u/BelemnicDreams

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My partner and I are visiting Yucatán for a few days and would love some advice from people who've done these trips.

We're arriving in Mérida on Monday 26 October, taking an ADO bus from Cancún in the morning, so we'll arrive mid/late afternoon. We're flying from Mérida to Mexico City at 3:30pm on Friday 30 October.

Our rough plan is:

Monday 26th:

Arrive Mérida around mid/late afternoon, check in and spend the evening exploring Mérida/Centro.

Tuesday 27th:

Leave Mérida very early, aiming to arrive at Chichén Itzá around 8am for opening. Spend the morning there, then visit a cenote somewhere convenient on the route back to Mérida.

Wednesday 28th:

Drive to Celestún, aiming to arrive in the morning, do a mangrove/wildlife/flamingo boat trip, spend some time at the beach and then return to Mérida.

Thursday 29th:

Leave early for Uxmal, aiming to arrive in the morning. Potentially visit one of the other Puuc sites afterwards or the chocolate museum, then return to Mérida.

Friday 30th:

Spend the morning looking around Mérida before heading to the airport for our 3:30pm flight.

So we'd have roughly three excursion days, but we're deliberately trying not to cram too much into them. We want to see the main things without feeling like we're spending the whole trip jumping on and off tour buses.

We're considering hiring a car for Tuesday–Thursday, but I'm a nervous driver, so I'm particularly interested in how easy/intimidating people found the driving around Mérida and on these particular routes. I'm from the UK and am comfortable driving generally, but obviously Mexico is unfamiliar territory.

A few questions:

Chichén Itzá

- Is arriving around 8am realistic if driving from Mérida? How early would we need to leave?

- If we arrive for opening, is it easy to arrange a guide at the site, or should we pre-book one?

- We'd prefer a good local guide rather than an expensive private day tour from Mérida. What's the best way to arrange this?

- Is the early start genuinely worthwhile for avoiding crowds?

Celestún

- Can we simply turn up and arrange a mangrove/wildlife boat trip on the day, or should we pre-book?

- Is there a significant advantage to arriving early?

- We're particularly interested in wildlife and the mangroves rather than just doing a generic boat trip.

Car hire / driving

- Is renting a car for these three days a good idea versus book group bus tours?

- What should we know about insurance/deposits etc.?

- Most importantly, how difficult is the driving for a nervous driver? Are the roads to Chichén, Uxmal and Celestún straightforward?

Cenotes

- Which cenotes would you recommend that make sense geographically on the Chichén/Uxmal/Celestún routes?

- We're not trying to visit loads. We'd rather do one or two really good ones than tick off a list.

- Ideally somewhere that isn't just a huge tourist attraction attached to a bus tour.

Mérida itself

We'll have Monday evening and Friday morning to explore Mérida, and obviously we'll see some of Centro while we're there. Are we missing anything major or particularly worthwhile by only having these short periods in the city? Is there anything you'd prioritise beyond Centro/Paseo de Montejo?

Finally, if we decide the itinerary is too ambitious, would you drop Chichén Itzá or Uxmal? We're interested in Maya history and architecture, but we'd prefer a less crowded experience where possible.

We're on a medium budget. Happy to pay for good guides/experiences where they're worthwhile, but we're not looking to do three private tours and private transfers.

Any advice from people who've done a similar itinerary would be greatly appreciated.

Me and my fiancée are due to get married next week! But as of yet, we are still undecided on what we want to do with our surnames. Appreciate this doesn't have to be decided before the day, none of our stationary refers to our future surname and the registrar won't be announcing us in that way either. But inevitably people will ask or will want to refer to us as Mr and Mrs ____ so I want to have made a decision by then.

We have already decided that we don't want my fiancé to simply take my surname. And we don't really want to just keep our own surnames either as we want kids in the future and want to share our surname with them.

The obvious and standard solution is to double-barrel, but there's a few reasons that I'm not keen on that. Firstly the surname would end up being quite long. And secondly, to be truthful, we also have a bit of a chip on our shoulders about not wanting to sound too middle-class - we are both proud of our working class backgrounds as silly as that sounds. The other issue is it then makes things difficult for our future children if/when they get married.

Something we have always semi-joked about is literally combining our surnames, but the more we talk about it and keep referring to the new name, the more we kind of want to do it. So imagine my surname is Peters and her surname is Armstrong, we would become "Peterstrong". That is an example, and I think our actual names sound a bit better than that, but hopefully illustrates it.

My worry is that people will think this is silly or a novelty or we are doing it to be "quirky". Has anyone here done this or know anyone that has done it?

Thanks!

Hi,

I have 8 family members visiting London and staying in Canary Wharf in a few weeks time for an event. No children but a mix of ages. I'm looking for somewhere where we can have an evening meal, it needs to be in/around Canary Wharf for logistical reasons. Somewhere decent and reasonably priced, no expectation of "fine dining" and doesn't need to break boundaries, but it needs to be somewhere I can pre-book with enough room for us all.

Any suggestions? I know Canary Wharf has a lot of restaurants and bars, but seems like it's all either catered to the lunch/after work crowds, or really high end. Obviously there are the old reliable chains like Nandos and Wahaca but they can be pretty uninspiring.

Thanks!