There are two rivers to pick, but it doesn't matter, as the end is at the same area, and both have almost the same things to experience along the route. In case you get bored, you can exit at a couple spots along the river, but anyway, you will have to walk barefoot to the end to recover your belongings.

You can do it once to refresh, but it lacks interesting things to see or do, so it would be pointless to go again.

The only reason I found to get into the river next time is to avoid walking all the way to the coast and to have somebody else carry my stuff there!

Cool idea, but not well-implemented.

Once you reach the embarkation point, you must wait your turn. Then you are loaded on in a precise order, so that the river raft does not capsize. Once everyone is on, we were told it is meant to be a relaxing ride, so silence is encouraged. After that, everyone spoke only in whispers, if at all.

It truly was a lovely break in the hot day, but once I got on, I was anxious to get off and on to the next adventure at Xcaret. At the river’s edge, one could see waterfalls, artifacts, lizards, flowers, trees, and a whole lot more for those who were very observant. At the ride’s end, we were told to remain seated and had to disembark again in precise order to avoid capsizing the raft.

At the entrance to the underground river, you could spin the dial to help you decide whether to go along the left or right path. We went left and never did end up at the opening in the stained-glass plaza. The water felt somewhat chilly when you first got in, but would be welcoming if you had been wandering around the park in the heat. Because there was a current, you could drift slowly along, but most people chose to swim. At the entryway and at several points along the river, there were markers indicating how far it was until the next debarkation point and how many meters until the end. If you actually got out of the water before the end, you had to walk barefoot to the bag pickup point, so it made sense to keep on going. The whole trip took about 45 minutes.

Some parts were kind of spooky, as you were pretty much swimming in a dark tunnel, whereas most of it was only partly underground and the rest open to the sky. If you were using your snorkel gear, you could see that some parts were very, very deep and that others went very far underneath the rocks you were swimming under. At several points there was an employee in a wetsuit ostensibly ensuring you did not go in a wrong direction, though I did not see at that point that there was a wrong direction to go in. There was also a shivering employee with a camera so you could pick up a photo as you left the park. We were pretty happy to get to the end and emerge into the sunlight.

All along there was the possibility of seeing fish because you were swimming in a river, but basically the highlight was swimming underground. It is definitely not a good choice for those who are claustrophobic.