Is it easy to get to Cozumel during a Cancun vacation?

[Moorman]

I'm taking the wife and kids to Cancun next Spring and was wondering if it is easy to get to Cozumel from Cancun?

Is the diving in Cancun any good? Is it good enough to not worry about going to Cozumel?

Any recommended cool dive spots in Cancun? Cozumel?

Any recommended dive operators in Cancun/Cozumel? I don't like big cattle boats and have a 17 year old who I like to have watched carefully when diving. He has about 40 warm water dives and I'm advanced/rescue with 60-70 dives.

Also, staying at the Ritz (I'm not rich - using Marriott points!) - any recommendations on cool topside attractions?

Thank you very much in advance for your help - I'm new here and excited about being a member. Fins Up!

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

It takes about an hour by bus and then forty minutes by ferry to get to Coz from Cancun. The diving in Cancun is reputed to be average. Coz is the real diving destination in the area. I would recommend a charter for an afternoon of diving. My personal favorite is Aldora but some find them too pricey. Do a search on the Cozumel board in the North America section and you will find lots of recommendations.

 

[dolphin adventures]

Hi: When in Cancun you can arrange to dive the cenotes which is really, really great. They take you on an all day trip to the interior where you dive fresh water caves, (cenotes), lots of operators in Cancun do this dive. Getting to Cozumel is easy but takes some time....you need to get to Playa Del Carmen, (bus or rental car), and then a ferry to Cozumel. You will enjoy the Ritz.....nice.

Have fun.
Mary Jane

I'm taking the wife and kids to Cancun next Spring and was wondering if it is easy to get to Cozumel from Cancun?

Is the diving in Cancun any good? Is it good enough to not worry about going to Cozumel?

Any recommended cool dive spots in Cancun? Cozumel?

Any recommended dive operators in Cancun/Cozumel? I don't like big cattle boats and have a 17 year old who I like to have watched carefully when diving. He has about 40 warm water dives and I'm advanced/rescue with 60-70 dives.

Also, staying at the Ritz (I'm not rich - using Marriott points!) - any recommendations on cool topside attractions?

Thank you very much in advance for your help - I'm new here and excited about being a member. Fins Up!

 

[fishoutawater]

Same as above. Spent a week down there, dove Cancun once. Caught a bus to Playa Del Carmen and ferry to Coz. Found out the diving at Coz was much better. So much so that I took three more day trips to Coz.
Next time I go down there, I won't even stop in Cancun. I'll go straight to Cozumel. Topside, you'll find the same stuff as in Cancun, just closer together, so you don't have to take taxis everywhere.
Plus that bus trip from Cancun to Playa can be kind of adventuresome. Picture yourself flying 90mph down the narrow highway, sitting next to a cage full of chickens, and catching glimpses of other buses, laying on their sides, crashed and burned.
Good times.
It's been ten years, but I think it was Palancar reef that was the most awesome for me. 'Bout 90 feet, drift dive, lotsa pretty coral, swim thrus, school of Hammerheads overhead, Sea Snakes, turtles, Speckled and Morey eels. Not very many fish though. Got the heebie geebies when I remembered the ledge I was looking down over dropped down to 6000 ft.

 

[halocline]

Plus that bus trip from Cancun to Playa can be kind of adventuresome. Picture yourself flying 90mph down the narrow highway, sitting next to a cage full of chickens, and catching glimpses of other buses, laying on their sides, crashed and burned.
Good times.

I don't know what bus you took, but maybe you're remembering the movie on the bus instead....

The airport bus from cancun is just like any of the 1st class buses in Mexico; safe, comfortable, and relatively cheap. The only annoyance is the loud crappy movies, it seems that there is some local ordinance that requires there to be at least one Silvester Stallone-dubbed in spanish movie playing at all times on buses.

 

[dlndavid]

Cancun diving is pretty nice in my opinion. A few good wrecks and plenty of fish.

Easy enough to get to Cozumel, and what the heck if you're in the area you mine as well go just to say you dove there, Palancar Wall is world famous.

The Cenote dives rock. They are very easy and IMO a "must do" dive. Manta divers use a cave certified diver by the name of Leif who is a real hoot. :dazzler1:

If you like History a must see is Chichen Itza mayan ruins (inland) or Tulum (coastal). If you go to Chichen Itza, bring plenty of water and a charter tour is an easy way to get there, air conditioned, fast and comfortable buses.

If you like seafood, :11ztongue don't miss the seafood buffet Friday night at the Ritz, fantastic! Wednesday at the Ritz is Mexican Fiesta dining, :bandit_2:another two thumbs up.

Have a great trip and safe diving.

 

[ggunn]

It's been ten years, but I think it was Palancar reef that was the most awesome for me. 'Bout 90 feet, drift dive, lotsa pretty coral, swim thrus, school of Hammerheads overhead, Sea Snakes, turtles, Speckled and Morey eels. Not very many fish though. Got the heebie geebies when I remembered the ledge I was looking down over dropped down to 6000 ft.

Hammerheads? I don't know anyone that has seen a hammerhead at Cozumel, much less a school of them, and most of what folks think are sea snakes there are actually sharptail eels.

(EDIT: After I posted this, I remembered someone on this board saying that they had heard that someone else had seen a single hammerhead there once. But certainly, hammerheads are extremely rare around the dive sites at Cozumel if they are there at all.)

