Cenote Recommendations

[TSandM]

Dos Ojos was my favorite cavern tour site, but Grand Cenote is another very beautiful dive, highly decorated. Taj Maha has fabulous halocline effects, including the "Points of Light", if you are there at the right time of day and year. (These are cracks in the ceiling that admit bright beams of light, that hit the halocline and bent sharply. It's very cool.) Chac Mool is a very large room, with a lot of light in it. The cavern dive at Ponderosa (Cenote Eden) is pleasant but is more large chunks of limestone, and not as much of a feeling of being in the overhead. I didn't think the cavern dive at Carwash was all that much fun -- you're really swimming more or less just under the drip line. The cavern dive at Chikin Ha is also more big chunks of limestone.

I'm not sure where else they tend to run tours, but those are the ones I've done.

 

[BTravlin]

My wife and I just did our first cenote dives at Chac Mool and Kukulkhan. We enjoyed the dives and were glad we did them but it's probably not something we'll go for again. It was interesting and unique but just didn't light our fire the way it obviously does for many others here. Nice that there are many types of diving to satisfy everyone.

 

[Pez de Diablo]

Thanks for the additional pictures. I think its a must stop for us while we are down there. And thanks for the recommendation on guides, I will for sure check them out.

Any Cenote in general you think is a must see if we only have the time to do one?

Brad

This is a question that is asked the most!! What is the BEST cenote dive to do?

Tough question, my personal favorite is Taj Mahal followed by the barbie line in Dos Ojos followed by Jardin del Eden (AKA Ponderosa and Garden of Eden). Most divers however pick The Bat cave at Dos Ojos over the Barbie line. Many divers don't think Eden is very beautiful because of the lack of formation, but I think the light shining in at Cenote Corral is spectacular and the halocline can be an amazing sight. Everyone takes away something special from there cenote dives that they found very amazing - it doesn't matter which cenote you dived, they are all amazing.

Each diver who has done more than 4 different cenote dives will recommend different dives but I do think that the 2 dives at Dos Ojos are the most popular amongst divers that have dived there as well as a couple of other places.

Can we still do polls here?

Dennis

 

[Robustbrad]

Thanks for all the recommendations. It will defenitly be a tough choice come May!

 

[cathm]

Dos Ojos was great as an intro to cenotes, my second day there I dived in Angelita cenote - it's a bit further south from Tulum but not very far, it's different to a lot of the others in that there's a halocline but no actual overhead environment, may be a good option if you're claustrophobic but it is deep (the halocline is just below 30m so you go to about 40m). Looks very surreal coming back through the halocline, definitely worth doing if qualifications allow (need at least AOW). Gran Cenote also good, thought it was a bit more open than Dos Ojos.