Playa Del Carmen

[DiverBob]

My wife and I are looking at flying down to Cancun and staying in Playa Del Carmen for a quick vacation. It looks like we will be going the end of March. We will only be able to dive 3 days and would like to do a Cenote dive. I have never been there and am looking for advice on reputable dive shops and good hotels. A package deal would be great. Do I take my steel plate? My thanks in advance for any helpful advice. Bob

[Ken G]

I have not been myself but I hear good things about Yucatek Divers

http://www.yucatek-divers.com/

Im sure you will get some good advise here as a few of our members have spent some time down there.


I would definitely take my plate. Although Im always trying to decide between my SS or Alum

[LCF]

You should be fine in a steel plate with an Al80, if you are using a full suit. (I did my initial cenote tours in a 3 mil full suit, and it was okay, although more neo would have been just fine.) Water temperatures will run 75 to 77, and remember that there will be no sun in the cenotes to warm you up!

German Yanez, who is Yucatech, is a lovely man who comes over from Cozumel and guides. We did our Cavern and Intro classes with him. He might be a good choice, if you are staying in PDC, since he has to take the ferry over from Coz anyway. Another dive operator I would highly recommend would be Dennis Weeks (Diablo Divers/Aquanauts) out of Puerto Aventuras. Dennis is also an extremely nice man and runs a good operations. My husband has done guided cave dives with him, and thought he was very pleasant and very thorough and attentive to safety.

If you are not booked into lodgings in PDC, you might consider staying a little further south. There is still offshore diving there, but it will put you close to the cenotes. (Hint: Do your cenote dive early, because you just might not want to do any more offshore diving after that!) There are any number of hotels down the coast that appear to have shuttles that run up to the Cancun airport. We have rented a car, which can be done rather inexpensively, if you get printouts of your credit-card related liability insurance, and have enough room on your credit card for them to hold a ridiculous reserve for the collision. I would NOT, however, recommend looking for the cheapest option for car rental. The condition of the rental cars we've had in Mexico hasn't been, "Is everything working?" It's been, "Okay, which things are not working, and how important are they." I can live with windows that don't open and glove compartments that won't close, but brakes . . . That's a different story.

You might consider looking at the Loco Gringo site, because there is quite a bit of information about places to stay and things to do in the area.

Feel free to post any other, more specific questions -- There are a few of us on here who have made a bunch of trips to the area.

[Bric Martin]

I have been to the Playa/Cozumel are a number of times. I really like "Papa Hogs" on Cozumel. They are a small operation. They run small 6 packs that are very fast. They dive some of the deeper walls and better sites. I have never felt unreasonably restricted diving with them.

[Dmitchell]

My 11 y/o and I did 2 Cenote dives with http://www.hiddenworlds.com/cenotescuba.aspx . The guide was very thorough and obviously knew his stuff.

DM

[boydski]

All good advice above. You might also want to consider Dennis Weeks, Diablo Divers. They are based just south of Playa del Carmen, but will pick you up and take you Ocean diving and Cenote diving. Dennis runs a first class operation, that may not be the cheapest, but will be safe with no corners cut.

If you have someone pick you up rather than driving, you don't really need to rent a car (or learn how to drive using Mexican Traffic Laws ).

As Lynne mentioned above, you might get hooked on the Cenote dives. In my first trip to the area, we planned on two days of Cavern Class and then a week of ocean diving. After cavern class, we did a pair of dives in the ocean and then EVERYONE in my group choose to dive Cenotes for the rest of the week. You can read my trip report about it if you are interested. You'll like the Cenotes, and if you hook up with someone like Dennis or German, they will take you further South to the more impressive Caverns.

Good Luck and have fun in PDC!

[DiverBob]

If you have someone pick you up rather than driving, you don't really need to rent a car (or learn how to drive using Mexican Traffic Laws ).!

That brings up another question. I don't want to rent a car. Do the hotels offer shuttle services from the airport? If not, any recomendations on how to get down to Playa? Thanks for all the great advice! Bob

[boydski]

That brings up another question. I don't want to rent a car. Do the hotels offer shuttle services from the airport? If not, any recomendations on how to get down to Playa? Thanks for all the great advice! Bob

Most of the hotels can arrange a shuttle for you. They are not cheap ( ~ $100 round trip), but can be cheaper than renting a car and paying for fuel/insurance. They will certainly get you from the Airport in Cancun to PDC much faster than you'd normally drive!

