Diving Playa del Carmen, Yucatan

[aowmike]

Just back from getting my Adv. Open Water certification and diving in Cenote Chac-Mool. Playa is a great place to homebase for diving in numerous cenotes (caverns and caves) and reef diving. There are several dive shops that will package hotels and courses/dives. I used Dive Mex which is in the Villa del Mar hotel on 10th Ave. Dirk, the owner, is a great guy, very quick with email communications, flexible with diving dates and instruction, and the hotel is more like a B&B with safe, clean and comfortable accommodations. Dirk has connections with other dive shops and independent dive guides/instructors so any need you have can be arranged. A great week of various dive adventures that I hope to repeat in the future.

Mike

 

[aowmike]

The Sculpture Park is amazing but don't use Aquaworld for your scuba or snorkeling. They are more expensive than other dive shops AND they only gave us about 15 minutes at the Park site before guiding us to a near by reef, although they advertise the trip as a 2 dive, one reef and one at the Park. We almost didn't even get to scuba at the Park as they assumed being more advanced divers we'd prefer reef diving and took us to a completely different site. Several of us, who are artists, expressed out displeasure, and that we only wanted to dive at the Park so we motored to the Park but were still only given 15 minutes to enjoy it. I'd suggest you google dive shops in Cancun, check their sites to see if they offer the Park dive, and use them. You'll probably have a smaller boat to dive from, but you'll have more time at the Sculpture Park.

 

[chicken197]

I just got back from Cancun and wished I had seen your post before diving. Aquaworld was awful, I will never use them again. The service was poor, price too high for what was delivered. The dives were not as advertised.