maya'ch expeditions - day tours

I paid Q125 for a bus trip from Coban to Flores, more expensive than travelling from Lanquín which is further away. The shuttle bus never appeared, when I went to the office to find out what had happened it was closes and the contact number went straight to answerphone. I had to take 4 public shuttles and a tuk tuk to get to Flores and it still cost me Q30 less. These guys are crooks, avoid avoid avoid! There are other travel agencies in Coban, I strongly recommend that you use a different company for your travel arrangements

I booked them but not directly, through the hotel i stayed.I booked two tours with them:1. Semuc Champey - 320Q2. Laguna Lachua - private - 1500QBoth tours were guided. Everyone got a lunch box and if the pickup was before 6am everyone got also a breakfast box.The guide was Jorge and he was great and friendly but he doesn't know english so you must understand some spanish.The semuc tour included also the grotas de lanquin included in the price.I also booked transportation from Coban to Panajachel via Antigua and in this case it was a mess.They picked us up at the hotels at 8am but due to lack of organization abilities they departed Coban at 9am.The driver from Antigua is a menace. He was driving slower than the chicken buses and he almost made 3 accidents on the way from Antigua to Panajachel.He hardly knew how to drive, when and how to shift gears, control the vehicle.

I am a little surprised by the overload of poor reviews toward Maya'ch Expeditions. We booked with this group in Coban and the only drawback I saw there was no credit cards accepted. Our guide arrived at our hotel at exactly the time stated, in a clean vehicle and knowing enough English to show us the way. He drove with a sense of urgency but not at the obscene speed some drivers take through this country. He stopped along the way to show us Cacao plants, the national flower and other points of interested. Semec Champey was simply breath taking, no amount of pictures or description can do the proper justice to this place. Our guide showed us the way and swam with us in the pools and we were provided with a tasty sandwich, apple and water for lunch. Additionally, we stopped at Lanquin caves and went as far as tourists are allowed to go into the caverns below. The caves were equally stunning - over 50m high ceilings towered overhead. All of this was had at 320Q as of Oct 12 2014. Overall, I can't complain about Maya'ch. We got exactly what was promised for a fair price.

Trying to organise a day tour from coban to Semuc champey.We arrived Coban and walked around to organise a tour. This is the most difficultly I have ever encountered in trying to get a day tour organised! I travel every month for work as well as for pleasure so I am a seasoned traveller and trying to do a tour has never been this difficult. The hotel we are staying at tried to organise it for us but they said the company they used would not go unless there are 3 so we had to wait and check later.In the meantime, we walked around to see if we could organise it ourselves with tour operators and came across this useless lot. We were at their "office" at 5pm and one guy said it would cost 320Q pp, in the meantime, another fat guy who was disinterested in people but kept playing with his computer game and did not even bother looking up said it costs 375pp. The hotel told us it was 350pp. They then said not to worry but to come back in an hour to see if anyone else books, the price will be 320Q instead of 375Q pp. we then decided to use the time and walk to the bus station to check the time schedules for buses leaving coban for either Antigua or Guatemala City instead of using this useless lot for our shuttle out of coban as they quoted us 125Q pp.We came back at 6pm and they said no one else has booked so will call the boss. No answer so they asked us to come back again in another hour. My hubby was already pissed off by this time but I said we will go get dinner then come back. Now at 7pm and third time back at this stage, they still had no answer for us and said they will call the boss. At this stage my hubby had already made up his mind not to go with them and even not bother going to semuc champey at all! It was getting too difficult and we now regret coming and staying in coban instead of in lanquin.I told them that our hotel is offering us 350Q and if they did it for 700Q for both of us which is the same price as our hotel, we would book with them. They told me to wait again. By now it is 7.30pm and we are tired as we just arrived after 7 hours on the road from Flores due to a strike where tree trunks were used to block and close the roads and rocks were being thrown at cars. So now I was getting pissed off at this stage. They close at 8pm and perhaps make us wait till last minute when they know we would be desperate as we would have no choice but to go with them for the next morning tour to semuc. The guy said that the boss (she) would not do 350Q pp so she would rather not make anything at all rather than make a little less! How ridiculous. Here's arguing a minimal difference of approximately only US $6 but by now it was about the principles not the amount. It was also about their attitude and lack of professionalism. By this stage, the guys attitude had changed from being nice to not bothering with us at all. The fat guy still did not even bother looking at us.Totally rude. They should not be in this business if they don't like dealing with people. A very bad image created of the Guatemalan people. It definitely has put me off Guatemala and the people! They also had no shame in asking if we had decided to book their shuttle from coban to Antigua! I told them that I would see if I enjoyed their tour to semuc first and if I did, I would then book the next day for their shuttle. Thank god we did nothing with them. Someone above is looking out for us.We left there and walked back to the hotel. We checked again with the hotel but no one else was going so we had 3 choices:1. Pay 350Q x 3 (1,050Q) package includes guide, lunch, entrance fee in a shuttle bus2. Pay 1300Q for the above package but with private car3. Pay 850Q for return transfer only - no package and pay extra for entrance fee of 100Q - 950Q but in a car, not shuttle busMy hubby hates tours and he hates having a guide. One would think that 1050Q for the package makes more sense than 950Q as the difference is only 100Q and you get lunch and guide but we chose option 3 so that we can have a free and easy day without someone following us around. The driver will wait for us. We arranged for the driver to also take us to the bank as we had to pay him cash.So the difference between options 2 & 3 is 350Q - lunch and guide's cost.We could have paid an extra 100Q to have lunch and guide but we wanted the car instead of the shuttle bus, plus hubby is happy not having the guided tour and guide.Look at my review under Casa Luna for my comments about their transfer from coban to semuc champey.