If you have a lot of passengers, renting a car may be cheaper, but parking in PDC is a challenge if you're not familiar with the area. Check out Locogringo for transportation and hotel options in the area. It is a great resource!

[Dmitchell]

Read up on Loco Gringo if you are going to drive. I drove there for 2 weeks straight never had a problem but I was prepared when I went. We stayed in Akumal but went to PDC a couple times as well as Tulum and everywhere in between no problems.

DM

[CaptnJack]

Regarding the car:
You need the optional liability insurance, do not rely on you CC to CYA. You will go to jail if you are in an accident without it (until someones pays for all the damages). Guilty until proven innocent.
Beware gas station ripoffs. Its all cash at Pemex and you need to carefully give them the cash, they will try a bait and switch to have you believe you didn't give them enough (e.g swapping a 100 peso note for a 10).
Beware the speed trap returning to the airport, there's a very small 40kmh sign and they will stop you expecting a cash fine.

Otherwise I would also recommend Dennis Weeks in Puerto Aventuras

[Sockmonkey]

Its all cash at Pemex and you need to carefully give them the cash, they will try a bait and switch to have you believe you didn't give them enough (e.g swapping a 100 peso note for a 10).

Ugh the other thing they do at the gas station is mumble, speak quickly in spanish, or tell you a different price in spanglish every time you say "Que?". I got totally bamboozled with one or all of those scams on the way from tulum to PDC and ended up losing around $40... I think... I was so dazed I really don't know how much it was.

-Eric

[BillZ]

Hey Bob,
Were headed to Cozumel next week and then spending 2 days in PDC at the end of the trip. I'll give you a scouting report when we get back.

The PDC part of the trip was originally intened for just kicking around and seeing some of the sites but this post got me thinking......

Do the operators require that you cave a cavern certification to dive the cenotes? If not is it safe?

At this point I have no intention of becoming a cave diver but if there was a safe "guided tour" dive It would be pretty cool to check out.

Thanks!

Bill

[Tangfish]

I highly recommend just booking a dive op for the cenotes when you get down there. Some of them are willing to negotiate in-person. They make the most profit on people who book ahead of time. It didn't matter who I booked with since they pooled together divers and even though I booked with one dive shop, I went with another (and the one I booked with got a referral kickback). You can probably save ~20% doing it this way. I wouldn't worry about not being able to find a spot either, with tourism in the gutter right now. They'll be fighting over your business.

Have fun. I really like Dos Ojos.

More info here:
http://www.calvintang.com/blog/2005/12/ ... el-cenotes

[Neutral Buoyancy]

I just got back from there. I also recommend German Yanez of Yucatech. He is very experienced, just look at the Yucatech website.http://www.yucatech.net/yucatechmain.htm First time I was there we stayed in Akumal and rented a car which was very useful for driving to to and from the airport, to Playa del Carmen, and the ruins of Tulum and Coba. This time I stayed with a buddy on Cozumel. German met us at our hotel one night and discussed what we should see. My buddy had never been down there so we did a combo 1 tank cenote and a stop at the Tulum ruins. Price $150.00 US. This included ferry tickets to and from Cozumel, transportation to the cenote and Tulum, tanks & weights, entrance tickets to Tulum and lunch. I recommend Dos Ojos cenote over Grand Cenote though. It covered more distance in the cenote due to mutiple entrances. Grand Cenote was a similar bottom time but much slower pace.

[BillZ]

That brings up another question. I don't want to rent a car. Do the hotels offer shuttle services from the airport? If not, any recomendations on how to get down to Playa? Thanks for all the great advice! Bob

Most of the hotels can arrange a shuttle for you. They are not cheap ( ~ $100 round trip), but can be cheaper than renting a car and paying for fuel/insurance. They will certainly get you from the Airport in Cancun to PDC much faster than you'd normally drive!

If you have a lot of passengers, renting a car may be cheaper, but parking in PDC is a challenge if you're not familiar with the area. Check out Locogringo for transportation and hotel options in the area. It is a great resource!

Hi Bob
Greetings from Cozumel!
The cheapest and easiest way to get to PDC from the Cancun airport is to take the bus. Don't think school bus with chickens running around. The shuttle bus is better than anything the metro has with TVs etc.
So here's the info...

