Hands down this was the very best part of our trip, in part because it was such a unique experience. We had heard great things from lots of different people about Xplor, but we didn't know entirely what to expect when we boarded the tour bus that took us over to the park. Just a day full of ziplining and swimming and caving but what we experienced was even more incredible than we were expecting!
This is the only picture that we took with our own phones. Once we had our helmets on and phones stuffed into the lockers and biodegradable sunscreen applied, we stopped worrying about taking pictures and fully enjoyed the experience.
And what an experience it was! The entire park was designed around natural caves of the Riviera Maya, and each activity brought us back to 'the heart' of the park, so the transition from one activity to the next was its own adventure of trucking among stalactites and stalagmites and overall much more cave than jungle walking. Our first activity was a combination of both!
The crazies went into one vehicle and the cautious went into the other, and we got to go first, which probably frustrated the crazies but kept us calm knowing that we weren't alone driving through the jungle and under the earth!
This bridge was the most exciting part of the drive!
This is my nervous 'wooooooo' face, which actually means I'm slightly terrified but can't fully let on for the sake of my babies. I have had nightmares about getting stuck in caves, so this wasn't exactly a dream come true for me.
Sharp curve!
We yelled, "IGUANUA!!!" at least six times on the trail. Daddy said he drove over one iguana's tail but we managed to scare the rest of them to safety first.
The cautious car started singing a song as soon as we descended into the first cave-
"Hi-ho! Hi-ho! It's in the cave we go!
We're in a cave in Mexico!
Hi-ho! Hi-ho, hi-ho, hi-ho!!!"
(cue the nervous laughing)
Daddy, with his much longer legs, handled his vehicle like a boss and would have been happy to drive much faster. I would have liked that too, I just literally couldn't push the gas pedal all the way in.
And the ride was so bumpy!
But so, so cool! Driving in caves in Mexico!
That was the perfect first activity, if it was a little bit longer than we anticipated. Definitely worth doing once! Because the park was a combination of jungle trails and cave paths, it was impossible to really gauge how many people were there, and we tried our best to suppress the frantic Disney pace. There was some construction happening in the park, so I think we didn't even have full access to what all that we might have done. When the crowd tracker levels reached red, we avoided an activity, but there were plenty of green and yellow lights throughout the day, and we really never stood in line for more than 4 or 5 minutes for any activity.
The river rafting seemed like it might be the trickiest to navigate, so we paired up- brave Daddy and Noah in the front-
Adam and Mommy in the middle-
with Leah and Emma in the back. I guess they were too close to us to get their own good picture, darn it.
We progressed through the water with plastic paddles strapped to our hands-
This activity felt the most panic-inducing- the rafts kept getting stuck on rocks and wedged sideways, all of the rafts clumped up and crowded too close together, and if we got too close to the cave walls we risked getting our exposed skin and faces seriously ripped up. Notice Emma's braced arm and Leah's ducking head.
Overall, this activity probably would have been much more fun a second time through when we would have been more familiar with what to expect, but we only did it once and that was fine with everyone!
The cave journey between the activities had plenty of photo opps, so we had lots of fun with the cameras-
Bat family!
This one would be my favorite if we could see Leah!
Here's another almost favorite-
Half smiling, half surprised-
The kids walked through this waterfall a few times throughout the day- the water must have felt good!
After a few warm up activities it was time for the main event- ziplining!!! Everyone was excited, and a little nervous, for ziplining over the jungle. We knew that we would be able to double Noah up, but we thought it would be with me. Turns out he got to go with Emma! The kids all took turns doubling up when they had to, and when they had to go by themselves, they were ready! These brave babies astound me- Noah suprised us all and loved ziplining, and was clearly so proud of himself for doing such an awesome thing. We were all proud of ourselves!
My favorite doubled-up pictures-
These views!!
We did all of the ziplines in the park- 7 lines before lunch and 7 lines after. There were lots of towers and bridges and stairs between the lines, and very little time to stop and rest or get nervous between runs. The workers didn't give us a chance to change our minds, even staring off the edge of a windy 150 ft tower or flying 90 feet over the jungle down into a cenote.
Phew!! What an experience of a lifetime!
After the first 7 zipline runs we checked out what we thought would be the underwhelming event of the day- the hammock zipline. They turned out to be my very favorite! A little relaxing, a lot of zippy fun, and so incredibly beautiful with the waterfalls and falling leaves and sparkling clear water.
I love these proud faces!
Legs out or legs in? Shoes on or shoes off? We did a total of six runs on the hammock ziplines so we got to try a little of everything.
This might be my favorite picture of the whole trip!
One more event after ziplining before lunch- the river swim! We were all a bit nervous about what this experience would be like, so we opted for the 10 minute swim, but it was definitely over too soon and we should have done the 30 minute swim.
The river was beautiful, but we barely had time to figure out how to not push each other under the water and how to use the chains on the side of the cave walls to move us along before the swim was over. And we had to make up a song for this activity too to help keep our nerves down- it was hard to tell how deep the river was or what exactly would happen if we didn't keep swimming!
"I'm swimming in a cave in Mexico!
Hope that I don't see a grindylow!
Ouch! I think one just grabbed my toe...
Nope, I'm just in a cave in Mexico!"
We all have the perfect mix of excitement and mild concern in these pictures. The river took us straight into a cenote! It was so cool swimming around under the waterfalls- we felt like the Goonies!
The river swim was definitely top three events for the day!
Afterward we were all ready for a bit of drying off, a bit of rest and some lunch- the food was pretty good but the conversation was the very best part. We had plenty to talk about after our morning full of adventures!
And after lunch we were back at it again! Everyone wanted to do the second (shorter but just as incredible) circuit of ziplines.
Some of the lines splashed us straight into water!
Here comes Adam!
There goes Leah!
More adorable tandem babies!
This run wasn't nearly as dark and spooky as it looks!
Every single view was just incredible. Mexico! In January!
And we finished off the day with another round of hammock ziplining!
On the final run, Noah lost a water shoe and Leah rescued it.
Oh! And I almost forgot about the teeny, tiny little pools that the kids wanted to swim around in at the end of the day. Daddy and I took that 12 minutes to relax nearby with some fruity drinks.
Wow, what an adventure! We would recommend Xplor to anyone- it was such a fun day for our family!