We paid to MAYACH EXPEDITIONS to take us back from Coban to Isla Las Flores and during our jouney our suitcase fell somewhere cause the backdoor was broken. We did not know about the brocken back door. By the time we arrived to our final destination we noticed that our suitcase was not in the minibus. We have tried to talk to the owner Araceli Chaves, who we believe is the owner of this company and she has not take any responsability of our lost suitcase. It's been one day and now answer from anybody from this company. We have been top the police station to complain and get some help. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS AGENCY cause the service is not only bad but also cause this company does not care about tourist at all!!!!

Worst shuttle of my 2 month trip through Guatemala and Peru. The driver used his cell phone to answer and make phone calls (at least 5 of them). He also used his cell phone on multiple occassions (including when it was dark and foggy at night) to send text messages. During our bathroom stop at Maya'ch's office in Coban, the driver left half of us without making sure we were notified. As some of my friends were still in the shuttle, they were able to tell me later that the bus driver had left to go bring a local friend back to her house to what they felt it was an unsafe part of town. Besides being upset that we were left at this travel agency at night where men were drinking outside, everything I own was in that van including my passport, credit card, cash money, and all of my clothes (I learned my lesson about separating myself from my valuables, even if they were right next to my friend). We waited for 25 minutes until the driver returned. He did not say anything about why he left. Instead, he brought 3 or 4 of the drunk men into the shuttle with us and brought them to Lanquin. I had no reason to believe these were paying customers, but actually friends of his. Once in the shuttle, he made two stops within 45 minutes so the men could get out and urinate on the side of the road. In order to give them more privacy, he turned off all of the lights, making the van practically disappear into the night. Not only did I feel unsafe being in the van with these men, I felt unsafe being in a van with no lights on the side of the road. Lastly, we arrived at 11 pm. This was 2.5 hours later than I was told we would arrive. Although there are unplanned issues that can delay a journey, the types of delays we had with this shuttle were completely avoidable (wasting our time taking a friend home and stopping on the side of the road so drunk friends could urinate). Do what you can to avoid taking a shuttle with this company.

