Playa Del Carmen/Playacar advice please

[Druid]

My wife and I have just booked a week in Playacar, we're flying out on 14th Sept. Although we are both divers we're not planning on spending the whole week diving, just a couple of days She's not interested in diving cenotes so it's going to be sea dives. We have no plans to dive Cozumel, although I understand the sites are better. So, I have some questions:

Which dive centre to use - there's one at the hotel but it's more expensive than most of the ones in PDC, and it's a hotel based dive centre... We're both fairly experienced and would like to do more than tear around after a dive guide for 25 minutes.

Are there any must do sites, or are they all much the same?

Money. I'm planning on taking some US$ to pay for the diving, but will need some pesos too I suppose. Should I take them with me, or am I better off using ATMs when I get there?


Anywhere non-diving that you would recommend. I'm thinking about hiring a car one day and exploring a bit.


Any other advice for a newbie to Mexico.


Thanks in advance

 

[NYCSurfer]

I dove with Tank Ha when I was there last year. I did 3 days of 2 tank dives. One day was in the Playa del Carmen area and the dives were ok. The second day was drift dives in Cozumel. The advantage with Tank Ha for Cozumel dives, is that you take one of their boats from playa to Cozumel and dive from their boat. All of the other Playa based ops that I checked for Cozumel dives, take the ferry and then connect with a Cozumel op for the dives. This adds at least a couple of hours to the trip. With Tank Ha, I was able to do a 2 tank dive in Cozumel and make it back to Playa in time to have lunch with my non-diver wife. BTW Cozumel dives are awesome. My third day of diving was a 2 tank centre dive, which was very cool and I was a bit unsure whether I wanted to dive a centre.

My .02 (and worth every bit of it).

 

[Beyond_Diving]

If I may, I'd like to offer you the services of my dive center, Beyond Diving. We offer small groups, personalized service, apeks regulators and aqualung bcd's as our rental stock.
For your non diving activities, you could check out the ruins in Tulum, Coba, Chichen Itza, visit the town of Bacalar and a ton of other options. We can also help you figure out and plan any such daytrips.
Please check us out on www.beyonddivingscuba.com
There's ATM machines, but my suggestion is to use the ones attached to banks. The ones on fifth avenue tend to charge crazy ammounts per transaction. Either way, USD are widely accepted. Juat check exchange rates

 

[DiverAmy]

Anywhere non-diving that you would recommend. I'm thinking about hiring a car one day and exploring a bit
Thanks in advance

Chichen Itza

 

[scubamarketing]

One of the owners of Planet Scuba Mexico (Planet Scuba Mexico - Serving Puerto Aventuras, Playa del Carmen, Tulum, Cozumel, and the Riviera Maya) lives in Playacar, so can pick you up and take you diving no problem. All new equipment, long dives. (Disclaimer: the owners are personal friends of mine) From what I've seen, the diving near their dive center in Puerto Aventuras is better than right off PDC, at least for the ocean diving.

At this point, when I go I'm a cave diver, so tend to zone out on the ocean dives with my girlfriend. Sorry, can't remember names of specific great spots.

If you're going to use ATM's, from what I've seen monitoring both here and a couple of the PDC-based forums, I'd recommend avoiding the ATM's on Calle 1 Sur between Ave 5 and the ferry as well as the ones at Mega on Ave 30. When I visit, I just make sure to either use ones in the bank or in the ADO station and I've never had a problem. Try to spend pesos as much as possible, most places in town won't give you as good of an exchange rate as your bank. Be sure to check your foreign transaction fees so you aren't too surprised.

As for non-diving…Coba and Chichen Itza are both impressive in their own ways. If you could do only one and don't mind the longer drive, go for Chichen Itza. Akumal and Tulum are both fun, beautiful towns to visit. Akumal frequently has turtles you can snorkel with, plus the lagoon is a nice relaxing spot to hang out. When I go, I don't get much out of town aside from diving.

What kinds of non-diving activities do you like to partake in? Shopping? History? Hiking?

 

[Druid]

Thanks for the replies

What kinds of non-diving activities do you like to partake in? Shopping? History? Hiking?

Sightseeing, history, local culture

 

[warmwaterturner]

Two places to see - first is Akumal. There is a wonderful public beach there with good food and cervesa not to mention the snorkle area is usually full of turtles - a very relaxing spot. The second thought would be to drive down to Tumul. There are great beaches, lots of boutique hotels, more good food and more good beer. Both places are geared toward taking your shoes off - relaxing and maybe catching a good nap.

Oh! One more thought - we have a great guy that we hire to drive us whenever we are in town. PM me if you would like his contact info. We usually hire him for everything from picking us up at the airport to daily excersions. Have fun!

 

[scubamarketing]

For sightseeing, I'll admit my bias is towards jungle, cenotes, and beaches. So you can pretty much go anywhere to experience that. In my trips down there, I haven't really seen any jungle that's any more impressive than any other jungle, although the monkey sanctuary was very pleasant jungle to be in. I really liked the beach in Tulum, but Playacar beaches are beautiful too and don't require much travel. As for the cenotes, they're all pretty cool looking, Casa cenote, Dos Ojos, and Gran Cenote always seem to be the most popular amongst swimmers and snorkelers.

From what I gather for history, it's either Mayan ruins like Coba or Chichen Itza or head to Merida. The most history I've seen in Playa is "I remember back when this was a fishing village..." from the old-timers

If you're looking for local culture, just don't be afraid to go past the highway And DEFINITELY get out of Playacar. Some reviews will say it's not safe to go past Ave 20, but that's complete BS. When I go, I usually stay with a friend who lives near Ave 30 and we frequently go out to about Ave 80 or so to visit her friends. The only times I've heard of anyone I know (or anyone they know) run into any problems, it's because they were drunk or worse.

Whatever you end up doing, you'll have a great time. PDC is my go-to vacation spot these days, not just because I have a free place to stay and get good prices on diving either

 

[lamarpaulski]

You could snorkel some cool cenotes (I liked Gran Cenotes and Dos Ojos) see Tulum on the coast and tour the Mayan ruins of Coba (in the jungle). I did that in one day while staying in Cozumel so from Pde Carmen ought to be easier..get early start and hit Coba first,then a cenote (which is refreshing) and then Tulum. It was great. Not as big or crowded as Chitzen Itza (which is also amazing but in a different direction) Take a cooler and plenty of bottled water.

 

[Dhboner]

I second the choice of Beyond Diving. Smaller "boutique" operation with nearly new top of the line rental gear. My son and I dove with them in April and had a fantastic time. I would go back in a heartbeat.