Aug 12, 2023
A beautiful day in Parque Tayrona - It’s a long day but it’s worth the trip. You are taken in a comfortable air conditioned bus to Parque Tayrona and a guide takes you on the hike inside the park until you reach the beautiful beaches. Lunch is included. Get the fish it’s delicious and freshly fried fish. The tour operator and guides are very nice and the park itself is spectacular. A must see highly recommend this trip.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Dec 21, 2019
Good Destination but far too long a journey to get there - A nice day trip,to a pleasant clean beach . It compares favourably with Playa Blanca which by all accounts is overcrowded and riddled with people hassling you to buy things . It was 18 hours door to door with 12 of those hours being spent on the bus. This is a beach trip and if you want to see Wild Life in Tayrona there’s a two hour walking option ( 4 hours walking round trip ) . The tour people were v kind ,pleasant and helpful but there was limited English spoken .
Review provided by Viator
Dec 18, 2019
Beautiful beach - The beach was beautiful and relaxing. The lunch was tasty. This is only the one Crystal beach, so you won't see any fun wildlife. I misunderstood that when I booked so if you'd like to hike and see wild life I would try a separate tour. The company and guides were nice and also bilingual! Would recommend!
Review provided by Viator
Dec 9, 2019
Great trip! - First time ever using this site & the tour was fantastic. Prompt and very convenient pick-up; pleasant tour guides and beautiful experience as expected. Make sure to bring your own towels, extra $ and use the restroom prior to boarding the bus!
Review provided by Viator
Dec 1, 2019
Beautiful beach and reef, surrounded by mountains - The trip was long, because that Tayrona Park is far from Cartagena. We had a small inconvenience that the bus had a technical problem, but the guide Alice and the driver were espectacular and resolve the problem efficiently in order for our group to have a pleasant excursion. What a wonderful day, beautiful place, pretty beach, snorkeling was amazing, beautiful colors fish and the reefs full of life..
Review provided by Viator
Nov 3, 2019
A must do trip in Colombia - Well organized and extremely professional crew, in a breathtaking national park with one of the most beautiful beach in the world. Excellent food, snorkeling, with amazing natural views.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Jan 14, 2024
Daytrip to Tayrona from Cartagena - If you only want to see Tayrona park in one day from Cartagena- this is a decent tour to take.
Pickup/Drop off:
Received notification day before to be ready by 320am. But we weren’t picked until 340am and then we were dropped off to Monumento Torre del Reloj to wait for the bus to take us to Tayrona. When we got in to the bus around 4am we still had to pick up other people along the way. I wished pick up could be better- at least stagger pick up time base on where one is staying.
Drop off- if you’re staying in central historic- you will be dropped off at Monumento Torre del Reloj and you’d walk back to your hotel.
Bus ride: Driver was great. Ride was bumpy on some part of the area- I think for road safety reason on places where vehicles have to slow down. Seats were comfy but wished the seats could recline a little bit more. Was not able to sleep. If the tour bus is full- it might feel a little tight. They made stops for bathroom break- one halfway through and just before and after entering Tayrona. You can leave things in the bus if you don’t need to bring into the park - We were told it might be cold- I brought a light jacket just in case and just left it in the bus.
Bring changes- have to pay 2000 pesos to use the bathroom.
We were given breakfast as complimentary - ham and cheese sandwich and a juice. If you have free breakfast from your hotel. You can ask your hotel to arrange one for you to go. Some brought their own. If you’re vegetarian- maybe let the tour operator know ahead.Tour operator also gave us a bottle of water.
We were given 2 options:
1 - go to a beach and just stay there the whole day
2 - hike, go through the park and see the beach (Cabo San Juan) which is different from the beach above
We opted for option 2 since wanted to see more and also my friend forgot her swimsuit.
Arrived at the park close to 9am
The hike was about 2 hours to the beach then 2 hours back. There are beaches you will stop by on the way. If you want to stop on the swimmable beaches and just stay- you can but recommend to go all there way in the end - to Cabo San Juan beach- Hike was moderate. You can opt to take a horse. Wished I had taken the horse. You would be able to spend more time in the beach and save time. But I didn’t know how much it cost- wished I knew how much before the tour so could bring enough money if needed. What I didn’t like about the trail is that on some parts- you have to share same trail with the horse…just smells like horse manure and have to try to avoid the horses and their manure. I wouldn’t recommend hiking if it just rained. Could be very muddy and slippery.
The guide- was like a boot camp instructor- encouraging us to make it to the end and go faster. The faster you get to the location the more time you could spend on the beach. We saw different viewpoints, a monkey, termite hives. There are stands, people selling food/drink
Cabo San Juan beach is nice- There’s a shower at Cabo San Juan beach- again, you also have to pay - 2000 pesos
You spend about an hour on the beach.
Lunch was provided and it was good- portion was big.
This tour is offered in Spanish only. We still took a chance- My friend speaks and understands a bit- and we were lucky we met someone who’s knew how to speak English and translate for us. But the tour operators did try their best to translate for us.
Looking back, I wished I had opted for option 1- I don’t mind just relaxing on the beach for hours. I’m not fit and not a hiker. But I still don’t regret taking option 2 for the experience.
Review provided by Viator
Aug 29, 2020
it was very good - Excursion in boat to tree different islands in Cartagena, that experience was really nice because the guide brought us to a beautifully beach that have many snails. all the trip was very nice because the pilot talk about history and explain some things about the beaches, also the guide brought us to the beach that it is the more visited in Cartagena , there we saw the community and went to swim with a blind shark. Finally at the end of the day we went back to the hotel and we were satisficed because we purchased another trip because the trips aren't expensive, in general all the trip was very good I recommend to go to the island that have more tourist in Cartagena.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
May 14, 2020
Good - Long drive early in the morning. Tayrona park is interesting but not enough time to visit other places in the patk only Cristal beach which was very bussy. Santa Marta is nothing special but if you have enough time in Cartagena revommended.
Review provided by Viator
Dec 18, 2019
PLEASE DO NOT BOOK THIS TOUR! SCAM - Please do not book this excursion.
This excursion is very misleading and you will not be able to do anything that is mentioned in the description. I am convinced that this tour is based on a broken system where they try to scam you into paying more.
This is a very long excursion (4am-12:30am(20 hours). We did not feel safe during it.
The bus ride was 5 hours to get to the park. On the bus the tour- guide presented two options. I was confused by this because normally when I go on excursions they lead the way. They asked us do you want to walk through tayrona or do you want a bus ride through tayrona. We picked to walk.
We ended up having to take a public transportation bus to tayrona park because they did not have enough seats. We also ended up having to PAY to get inside tayrona park.
If we were not so far from our hotel I would have called a cab and went back because the whole situation felt unsafe.
We ended up going through the park on our own. There was no one to tell us about the park and it’s history nothing.
WE DID NOT SEE neguanje, cristal beach or el rodadero.
This tour is a HUGE SCAM! They are trying to rip you off. I beg of you please do not waste your money booking this excursion through Samaria Tours do it with someone else.
We felt unsafe the entire time, and the bus ride back was even more scary because they were SPEEDING down a dark road with no lights for 5 hours.
We were so thankful that we made it home safe. So I am writing this to say, please do not waste your money on this trip. It will ruin the tayrona experience AND IT IS NOT SAFE. It is a scam.
Review provided by Tripadvisor