Had us pay extra to do the kan'ba cave tour with tubing. BUT put us in with another guy who was doing the standard lanquin caves with semuc champey. Shockingly, the caves were 'flooded, es no possible' to do kan'be caves.As an aside, it would never have been possible for the same guide to do both the kan'be caves with us, and the lanquin caves with the other guy on the same tour. SO it was pretty much a set up - we were never going to get to do the caves we paid for.I'd think i was paranoid, if it weren't for the fact that the OFFICE WAS CLOSED UNTIL WE WERE LEAVING ON THE SHUTTLE (that we'd booked with them, they knew we'd be gone by the next morning)and neither charles, nor the other guy they sent out with us to the office, nor even the shuttle driver the next morning, who went so far as to go to the agency owner's home the next morning to try to get us refunded the extra money...this is why i say they're crooks. I wish someone had said to us: don't stay in coban, go to lanquin and sort your tour out from there...

it's the biggest scam, we were scammed by this company, it's a lie, they make you wait for a long time, the drivers are sketchy and they are not responsible at all for you, they changed our buses, in coban in our way to antigua and we lost a bag in their first bus, when we claimed our bag, the dirver got super mad and insulted us.

We booked a ride from San Pedro la Laguna via Antigua to Lanquin with the Casa Verde Travel Agency in San Pedro. We were not aware we would get a ride with Maya'ch Expeditions from Antigua onwards... but this is common practice in South and Central America. On the bus there was not only the driver, but also another guy whose name was Daniel. His English was pretty good... he also spoke some Hebrew and apparently he lived in Europe for a while. He was quite chatty and joking until we had a lunch break. By the end of that stop we all were back on the bus except one fellow traveler who didn't get her takeaway hamburger yet. So we started leaving without her which obviously made her run back to the bus... without her food. Since she already paid for it I said to Daniel that we should wait for a couple of minutes until she got her food. In this second the chatty, joking Daniel very abruptly changed into an aggressive, threatening Daniel. He very unexpectedly started yelling at me that this was his company and that he can kick me off the bus anytime he wants to... so how could I even dare asking him to wait for a fellow traveler. This was rude enough I found but when I answered back to him that he might want to be a little more polite to his paying customers he seriously told me he had a gun in the car and he asked me whether he wants me to use it. I interpreted this as a threat to my life. It is not uncommon that people in Guatemala carry guns and in this particular case I did not want to find out whether or not he was one of them. So I stepped back and apologized hoping this would settle the issue. We continued driving and there was silence in the bus. Hence it was easy to overhear Daniel when he was making a phone call, obviously trying to set us up in the place we were going to (Lanquin). Since neither me nor my wife were particularly keen to be bashed up or robbed upon arrival, I went to him again some time later, apologizing another time. This time it seemed to have worked since we arrived in Lanquin and went to the same hostel than everyone else. Checked in without any problems, locked the door and called it a day!In summary: I cannot advise anyone to travel or do tours with Maya'ch Expeditions. I think, if the boss of a company thinks it is acceptable to threaten customers with a gun (real or not) then everything about this company is said.

Don't use them, they only want your money. They are more expensive than other tour agencies and they don't offer as many shuttle times as other agencies. They had the two worst/uncomfortable shuttles that I have ever traveled in and the drivers were very very aggressive/reckless (and that's compared to other shuttles that I took during this trip and other trips).I used them to travel to Semuc Champey and the hostel that they use there, El Zapote, was also awful. The El Zapote hostel staff were cold and unwelcoming for the most part, and one man made physical and verbal sexual advances. The food made me sick and was overpriced, there is no way to secure your luggage even in a private room.. The worst of it, I was supposed to have a tour at 8am, then they changed the time to 9am, then to 10 or 1030am, and we finally left at 1113am. By the time I got to the park it had started raining and we were rushed through the tour. The only saving grace about this hostel is that it is not in Lanquin and it's about a 20 minute walk from the park. If you stay there, only stay for one night then move on!Here is a tip for Semuc Champey. Stay at one of the hostels that is at Semuc Champey because you can be on the river at night and there are more travelers there. You do not need a guide for the park, it's very navigable and there are rangers at the start of the park and in the park to help guide you. You will need a guide for the caves but they provide you with one of their guides who is familiar with the caves. If you have to, stay at Zapote only one night then walk to the park in the morning. Just leave the hostel, take a right, walk for a mile/km or so then take a right at the sign that says Semuc Champey. It's easy.Cheers!