This will be a long review but the short of it is: The whale sharks are amazing and worth seeing, just NOT with Mexico Divers.
In May of this year we booked with Mexico Divers for two days of private boats for whaleshark tours on 7/29-7/30.
We arrived the day before to check in with the shop and fill out some paperwork. We discussed with Amy about meeting up a bit earlier in the morning and confirmed our plans.
Half an hour after we left the store, we received this email:
"I am so sorry. We are unable to do Whale Shark Tours on the 30th of any month. They are closed for the marine biologists to go and do counts and check them. Are you able to go on the 31st? It is only closed to all boats on the 30th."
Unbelievable. We'd booked two months in advance and had just met with them IN PERSON. And they STILL chose to email us to tell us about the cancelation. I replied immediately to her email to say that this was unacceptable, that we couldn't change our itinerary and asked for alternatives. No reply.
We went back to the shop and met up with Misael, one of the sons of the shop owner. Instead of owning up to the mix-up he claimed that the rule regarding the 30th was neither long-standing (not true as we found out later online and from other shops) nor enforced until now. Contradicting himself, he then claimed that he'd blocked off further reservations for this exact day a month ago, but wouldn't concede that 1) he knew that the tours on the 30th may be problem and 2) he should've notified customers who had already booked trips for those days.
After some back and forth Misael said that he'd be willing to take us on a reef scuba tour for 7/30 for a "reduced price." We asked for two guides, one for a group of 5 certified divers and another to lead a separate "discover scuba diving" (DSD) tour for 2 non-certified divers. We asked NOT to do dives at MUSA (the underwater museum), and confirmed that we'd all be doing two-tank dives, including the DSDs. Misael verbally acknowledged all of these requests and assured us that he and two divemasters would be coming the next morning. He further said that because the scuba is more expensive, he'd do us a favor and keep the price the same as the original whale shark tour, and even throw in some equipment rentals for free. Taking him at his word, we agreed.
The next day, Misael was nowhere to be seen. The boat was short 5 scuba tanks and only had one divemaster, who was expecting 4 divers, no DSD, and the rest snorkelers. After calling his boss, he added on the additional tanks and brought on another guide and we were finally off. On our way out, the divemaster told to us that we'd be going to the Manchones reef for the first dive and then MUSA. At this point, we were too exasperated to argue.
After our first dive, the weather began to go south. At this point the crew conveyed that we'd be the last boat out as the harbor was being closed due to high winds/thunderstorm. We asked if it was wise to continue, and were surprised that the DM downplayed our concerns, even though we had two non-certified divers. We ended up calling that dive and were glad we did as the weather became SIGNIFICANTLY worse over the next hour as a storm indeed rolled in.
After reaching land, we couldn't wait to be done with Mexico Divers.
We thought Mexico Divers handled these situations quite poorly:
- Allowing tours to be booked on days when the site is closed due to marine biology research.
- Not promptly cancelling/informing customers of the situation.
- When confronted, feigning ignorance of the situation when every other shop on Isla Mujeres seemed to know better.
- Misrepresenting the cost of snorkeling and scuba diving. Per their own website whale shark tours are more expensive. Also all SCUBA equipment is always included. It's just another petty thing to lie about.
- Complete unreliability and disorganization. From the whaleshark debacle to bungling the diving equipment and plans, they're just...undependable. It seems they are willing to say whatever it is to smooth things over and then may or may not follow through.
Some SCUBA-specific gripes:
- Mexico divers did NOT check any of our SCUBA cert cards.
- Dive computers were not part of the rental, which would've been fine, but over half of the SPGs had no depth gauges.
- The divemaster was extremely condescending towards my wife and insisted that she use more than double the amount of lead she normally dives with. My wife (who has done ~200 dives) suggested doing a weight check at the site, but was ignored. What really frustrated her was that the divemaster specifically singled her out of all divers about the weight issue. He spent the rest of the boat ride pointing at and using her as the example of "diver having trouble".
- Both divemasters seemed ok with kicking sea fans and walking on soft coral
- Dismissive attitude towards our safety concerns for the second dive. read more