Our ATV and Camel Riding Shore Excursion in Cabo San Lucas

Having cruised as long as I can remember (I was 6 months old on my first one), it was such an amazing experience to get to take my wonderful girlfriend Jayci on her first cruise last year. Seeing the joy and excitement of cruising through the eyes of someone who’s experiencing it for the very first time is always fun which is why I encourage any long time cruiser to find someone who’s never been to invite on your next trip, and it made our Cabo San Lucas Shore Excursion at Cactus Tours Adventure Park riding ATV’s and Camels even more fun! It’s the type of adventure that can be hard to find here in the states, and is something I wholeheartedly recommend to those looking for an adrenaline spike in between all the relaxing happening on the ship.

What’s Included (3 Activity Bundle)?

 Base price starts at ~$125 per person, but expect to spend an additional $50-75 on upgrades like ATV insurance, vehicle size, and photo packages.

• Round Trip Transportation

• ATV ride on the beach/wetlands in their smallest, manual transmission ATV

• Camelback ride on the beach

• Feeding Camels (they eat a carrot right out of your mouth!)

• Authentic Mexican Lunch Buffet

What’s Not Included

• ATV insurance (Different price depending on size of ATV and they will upsell you a better machine with cheaper insurance, don’t be surprised if your final price is different than your ticket price)

• Recommended Face Protection (Buffs)

• Photos (If you pay for a private tour guide you can take pictures with your own phones, otherwise you’ll need to decide if their professional photos are worth it)

Should You Take This Tour?

While definitely on the pricier side, this excursion with Cactus Tours is by far one of my favorite shore excursions I have ever done. I live in Las Vegas and grew up with a lot of friends who would ride ATV’s or dirt bikes in the mountains or the sand dunes, but getting to zoom around on an empty beach is a once in a lifetime experience that’s hard to find in most places. Beachfront property is a commodity and most places would rather set up bars and beach chairs than let tourists fly around on an ATV or a side by side! Following that up with a romantic camelback ride (each camel seats 2) next to the water and a delicious lunch buffet means there won’t be a minute wasted of your short time in Cabo. We had such a great time that Jayci wants to go spend a few days at an Airbnb near the park so we can do it all again with some extra time to enjoy the beautiful area! This one will hurt your bank account, but the memories you make are definitely worth it!

Who is This Tour For?

Solo Cruisers	⭐⭐⭐⭐
Groups	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Young Kids	⭐⭐
Teens	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Adults	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Seniors	⭐⭐

Excursion Category

Culture	⭐⭐
Adventure	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Relaxation	⭐
Shopping	⭐

Highlights of our ATV and Camel Riding Shore Excursion!

Booking the Tour

As with most excursions, there are usually different ways to book the same tour. Booking through the ship is typically on the pricier side, but comes with the bonus of everything planned for you. You can also book independently with sites like TripAdvisor or simply find a guide when you get off the boat. I have a guide on choosing how to book your excursion that you can read here, but the reason I bring this up is that what is included in the ticket price can vary depending on when and where you book it. For this trip, we had researched the excursion on TripAdvisor but couldn’t get a time slot that would work with our ship's departure time, so we found a guide on the pier and booked it ourselves. The advertised packages were for any mix of 1-3 activities, and we decided to do the 3 pack with ATV’s, Camelback riding on the beach, and a Mexican Lunch Buffet. After about a 20 minute wait we joined another group of cruisers in a van for the ~30 Minute drive to the park. 

Checking In

The Cactus Tours Adventure Park has 2 large buildings with air conditioning, bathrooms, lockers for your extra stuff while you are out adventuring, a tequila tasting bar, a gift shop, and a coffee/juice bar to make you feel right at home! The line to check in was longer than we would have liked, but the building was nice and cool so we were comfortable while we waited. 

Once we got to the desk, a staff member gave us our wristbands while informing us of the additional cost of insurance for the ATV’s that wasn’t advertised anywhere prior to us arriving. That was obviously a little frustrating, especially when we were informed that the ATV included in our tickets was a small, manual transmission machine that would be difficult for inexperienced riders (like ourselves) to make the most of. Naturally, we opted for the larger ATVs, which had cheaper insurance, and paid an extra charge for a private tour guide so we could leave right away and take our own pictures. The upsells were a little frustrating, but any worry about that went away pretty quickly once we started riding. My only advice is to expect to pay an additional $50-75 per person to make your experience smoother.

The ATV Ride

Our tour started with our guide telling us he used to compete in an annual offroad race down the west coast of Mexico that spanned hundreds of miles and multiple days, so we knew we were in for a treat. He started with a generic safety lesson and some helpful tips about how to sit and hold your arms to make the ride as comfortable as possible. He informed us that there is a basic route we would be starting on, and as long as he saw us riding safely and following his directions we would be allowed to go on a more adventurous route through the riverbed. We started on the beach, and Jayci was immediately in love with how fast we were flying down the sand. I could barely keep up with her! Our guide figured out pretty quickly that we were capable of handling the rougher route so we peeled off into the hills and valleys further inland. Well, being honest I should say that she was capable, I got stuck for a minute in some softer sand but was able to rock myself out and back onto the trail. At different points along the way there were photographers on their own ATV’s taking some great pictures of us, and we got to take our own photos standing on top of our machines!

ATV trail alongside the beach

The Camels

The camelback ride started at a wooden pier where we were given water and a cotton headdress to get in the camel riding spirit! Instead of mounting the camel while it’s sitting, there was a walkway at the height of the saddle where we could easily drop into the saddle before our guide took the reins and led us down the beach. Listening to the waves and our guides' stories about owning and running an Italian restaurant in the city with his wife really made for a surreal experience. I will say that any larger, inflexible people like myself may want to do some stretching before you start because the saddle is definitely wider than you think! We got to take some great pictures and enjoy a relaxing break from the high octane ATV ride, and after about ~20 minutes we were back at the pier. We had no idea this was part of the tour, but we actually got to feed our camel which was a super fun surprise! First, they had us feed a carrot out of our hands, but they also showed us how to hold one against our cheek so we could get a picture of a camel kissing our cheek! Jayci held one in her teeth and got a real kiss from a camel which was not on our cruise bingo card!

The Buffet

After another short ride to return our ATV’s to the loading area, we took an open air bus ride to the restaurant where we had a great view of the ocean and the zipline/skybike towers that were under construction at the time. There were nice restrooms for us to wash up before digging into some delicious tacos, rice, beans, quesadillas, chicken, carne asada, and more. The carne asada was juicy, the homemade tortillas were fresh, and the salsas had just the right kick. On top of that, the atmosphere was amazing with stone floors and a beautiful balcony with a somewhat strange statue of an open hand that we sat and took pictures on! After two trips to the buffet line and 2 quesadillas each, we headed to the gift shop, bought an amazing picture of ourselves taken by their photographers, and headed back to the ship! If you're up for adventure, a bit of splurging, and a camel kiss or two, this is an excursion you'll never forget!

Hand statue outside the buffet?