I entered into this program because I've been trying to learn Spanish for work, as well take a well-needed vacation in another locale. I'd say I'm very much satisfied on both fronts.
The spanish was probably the most important part for me. I received about 4 hours of instruction a day from a bilingual teacher, Maestro Cesar. He spoke really well in both languages, helped me to identify personal objectives and create a personalized lesson plan, and covered topics in class that were both educational and fascinating on a personal level. I know just enough about teaching to know that he's clearly had some amount of professional training on how to do it.
Something that I found with personal classes/immersion that was missing from other types of Spanish learning is this capacity/path that leads to fluency. I think a lot of resources I'd used in the past (language apps, some online classes, videos, etc.) gave a good grounding, but there wasn't anything to get you to the level where you were having actual productive conversations with native speakers. Like Ronnie Coleman (famous bodybuilder) says, "There ain't nothing to it, but to do it."
Felipe Carrillo Puerto is this quiet, smaller town between cities on the Yucatan Peninsula, it's very tranquil, giving you a lot of opportunities to relax, try immersion, and do local stuff in a calm environment. The weekends, or well-planned afternoons, give you opportunities to head to Chetumal, Bacalar, Talum, or a handful of other places to take in local sights/attractions that aren't available in Carrillo, go to fancy restaurants, or in general do touristy stuff without the pain of having to live among tourists for a week or more (I actually really liked going to El Parque and randomly seeing a new vendor sell something I haven't seen before, but they just don't see keychains). I did a lot of my street-food testing and general relaxation in Carillo, and headed to Bacalar for kayaking around La Laguna de Siete Colores, buying souvenirs, and fine dining.
I think what was most interesting to me was the way that my rapidly developing Spanish changed the trip over the course of 2 weeks and about 40 hours of personal instruction. I learned how to better communicate to store owners to find some of the specialty items I was looking for over the course of the week. I went from barely hanging on to my homestay family to being able to have decent conversations and joke around from them, I was upset at the local attractions' insistence on responding in English when I had decent Spanish coming to Bacalar, and I'd like to think I was pretty helpful as a volunteer for some of the English immersion classes.
The homestay family was very kind to me. They fed me pretty well, went out of their way to make me feel included in their day-to-day life, and were available whenever I needed help. I remembered taking a trip to an abuela's house to do some Dia de Los Muertos celebrations and eat a bunch of tamales with the family-there's some sort of unspoken closeness to helping unwrap tamales with someone that I can't really explain. I leave with some sense of familiarity, but also this sense that there's something much deeper and richer here than I could have possibly found out on my own, like a lil fishie growing up and realizing they've been swimming over a cenote (find out what that is! by traveling to another country and swimming over it!)
Anyways, the irony of being in an excellent language program is that I now feel empowered to do trips in other parts of Latin-America/parts of the world that have many Spanish speakers, and don't feel a strong need to come back (I'm still planning to do the online courses). I definitely recommend this program for anyone who wants to travel, but doesn't have an idea of where they want to go, or anyone who has a desire to be in Mexico or learn Spanish.
