I heard so many good things about this island that when my friends and I decided to go to Tulum, I instantly planned to leave home a day earlier just to check it out! I was worried because we had less than 24 hours to roam around the island, check out all the beaches and eat all the delicious food, but it was just enough. I mean, if I had an extra day it would have been even more perfect!
Ferry to the Island
We took the boat from Puerto Juarez because I heard it had more crossing times, the ferry leaves every 30 minutes. There are also boats around the hotel zone in Cancun if that’s convenient for you (Map below). Since we didn’t have a lot of time I didn’t want to risk waiting longer for the ferry, we went straight to Puerto Juarez and crossed from there. You can buy your tickets at the location, as soon as we arrived there was a lady with a little stand selling them, no line or anything. It cost us 300 pesos round trip. They also have a few restaurants where you can grab a drink and/or snack for the ride. The boat ride was about 18 minutes and super pleasant. There was even live music! You can store your luggage right when you get on and enjoy the view from the top deck. Make sure to bring sunscreen and a hat.
Cancun Airport to Puerto Juarez
There are many ways of getting from the Cancun Airport to Puerto Juarez, from bus, to shuttle, to taxi.. (there is no UBER here!) it really depends on you budget and how many people are in your group. We were originally going to take the ADO Bus, which tickets can be purchased directly at the airport for about $5, and the bus takes you to downtown Cancun. From downtown you can take a taxi to Puerto Juarez for another $5 or so, but we didn’t want to risk not finding a taxi since we were so short on time, or being over charged. So we decided to grab a shuttle directly from the airport to Puerto Juarez. The shuttle costs us about $14 each and dropped us off right at the entrance to the ferry. If you have a bigger group, you can take a private shuttle for around $40 and split it, this way you don’t have to wait until the shuttle drops off all the other passengers at their hotels. Taxis at the airport are super expensive, so unless you don’t mind spending extra cash don’t even bother.
The Island
We arrived at the Island around noon. We were staying at an Airbnb near Playa Norte and our host was nice enough to let us store our luggage in the room before check in. Our Airbnb was about a 5 minute walk from the Ferry which wasn’t bad at all, we dropped off out things and headed to the beach. We went straight to a Hermosa Caleta by a pier to swim and take some pictures. Bring snorkeling gear! There were a lot of fish and it was super fun snorkeling and swimming with them. The water was really clear so if you have a GoPro, bring it!
For lunch we were recommended to go to Green Demon, but I didn’t love the menu and it was super expensive to lay out on the beach beds, so we decided to have lunch at Oceanvs Beach Club right next door. The food was good, drinks were delicious but the beer wasn’t cold. Our server was nice and told us we could come back and use the day beds for free after 5pm.
We walked a bit around town before sunset and there were a few places that had happy hour 3-6 (2 for 1 beers). One place was called Mahache, they were super friendly and let us take the beer bottles to the beach to watch the sunset and bring it back later. We watched the sunset at Playa Norte, it was magical. Sun setting behind the boats in the water and the full moon on the other side behind the palm trees. Also the water is warm and you can swim until dark.
Dinner, oh wow.. there were so many nice places to eat that I wish I had a bigger stomach! The main street Miguel Hidalgo was packed with restaurants and cute little stores. We ended up eating at Mamma Rosa because I saw the reviews and I had seen it on Instagram, I didn’t regret it, but I wish I picked a different spot since that was our only dinner on the Island. The food was good, but my fish tasted like chicken and my wine was watered down. After we were done eating we walked around the little shops and we saw this super cool bar/restaurant that was packed, the food looked amazing and they had live music. It was called Tres Mentiras. They had a deal going on 3 tacos + 1 beer = 80 pesos! It’s already on my list for next time!
Before heading back to our Airbnb to call it a night we went to the Municipal Square for some churros! We got both churros and crepes, each 30 pesos. If you love churros like we do, this is a MUST! The place is called Churros Zuniga.
For some reason I had imagined the island calm, I thought that everything would close early and open early. We were super tired and went to bed around 9pm, but the town did NOT! From the room I heard people partying and drunk on the streets until 3am. It really caught me by surprise!
Next morning we had a few hours until we had to catch our ferry back to the main land at 10:30am. We woke up early and decided to rent a golf cart for an hour or so to check out Punta Sur. Guess what? Nothing was open! The golf cart rental places only open at 9am, so since we had a few hours to kill we had breakfast at Aroma Isla. The coffee was amazing, food was great and our server was super friendly, I definitely recommend this place!
Now we only had 1 hour to ride the golf carts and even though it was 9am, most places were still closed and some didn’t want to rent us for just an hour! Which was kind of crazy since they had a huge sign with the pricing for an hour. There was a nice man on the street that took us to Rentadora Caribe where we rented the golf cart for an hour, it cost 250 pesos. It was just enough to go to Punta Sur and back. Was it worth it? Yes!
Getting back from Puerto Juarez to Cancun Airport
When we initially arrived I had asked the taxis at the port how much it was to take us back to the airport and we were charged 1500 pesos, crazy right? We had no idea how we were getting back to the airport. I knew that if we crossed the street and grabbed a taxi to downtown Cancun from there, and from downtown Cancun to the airport grabbed an ADO bus it would be a lot cheaper, but that was a lot of work with luggage and all.
Fortunately at the island we stumbled across Adrian. Right across from the churros place there is a cafe called Cafe Internet Adrians. He has daily transfer service to Cancun Airport for $15 dollars. We bought the transfer from him and as soon as we landed at Puerto Juarez there was a taxi driver who knew our names and was waiting for us to take us straight to the airport where we were going to rent a car to drive down to Tulum.
Isla Mujeres is for sure a must, I really enjoyed my time on the island. The water was so clean and crystal clear, the town was super cute and the people are really nice. If you haven’t visited, I recommend it! Next time I think I would stay a little longer just so I can do the underwater museum and check out more restaurants. Hope all this information was helpful for you and safe travels!
Native Wonderer 