The trips with Underwater Mexico were incredible! Rolien and Antonio are wonderful people who really care about their guests. We enjoyed every trip and we gained two new friends. We had a fantastic time!
We did 3 trips with Underwater Mexico. We went on a Cenotes tour and visited Chichen Itzá, and Sian Ka'an. In addition to these trips, we did several dives with Antonio (including our Open Water, Advanced Open Water, Cozumel, etc). Antonio is a great diver and a natural teacher. If your dive skills are a little rusty, diving with Antonio is great! Since we're now done with our certifications, we're going bull shark diving with Antonio next week and we're looking forward to that.
The private trips were customized for what we wanted to do. We had so much fun on the Cenotes tour that we booked the others. I highly recommend Underwater Mexico if you're looking for a personalized and private tour. We've been in Mexico now for 3 months and I haven't found another company that offers the services of Underwater Mexico for the price.
Rolien speaks at least 4 languages (English, Spanish, Dutch, German) and there are probably others. She is a thoughtful host and a fantastic planner. The trips felt like you were traveling with an old friend who happen to know the area very well. I can't wait to come back to Mexico and do more trips with Rolien.
The dry cenote was jaw droppingly stunning. At Chichen Itza, we had the right amount of history from Kristel and were able to imagine how people lived in the Mayan civilization. At Sian Ka'an (Mayan for where the sky is born) saw a lot of dolphins and turtles and got very close.. it was an amazing experience to see a dolphin family go hunting and turtles surface multiple times in the wild.
Rolien planned the trips so that they are eco-friendly. They care about animals and the environment. She brought reusable lunch boxes and reusable water bottles. She loves animals and protects them (makes sure that tourists don't touch them, feed them, or step on reefs). Some tours allow a lot of these things to happen so that the guests will write a great review and post that "instagram" picture. I like that it's more important for Rolien to do the right thing than get these "instagram" pictures.
Underwater Mexico is more expensive than big bus tours because of the personalized experience, but still affordable. For an extra $50-100 per person vs. what you get from the mass tour sellers (depending on the type of tour), the quality of the experience and service was well worth it. When on vacation, the last thing we wanted to do was to be packed in a big bus and feel like we were being herded through the different sites. Some of the private tours that we got quotes for were absurdly expensive. Underwater Mexico is extra vs. the big bus tours, but not as expensive as the luxury private tours that just have insane prices.
The private tour was even more invaluable in these times of COVID-19. In the tours, we were able to stay longer at the places where we wanted and skip ahead of parts that we had less interest in. No random shop pit stop. For breakfast, there were different menus and they made a vegan breakfast for my fiancé.
Rolien wants every single guest to have the best time and she customized the trip for what people want to do. When we had bad weather coming, she was proactive in rescheduling for days with better weather, so we would enjoy the day more (which we did). I think Rolien's level of service is nothing I've seen before in Mexico where it feels like people just want to take your money without care for the quality of the experience. We can't wait to come back in the spring and book more excursions! read more