We booked the ATM Cave Tour through Yaxche. For details of ATM, look it up. I'd rather review the tour company here.

The only critique... read more would be that when they called to confirm my reservation with the concierge at Chaa Creek, they had the wrong date. They thought they were taking us on Friday, but our tour was actually Saturday. We found this out late on Thursday, but our concierge was able to reach someone after 8 pm to correct the mistake. No other problems took place, so the moral of the story is just make a quick call to confirm your reservation the day or two before your trip.

They had a driver pick us up around 7:50 am from Chaa Creek, about 10 minutes outside of San Ignacio. We were asked to be ready at 7:30, as they started hotel pickups in the area. That driver dropped us off at the meeting location in the middle of San Ignacio where the rest of the group was waiting. We were a group of 8 in a van that could hold 12.

Our tour guide was Ian. This guy knew his stuff. I'm a history teacher and my classes study a little bit of Mayan history, so I could tell how well researched he was. It went way beyond a surface level knowledge of the basics. He knew the science, history, chemistry, archaeology, etc with incredible detail. This was our second big tour of our trip and both times we've been impressed with the knowledge these guides have of their tours/sites. In this case, Ian has been doing this for 17 years and is one of about a couple dozen guides that are allowed to take people into the caves. This is the only tour he leads, so he is intimately connected to it.

Ian liked to move quick to stay ahead of the crowds. He had us passing other groups on the way to the cave, but was sensitive to the physical needs of our group.

This is a precious archaeological site, and Ian and his colleagues rely on these tours to make a living, so he was very professional. He had very good, clear instructions, but could balance it with humor or a trick to keep it fun. Safety of his guests and of the site/environment were clear priorities, but he still made it one of the best adventures of our lives, and we're not sheltered inexperienced adventurers.

After the cave tour, the lunch Yaxche provided was delicious. It was local Belizean style rice and beans with marinated chicken, plantains, mashed potatoes, and coke/fanta/water.

When we got back, they had the driver take us from the general meeting spot to drop us back off at Chaa Creek, arriving there right at 3 pm. All in all, a wonderful experience and as a representative of Yaxche, Ian was a champ!

I didn't see other guests tipping him (each group being 2 people), but I gave him a $20 US. I don't really know the etiquette for tipping so I'm probably not the best to ask, but I did check with the front desk at my resort for what a fair tip might be for a full day tour and they said $25 US would be good.

Based on this experience, I would definitely endorse Yaxche for your tour.

  We booked with Yaxche to go to ATM caves the night before. We were shopping around all the tour companies but got great info from Yaxche and they were also... read more the cheapest so we went with them. They picked us up from our hotel in a comfortable mini van and our tour guide was Louis

  Dwight made our trip easy and fun all the adventure trips were GREAT ATM cave was amazing. The tour guides were friendly and helpful. Good food as well. ... read more The hotels were completely comfortable

  We booked the Barton Caves tour with this company. We were picked up at our hotel on time and drove to the caves. Our tour guide was great, very friendly... read more and informative. We instantly felt at ease. The tour inside the cave was absolutely great, just no words to describe how fantastic it was. We saw where the Mayans left a pot and an old skull. Throughout the trip the guide made it fun and informative. I highly recommend this company. We booked our tour in person at their office on Burns street.

  Dwight made our trip easy and fun all the adventure trips were GREAT ATM cave was amazing. The tour guides were friendly and helpful. Good food as well. ... read more The hotels were completely comfortable

  We hired Yaxche for all of our shuttles in Belize and two tours - Tikal and ATM cave - both tours were excellent as were the shuttles. They were... read more very accommodating with shuttle times and even let us change one by several hours at the last minute. Was so glad to have booked with them. Dwight was tons of help before the trip with all the details. …