Ditto. And frankly, the drive was more interesting than Chichen Itza. On the way back we stopped in a small village (rightfully) acclaimed for its grilled chicken.
It’s been a minute since we visited, but yes the day trip to Chichen Itza and Valladolid was a highlight. We also did Tulum and Xel-ha and enjoyed that day, too. I think the water at the major resorts should be safe, along with fruit and veg, but check comments from recent travelers. If you worry over it, just avoid suspect items and drink only bottled stuff, keep your mouth closed in the shower, and use bottled water to brush teeth. Enjoy your trip!
We started out cautious with the water at the resort, but we quickly gave that up, seeing everybody else getting drinks full of ice. It would really be difficult to not only avoid the water, but also any fresh fruit and veg that may have been washed in the water. When I got a tacos de arranchera meal at a restaurant outside the Tulum ruins, it came with fresh chopped onions, cilantro, and pico de gallo. I was starving and was not about to only eat the meat and taco wrap. It was delicious. Fortunately neither of us got Montezuma’s revenge on the trip.
I traveled in/through a lot of big cities in LatAm & the Caribbean for work for a lot of years. Never took precautions, never had an issue. You’d occasionally hear a tale of somebody laid low after a local meal or local water, but pretty much the consensus of the crew force was “Don’t worry about it.”
In my personal travels to minor towns & random roadside stops in those countries I’ve also never taken precautions nor had an issue.
Farther out into really small villages might be a different matter. But I’ve not encountered it.
My guess is that the regional sanitation standards and expectations have slowly changed. The received wisdom about food safety precautions from the 1960s are less applicable now in the 2020s. But poop being what it is, horror stories hold the popular imagination.
I imagine if one does travel a lot, or will have an extended stay in countries with suspect water, it may be better to just expose yourself to it so your system can adapt, than to constantly try to avoid any ingestion of the water or anything that may have been in contact with it.
I was wondering that as well-- is ‘don’t drink the water in Mexico’ outdated advice? I just did a little googling (which I maybe should have done before the trip) and found info ranging from ‘definitely don’t drink unfiltered water’ (from a site selling water filter bottles for travelers, so…) to ‘eh, Mexican water parasites are just different from American water parasites. NBD’ to ‘sometimes it’s a matter of bacteria or viruses, but sometimes it’s just that the minerals are different than what we’re used to’.