When you leave customs you'll walk through a series of booths. On your left just before your the sliding glass doors is the ticket counter for the bus. The cost for is 9 dollars. After you pay for the ticket they will direct you to the bay where the bus pulls in. On your way out the door grab a couple of cervesas at Coconutz and enjoy the ride. The bus drops you off in the middle of PDC by the ferry to Coz. You can grab a taxi to your hotel from there.
Hope this helps!

Bill

[LCF]

I highly recommend just booking a dive op for the cenotes when you get down there. Some of them are willing to negotiate in-person. They make the most profit on people who book ahead of time. It didn't matter who I booked with since they pooled together divers and even though I booked with one dive shop, I went with another (and the one I booked with got a referral kickback). You can probably save ~20% doing it this way. I wouldn't worry about not being able to find a spot either, with tourism in the gutter right now. They'll be fighting over your business.

Calvin, I'm going to disagree with you here. The last time I was down there (in November) I saw some stuff that really upset me . . . There are rules that the dive guides are supposed to follow when doing these tours, including the fact that they are to be OW instructors AND Full Cave AND dive in cave gear, and take no more than four divers at a time. I saw guides in single tanks, tanking six or more divers into the caverns. I think you are MUCH better off booking head of time with an operation with a good rep, and being sure you have someone who is going to pay full attention to a thorough briefing, and to dive safety.

There is a lot of controversy over whether these cavern tours for open water divers are safe at all, but they have a pretty good track record. A lot of that is due to some hard work by the safety committee down there, in setting up the rules and training the guides. It is clear that, as the cenote dives have become more popular, not everyone who wants to run tours is getting the training or following the rules.

I would second the recommendation for German, or for Dennis Weeks in Puerto Aventuras. Both are very nice guys, experienced cave divers and instructors, and diligent about safety. I did my cavern and Intro classes with German, and Peter has done some guided cave diving with Dennis, so we know them both pretty well.

[BillZ]

We just did our first Cenote dive today at Chac-Mool! Wow this could be adicting. I wish we would have given ourselves more time for diving the Cenotes and maybe cut Cozumel short a little bit. Two dives is not enough.
We used Aqua-naughts which is owned by Dennis (see Lynnes recommendation above). When we got there they gave us a half hour briefing which included a history of the cenotes and a review of safety procedures(hand and light signals, rule of thirds, OOA procedures etc). There was only Cindy and me on the dive and they mentioned that their maximum is 4 divers per guide. Some of the other groups at the site didn't seem to be following the same rule. Overall a great experience that ill have to do again in the near future. Ill edit this post with some pictures once we get home.

[LCF]

Glad you had a good time!

What I said about the caves after my cavern tours: "This is truly a drug, and I will do whatever I have to to get more of it."

Full cave class this summer . . .

[oregondiver]

I can't comment on your question about cenote diving but I can tell you what we did for transpo while down there.

We did a 10 day backpackign trip (with dive gear in our packs!). Walked out of airport and hopped on the huge motor coaches (think the big ole luxury motor coaches with air conditioning, not school type bus). Paid our $9 and got a ride into PDC. Super easy and I think they left every 30 minutes?

If you arent' stuck on PDC, check out Tulum. Fantastic little town, not nearly upscale like PDC, or party like Coz. Laid back. We stayed at Cabanas Copal for $89 a night, cabana about 25 feet from the entrance to sand/ocean. Might be $120 for oceanfront. Spa there if the wife wants luxury. Free yoga (I think) at holistic spa next door.

We DID find out when we got there, that our beach was clothign optional. Didn't know that when I booked it for myself and two other friends...whoops.

We walked to cenotes (2-3 miles?) from our cabana, some days we took a taxi ($8) to different cenotes. We walked to the ruins (1-2 miles) by walking up the beach from our cabana directly to the ruins, stopping for several drinks/restraunts on teh journey there AND back.

We took the collectivo ($2) to get around. Could be crowded, could be tons of fun. Stops whever anyone is standing by road to get anywhere, or drop along the road in the middle of nowhere.

We took a taxi to Belize ($80) in less than 2 hours once we found out the bus we were scheduled to take was standing room only (and 3-4 hour ride standing up!).

Good luck, and have a fabulous time!