Disclaimer: I wish I had photos to show you of the process but I had lost my phone and the photos were gone as well.

From Tulum to Chetumal, we took the ADO bus. It was comfortable and on time. In order to catch the Belize water taxi, we left Tulum early at 8am, and reached the town of Chetumal around 11.30am. The Tulum bus station is conveniently located on the main street of town and is also close to our hotel – Ruta del Sol.

By ADO express bus, the trip from Tulum to Chetumal is about 3.5 hours. Leave early enough so you reach Chetumal before 2pm. You still have to get from the bus terminal to the water taxi (10 minutes by taxi) and the water taxis request that passengers be at the pier 30 minutes before departure time.

We went to the terminal to get our ferry tickets. There were not many people at that time, except for a couple of people waiting around. I thought I could use a credit card to pay for the tickets, but they only accepted cash. You could choose to pay in USD with unfavourable rates or to pay in Mexican pesos. I chose the latter option but not having enough pesos, I had to withdraw more cash from the ATM at the terminal. I hoped that I would not be charged the Mexican exit fee, otherwise I would need to withdraw more cash again.

If more people turn up, the small office quickly gets filled up and a queue will form. You will be told to come back at 1.30pm for immigration. We were given our boarding passes in the form of a laminated number tag which the staff will collect back later before boarding. After settling the ferry tickets, we left our bulky luggage at the terminal and walked over to Chetumal town to get some lunch as the ferry was only leaving at 2pm.

There are two companies operating the ferry between Belize and Mexico – Water Jets International and Belize Water Taxis. They operate on alternate days so do check their schedule online. On the day of our departure, it was with Water Jets International. I had tried to make online payment for the ferry tickets but after sending a request through Water Jets International, I did not receive any reference number from the company to allow me to do the online payment. Luckily we could still buy the ferry tickets on the day of the trip itself.

Belize Express water taxi runs both international and domestic sea journeys. For the journey between Chetumal (Mexico) and San Pedro or Caye Caulker (Belize), there is only one daily crossing. The journey between Chetumal to Caye Caulker takes about 3.5 hours, sometimes it could be delayed even more. If you had taken the bus from Tulum to Belize City, you would still end up having to take a short one hour ferry ride from Belize City to Caye Caulker, operated by the same company.

Cost of the ferry tickets

Chetumal to San Pedro 1100MXP (US$55)

Chetumal to Caye Caulker 1200MXP (US$60)

We paid 1200MXP each for the ferry ticket to Caye Caulker as it was our final destination. For round trip tickets, the savings is 100MXP or the equivalent of US$5. Since we were leaving Belize from another border crossing, we only got the one-way ticket to Caye Caulker.

Coming back around 1pm after our lunch, the ferry terminal had slightly more people. The immigration counter opened at 1.15pm and there was no line, so we quickly got our exit stamp out of Mexico. Take note that you don’t have to pay any exit fee if you are not going to re-enter Mexico again. I had my airline tickets (softcopy on my phone) with the breakdown of charges to show to the immigration officials. Otherwise the exit fee would be 558MXP (US$29.30) which is quite a substantial amount. Actually the amount in pesos fluctuates depends on the exchange rate with USD, usually it is about $30 after conversion.

If you have flown to Mexico and are now exiting by a land border, instead of paying the Mexico exit tax, you just need to show two documents:

1) Your FMM card you received upon arrival, and

2) An itemised receipt from your flight purchase showing the Tourism Tax

Boarding was supposed to start at 1.50pm, but there was no water taxi in sight. We laid out our bags and belongings for a dog to sniff for any drugs. The dog was quite cheeky as he kept running away, so the officer had to make him sniff the row of bags that were lined up on the street for a few times. Satisfied that we were not smuggling drugs out of the country, we could finally board the water taxi when it reached around 2.20pm. It was a really small boat, but surprisingly it could fit the 30 of us. All our big luggage were stowed either at the front of the boat or under the platform of the boat. Then people could board the boat in a much faster way.

After two and a half hours of traveling on bumpy seas, we reached San Pedro first. Even if you are continuing to Caye Caulker, you still have to disembark at San Pedro with all your luggage and clear immigration first. Welcome to my country number 91! I was contented to get the next stamp in my passport. We had to pay an additional BZ$2 per person for the terminal fee.

After going into this building and clearing the admin process, we were out of the same door again. We had also changed some money at the counter inside when paying for the terminal fee. It is easy to convery BZ$ because US$1 = BZ$2.

We waited a while more before we boarded the water taxi again. This time there was a change of driver. We took the upper deck of the water taxi to admire the sunset and also to feel the wind in our face. By the time we reached Caye Caulker, the sun had already set and it was dark by 6pm.

Overall this is the whole process of traveling from Tulum to Caye Caulker. We started in the morning and only reached in the evening. The other way is to take bus from Tulum to Belize City, then transfer to a one-hour ferry ride to Caye Caulker. That would be a more lengthy process of about 5-7 hours from Chetumal and it also depends on the number of people at the land border crossing.

Cancún to Belize City
The bus departs from the ADO terminal daily at 11:15 pm, and stops at Playa del Carmen, Tulum, Bacalar, Chetumal, Corozal and Orange Walk.
Fare to Belize City: MX$960 (in January 2020)
Journey time: 9.5 hours