, speaks English, great rates, knowledgeable about the area, He took us to Chichen Itza and Ek Balam. Since you leave earlier than tour buses and you get there faster you have a lot more time at the ruins. We also stopped for lunch at a very good restaurant in Valladolid and shopped alittle before heading to Ek Balam. You pay him ( negotiable) $200.00 plus his lunch, plus $17.00 for toll road, ruins fee $5.50, tour guide $ 45.00 and tip.
It came out to about $350.00 for 4 people. $90.00 each. I liked it better than the rush of the bus tour. The Ek Balam site is special, you can climb this pyramid and the big tour buses don.t go there.

I've recently found out that many taxis in Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Tulum and many others are accepting credit/debit card payments from all Visa, MasterCard and AMEX cards. Be sure to locate the little green and white cars and tell the driver you want to use this payment option. Definitively, this is great for safety because you don't have to even carry your cash on you!

Some guidebooks say that a ride to the airport from downtown Cancun costs about USD 40 but I did not find this to be true. Mytwo friends and I were able to get to the airport for a total of USD 15 (150 pesos) so this works out to be a better option than the ADO airport shuttle from the first class bus station which leaves every hour and costs about USD 3.5 per person.

I found very little need to use a taxi in Cancún - walking or a bus generally got me where I wanted to go.

A few tips, however.

The taxis do not have meters - bargain the price before getting in. If you ask how much when you get to your destination, you are probably going to pay too much.

Some hotels have taxis waiting right in front. They usually have a fixed price to go to the airport or downtown. If you take one of those, once again you will probably pay too much. Walk down to Kulkutan Road (the main road in the Zona Hotelera) and hail a car.

We only used a taxi one time. Fare was $10 USD for about a 10 miles trip. Not cheap but we split the fare with another couple. Keep in mind that in the Cancun area the tip is included in the fare for taxis.

Never EVER take taxis on the Coco Bongo side of the street. Those cabs are much more expensive and quite abusive with tourists. (I saw how they were charging 40 dollars form there to the bus station)

INSTEAD go ACROSS THE STREET, those taxis have normal fares and are nicer people.

The group across the street and the coco bongo side are TWO completely different cabs in TWO different zones, so have this in mind, ok?

Have fun in Cancun!