Cozumel to Akumal

[mobeachlovers]

Anyone have any info to share ( or link to recent thread), on opinions for a day trip from Coz to Akumal? How easy is it to get there, prices, worth a whole/half day of vacation there?
Thanks

 

[mmmbelows]

Depends on what you are looking to do and how important it is. I certainly wouldn't leave cozumel to go diving in akumal. The reasons to go there are for doing something different, snorkeling in the bay (likely with turtles), getting to a post card perfect beach, hire a boat to go fishing, having a local restaurant make up your catch for dinner, going to the beach bar La Buena Vida, Akumal is a great chilling out destination...

Most people who would go there from Cozumel would take the ferry and rent a car in Playa Del Carmen and drive the short distance to Akumal for the day. It will be a bit involved so I'd think anybody doing what you're thinking of would have a strong desire to experience what I described above or I don't see it being worth the hassle.

 

[mobeachlovers]

Depends on what you are looking to do and how important it is. I certainly wouldn't leave cozumel to go diving in akumal. The reasons to go there are for doing something different, snorkeling in the bay (likely with turtles), getting to a post card perfect beach, hire a boat to go fishing, going to the beach bar La Buena Vida...

Akumal and Cozumel are on polar opposites for reasons to go to them. I would never go to Akumal for diving and I'd never go to Cozumel unless I was diving.

Snorkeling in the bay is the main thing I'm interested in. But, having never been to the mainland or taken the ferry have no idea how that works. So any suggestions on the best way to get to Akumal, where to go when we get there, is there enough to do around the bay to make a full day out of it, ect would be awesome. It will be August so not too interested in doing much that is not water related haha
thanks

 

[jonhall]

Used Wild Tours a few years ago for a turtle snorkeling trip from Coz to Akumal. Booked through the resort we stayed at, which was the same as the on-line price. The tour included lunch at Akumal beach. Saved $32 by paying on our own for the ferry ride over (and back) to/from Playa del Carmen where we met the tour guide, so really our tour was from Playa to Akumal. The only tour negative, for me, was a 2 hour wait time between snorkeling and the buffet. We also bought one-way ferry tickets instead of the round trip ticket. This allowed us to explore Playa once we returned from Akumal instead of having to be on the ferry back to Coz at a prescribed time. The beach in Akumal is very nice.

Once you get to Playa, you can find other transportation to Akumal which is about a 30 minute drive. How much time you spend depends on what you plan to do. Our tour was about 5 hours and then we spent a couple of hours in Playa before heading back to Coz.

 

[mmmbelows]

Snorkeling in the bay is the main thing I'm interested in. But, having never been to the mainland or taken the ferry have no idea how that works. So any suggestions on the best way to get to Akumal, where to go when we get there, is there enough to do around the bay to make a full day out of it, ect would be awesome. It will be August so not too interested in doing much that is not water related haha
thanks

Akumal

La Buena Vida beach bar

It's a very nice beach, there are usually turtles in the water and their are two spanish cannons out in the bay you can find too.

Getting there is easy, google the ferry schedules, I think they leave every 30 minutes. You just get on the ferry, get off in Playa and pick up a rental car. You can arrive and just walk up to one, but me, I'd rent one online before I got there and do as much paperwork as possible before arriving online if you can because they can take a long time getting you signed up at the local office especially if there is a line, and then sometimes they are driving you 10 minutes to pick up the actual car. Then just drive south on the main road to Akumal, its impossible to get lost as there is only one road and it goes north or south out of Playa Del Carmen, just make sure you go south, when you get to Akumal, park and walk in to the beach and enjoy. At the end of the day just do it all in reverse.

 

[El Graduado]

If the "Spanish cannons" that are out in the bay today are the same ones that were out there in the early 1980s, they are not cannons, but two 16th century wrought-iron (not cast iron) versos. These two breech-loading, rail-mounted guns were taken to Akumal Bay in 1960 and 1961 by members of CEDAM from the Bahia Mujeres Wreck that lies between Isla Mujeres and Cancun. In all, the Mexican dive club "rescued" 1 falconete, I bombardeta, 2 versos, and an anchor from that site.

I remember snorkeling out to the versos in Akumal in 1984 with another archaeologist to measure them and almost drowning because I was laughing so hard at the sight of him being harassed mercilessly by a damselfish who objected to us picking up the gun (where it was living, at the time) and walking it to shallower water. Where it lay in Akumal bay originally, was just deep enough that our snorkels barely broke the surface of the water as we struggled to carry the heavy piece towards shore. As I would start to laugh, I'd get water in my snorkel and we'd have to set the thing down. The damsel fish would swim back into the breech, only to come back out pissed off and ready to fight every time we picked it back up and started walking with it again.

Later, we mapped and surveyed the original site of the Bahia Mujeres wreck in a joint project with INAH and INA. I remember getting off a Continental flight in Cancun, changing clothes in the taxi, jumping aboard a small speedboat that was waiting to take me to Isla Mujeres, where I boarded a Mexican Navy helicopter to fly out over the site and mark it with buoys as we hovered over it, then flying back to the dock to meet up with the rest of the crew to go dive the site. The plan went straight down hill from there. The microwave tech who we hired to man the positioning system we were using plugged a 110 V unit into a 220 V outlet and fried the thing, our boat swamped and sank over the site, and my wife was injured and needed to be flown back to the states, where to her dismay and chagrin, TV cameras rerecorded her deplaning the flight in a wheelchair.

 

[Ron Lee]

Ferry to Playa del Carmen. Colectivo to Akumal.

The Riviera Maya map/guide from cancunmap.com might help

 

[ReefHound]

From PDC you can take the colectivo for 70 pesos but they will only drop you off at the highway where you will have a 1/4 mile walk to the ocean. It's an easy walk and lots of people do it but depends on how brutal the heat is and how much stuff you're lugging along. Same thing getting back although you can get a taxi to take you back to the highway for a few bucks.

Taxis between PDC and Akumal will be the fastest, easiest, and most expensive way.

 

[rakay]

It will take you 45 min on the ferry from cozumel to playa del carmen. Another 30 minute drive to Akumal. So you will most likely have to plan on 2 hours each direction from Cozumel to Akumal- thats a total of 4 hours transfer time.
Don't bother diving in Akumal. I have done that and it was only so so. Cozumel has awesome diving compared to Akumal.
If you want to snorkel with turtles that you can get close to then Akumal is the place. Beach is nice and the water is calm.

 

[mediumone]

From PDC you can take the colectivo for 70 pesos

35 or 40 pesos. It's only 45 to Tulum since they raised the fare.