I love that little beach bar Buhos (owl). Tall swings suspended from the rafters for bar stools, and the most calm shallow water beach with a nice restaurant. Out of the way secret in my mind.
27 $ To go and come back each. golf kart is about 90 $ for the day ! =) Visit at the end of the island... where there's a restaurant. Is really beautifull to see.. Look nothing but go .. take about an hour to visit everything and cost like 1 Us $, but to take picture is just amazing !
The ferry from Puerto Juarez is 70 pesos each way, from Playa Tortugas, $17us RT. So, Puerto Juarez is cheaper but you also have to take in to account what you have to spend to get there. The bus is the cheapest. You can also take the ferry from the hotel zone and take a return ferry to Puerto Juarez if you want to stay on the island later than the last ferry back to the hotel zone, which is at 5:30pm. A golf cart rental for the day is 500 pesos, about $40us. I highly recommend a day trip to the island!
We just returned from Cancun. We took the bus to Puerto Juarez because we wanted to take an earlier ferry. Beware though that R1 buses that go to Puerto Juarez are not plentiful. We waited probably a half hour to forty five minutes in front of the the Lagunamar for a bus. We barely made the 8:30am ferry. Had we missed that, we would have been better to have just taken a ferry from the Hotel Zone since they start at 9:00am, though for a little more money.
I am glad that Laura Mapchick answered the original question. Most of it anyway. Yes, it is $70 pesos each way/$140 R/T, from the Gran Puerto docks in Puerto Juarez. Not a huge savings over $17 US but enough for a beer Unless you can walk to one of the Hotel Zone docks, THERE ARE 3 OF THEM, the bus is the same $8.50 pesos as it is to Puerto Juarez. NOT ALL of the R-1 buses go to Puerto Juarez. MAKE SURE it say Pto Juarez or something reasonably close. Ask the bus driver before you pay him. "VAMOS A PUERTO JUAREZ?" if you are in doubt. More info at http://www.granpuerto.com.mx/movil/ At Pto Juarez you don't need correct change for the ferries but I recommend correct change for the buses as these guys don't give change if you give them $1 US and even if you give them pesos you often don't get the correct change. Two big pluses IMHO for Puerto Juarez, besides the cheaper price. 1. The boats run each way every 1/2 hour on the hour and half hour. Not the case for the HZ boats. 2. It's a nice ride as you enter downtown and you will be traveling with locals as well as tourists. You can even make a bit of adventure out of this trip. If you don't see an R-1 Pto Juarez bus, just jump on the regular R-1 bus. After passing kilometer 0, the bus will make a right turn at the second traffic light. You will pass our beautiful city hall, then go around a traffic circle, pass a McDonald's just after an always busy bus stop & a couple of minutes later you'll make a right turn. GET OFF IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE RIGHT TURN as the bus will quickly make a U-turn and head back to where it came from. Near the end of the first block you will see one or more vans. Here we call them Colectivos. From here it is $6 pesos and about a three minute ride. When you get off the bus you can see an overpass dead ahead. Over the top of the overpass you will see a tall round building. This is your destination. I would definitely recommend having the correct change in pesos here. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS TO MORE THAN FOUR PEOPLE AS THESE BUSES ARE BUSY AND YOU MAY NOT ALL GET ON THE SAME COLECTIVO. This is the adventure part as they are not comfortable, don't have air conditioning, and there maybe 15 or more people on board. I rode one once to a different destination and there were 18 people on it, counting the driver and a baby. I go about 6'3" & 200 lbs and I knew how a pretzel felt. I hope you find this information informative.