The channel between Cozumel and the Yucatan is indeed deep, but not quite 6000 feet deep. The deepest sounding I've seen on a map was about 3200 feet, and that was in the center of the channel. The depth at the base of the wall is pretty shallow, only about 1200-1500 feet. ;^)

 

[Moodiejeff]

Hammerheads? I don't know anyone that has seen a hammerhead at Cozumel, much less a school of them, and most of what folks think are sea snakes there are actually sharptail eels.

(EDIT: After I posted this, I remembered someone on this board saying that they had heard that someone else had seen a single hammerhead there once. But certainly, hammerheads are extremely rare around the dive sites at Cozumel if they are there at all.)

I'm sure some of you have heard me tell this tale but here goes again:

3 years(?) ago we were on the boat (w/ Scuba Du) coming back from our last dive of the trip and I leaned over to Mia to say what a wonderful time we had, we had seen just about everything except Sharks & Dolphins. Not 2 minutes passed when the boat captain shouted "Shark!". He cut the engines and we drifted up on a Hammerhead swimming in a figure 8 pattern on the surface trying to mouth what looked like a big rubber ball. It turns out that it was an inflated puffer fish! We watched for a time and the divemaster told us to get our snorkle gear on... as soon as he got in the water the Hammerhead slipped away into the deep. I never got to see it from under the water but it was pretty cool seeing it there on the surface! I never did get to see what happened to the puffer either. Maybe he made a getaway as well.

2 weeks ago, we were diving Yucab and Javier told me he had seen a hammerhead there some time ago... once. I wonder how many dives he has done in Cozumel?!?

Oh, we finally did get to see some dolphins this past trip, once again from the boat. 3 mommas & their babies. I got a fuzzy pic in my gallery.

 

[fishoutawater]

I was there in 1992. I caught a bus from downtown Cancun. It was an old school bus. Not a tourist bus, mostly locals on it. Dirt cheap. There was no air conditioning, and there certainly was no movie. And yes, I saw two buses, burned, and laying on their sides.
While at 90 ft, the dive buddy I was paired with tapped me on the shoulder and motioned for me to look up. I looked up and saw maybe 20-30 fish with hammerhead like heads, all swimming the same direction, very near the surface. Are there any other fish with hammer shaped heads that swim in schools? I don't know. They were all pretty small, maybe 2 or 3 feet long.
And last time I checked, eels don't have scales. The one I let slide through my fingers had scales. I remember this distinctly, because my twerp of a dive buddy blew bubbles and berated me after the dive, because he felt I disturbed the snake in some way. I've handled snakes all my life, and have never hurt any, except for when I was a kid in Texas, and ranchers would pay us to hunt and kill rattlers on their land (somewhere near Ft Hood/Killeen). Those and one cottonmouth that crawled up my trolling motor into my boat a couple years ago (I live on the Mississippi).
It was the DM that said the wall dropped to 6000 ft. I don't remember which operator it was, but it was near the pier, in front of a resort that had an old airplane sunk in front of it at about 25 feet. I freedove it for a couple hours.
Besides lunch and a couple Dos Equis at Senor Frogs, that's about all I remember.

 

[geraldp]

I'm taking the wife and kids to Cancun next Spring and was wondering if it is easy to get to Cozumel from Cancun?

It depends on how much diving you're planning on doing I would guess... Since I always go with non-divers I only get in about 3-4 days diving out of the week. I stay at the Mayan Palace - about half way between Cancun and Playa Del Carmen (where the ferry to Coz departs). I always get 1 day of diving over in Cozumel, then dive locally the rest of the time (the last two times with Dive Puerto Morelos - whom I would recommend).

From Cancun you've got almost an hours drive south to get to the ferry, then a half an hour ferry ride. Consequently you'll have to get up pretty early to be over in Cozumel in time to catch most of the morning boats going out for diving. That being said a lot of the operators in Cozumel will work with you and your schedule, including afternoon dives.

Somebody said the diving around Cancun is only average... I haven't dived in Cancun proper, but I've dived off of Playa Del Carmen and Puerto Morelos, and IMHO the diving is excellent.

The general concensus (and from what I've seen I agree) is that the fish life is a lot greater on the Riviera Maya (from Cancun all the way down to Tulum), but the coral formations over on Cozumel are truly spectacular. On Cozumel you'll swim around towering coral heads that are 3 stories tall, with swim throughs etc.. The visibility is typically a little better over in Cozumel as well. There's still plenty of fish in Cozumel, but you see more of them off the mainland.

My recommendation would be to dive locally for most of your dives, but try to get in a day over in Cozumel.

As far as dive ops in Cozumel: So far I've only dove with Aqua Safari and Deep Blue (between the two I would recommend Deep Blue), but in 2.5 weeks I'll be diving with Blue XT Sea, as I've read a lot of good reviews about them.

As far as things to do besides diving: Last trip we visited Chichen Itza and toured the ruins. That was pretty neat. We also spent a day snorkeling at Xel Ha (just south of Playa Del Carmen), which my non-diving family truly enjoyed. This trip we plan on touring the Tulum ruins. Somebody also recommended diving/snorkeling the cenotes, which are pretty neat (and unique). Some friends of ours took a jungle tour (which included zip lining over the jungle and kayaking down rivers). They came back pretty jazzed about that.

Have fun!

Jerry