Scuba Diving in Tulum: Best Tours & Cenote + Reef Dives

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Scuba diving in Tulum is a must-do on everyone’s tropical adventure bucket list!

Tulum is arguably one of the best places in the world to scuba dive because it has both incredible cenotes and the Mesoamerican Reef (the second largest after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef).

You have both options when scuba diving in Tulum, and it’s nothing short of amazing.

Not only can you scuba dive through deep open-air cenotes, but you can also experience cave diving in Tulum’s labyrinth of underground flooded caverns and tunnels.

There are so many things to do in the Riviera Maya, but when I moved to Tulum, I knew I wanted to focus on exploring its scuba diving scene.

So far, I have been able to scuba dive three times in one of Tulum’s cenotes (Casa Cenote), twice in the Tulum reef, and twice in the Akumal reef. I also completed my PADI Open Water Certification in Tulum!

With so many opportunities to explore Tulum’s aquatic wonderlands, I wanted to create this ultimate guide so you can have the best scuba diving experience possible.

From dive shops to the best cenotes and reefs for diving, here is my ultimate guide to scuba diving in Tulum, Mexico.

P.S. If you’re a dive shop in Tulum or have dive experience here, please drop any additional recommendations in the comments below!

The Ultimate Guide to Scuba Diving in Tulum, Mexico

The Best Dive Shops in Tulum

If you want to book with a dive shop, I’d recommend the below diving shops and tours in Tulum.

La Calypso Dive Center

• Price per dive: $119 – $210
• Most popular dive tours:
  • El Pit Cenote (Advanced) and Cenote Dos Ojos (2 dives)
  • Cenote Dos Ojos (2 dives)
  • Discovery Dive (or Refresher) in Casa Cenote

The folks at La Calypso specialize in cenotes, caves, reefs, and PADI courses.

These guys have over 15 years of experience scuba diving in Tulum.

They have been mentioned in French media, including Le Monde and Le Routard (aka the French version of Lonely Planet).

If you’re looking for a French-speaking dive center in Tulum, La Calypso Dive Center is your place!

Don’t worry; they also speak English and Spanish (and also apparently a fourth language per their website!). 🙂

Like other dive shops, they will take care of everything so you can focus on safely having fun.

Their cenote packages are cool because the prices vary based on which cenote you dive in. For example, you can combine two dives with shallow and deep cenotes.

Prices: Cenotes $119-$210, Reef $150, PADI Open Water $550

🤿 La Calypso tours & prices on Viator

Agua Clara Diving

• Price per dive: $124 – $240
• Most popular dive tour: 2-Tank Certified Cenote Dives

Agua Clara is a PADI 5-star center that comes highly recommended by fellow divers. They call themselves an eco-friendly diving center featuring zero waste and small-group tours.

Not only can you book excursions for scuba diving in Tulum, but you can also book reef dives in Cozumel. They also offer eco-tours for snorkeling, cenote Tankah, and Sian Ka’an.

Prices: Their prices are typical of most scuba dive shops in Tulum. The PADI Open Water course costs $638 (e-learning), $173 for a Tulum reef dive ($340 for Cozumel), and their discovery dives for beginners are $124 x 1 dive or $213 for 2 dives.

They also have cenote dives priced at $170 for 2x dives and $240 for 3x. Some of the cenotes they go to include Cenote Dos Ojos, Casa Cenote, Cenote Calavera, Cenote Dreamgate, Cenote Carwash, and a few others!

🤿 Agua Clara diving tours on Viator

Koox Diving

• Price per dive: $154 – $214
• Most popular dive tour: Dive Casa Cenote & Dos Ojos

The team at Koox Diving knows a thing or two about scuba diving in Tulum, considering they’ve been doing it for over 16 years!

They offer a range of diving tours and courses like technical and deep-sea diving and cave diving and can arrange all diving excursions whether you’re based in Tulum, Playa del Carmen, or Cancun.

Of all the dive shops, Koox offers a diverse range of excursions (not just for diving). They also offer freediving, fishing, swimming with whale sharks, Mayan ruins tours, and guided visits for even more things to do in the Riviera Maya.

Prices: At $154 to $214 for discovery dives and $564 for PADI Open Water certification (e-learning), Koox Diving prices are a bit steeper.

🤿 Tours with Koox Diving

Infinity2Diving

• Price per dive: $145 – $303
• Most popular dive tour: Tulum Discovery Dive

Infinity2Diving offers all types of tours, including cenote diving, multi-day diving packages, PADI courses, technical diving, and more.

Though I haven’t been diving with these guys (yet), I could tell they were laid-back, friendly, and passionate about diving when I went in to buy my Beuchat dive mask.

Mario and Diego were both there to entertain me, and Mario specifically helped explain to me all about dive masks, showed me how to burn my first mask, and talked about his love for cenote diving.

Prices: They are $145 for a ½ day and $212 for a full-day discovery dive, $601 x PADI Open Water (e-learning), and $546 for Advanced Open Water.

The cenote dives range from $145-$303 USD, while reef dives range from $180-$240 USD. They also offer a three-day reef dive package for $582 USD and a range of snorkeling and cultural tours like a day trip to float in the canals in Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve.

🤿 Infinty2Diving ratings on Viator

Private Diving Instructor 

I completed 2x discovery dives (1 cenote dive and 1 reef dive) and received my PADI Open Water with David, a freelance dive instructor.

I realize this isn’t how most people do scuba tours, but if you want 1-on-1 instruction with a pro, I highly recommend you seek out a private instructor. It was pretty awesome to have just us and our instructor instead of going with a large group.

If you’d like David’s contact info while you’re in Tulum, he can be reached by email at damat85@gmail(dot)com. (He doesn’t have a public social account or website.)

His rates are fair and competitive ($390 for Open Water, $120 for 2x discovery dives, or $90 for 1), and you won’t be disappointed with the experience!

Best Cenotes in Tulum for Diving

Casa Cenote

Casa Cenote is a beautiful open-air cenote used as a training site for new divers.

Its long, snake-like shape carves out the mangroves and creates an awesome aerial picture. On the other side of the sandy road lies the Caribbean Sea.

In this cenote, you can see both freshwater and saltwater wildlife, fish, algae gardens, and even Pancho the crocodile! Max depth: 20-25 ft (6-8 m).

Cenote Carwash

Cenote Carwash, on the surface, looks like a large lagoon or pond, but below its water, it’s also a gateway to easy caverns where new cave divers can try out their skills.

There are lots of lily pads, aquatic life, rock formations, and fallen trees, which together make for a stunning cenote dive. Max depth: 45 ft (15 m)

El Pit

Cenote Pit is a cenote that is exactly what it sounds like. It is one of the best cenotes for diving in Tulum as it is essentially a huge pit or underwater chamber perfect for exploring (for advanced divers).

At around 400 ft (121 m), it is one of the deepest cenotes in Quintana Roo.

The light rays shining through the water create insane visuals that will make you want to go diving immediately! Max diving depth: 130 ft (40 m)

Cenote Angelita

Cenote Angelita is a favorite cenote for advanced divers in Tulum because it features a spookish thick cloud of hydrogen sulfide gas created by decaying trees and vegetation that gathers in the layer of the cenote where fresh and saltwater meet (halocline).

You can pass through this layer to a deeper, darker part of Angelita. Max diving depth: 130 ft (40 m)

Dos Ojos 

Cenote Dos Ojos is one of the most popular cenotes in Tulum for snorkeling and diving.

Dos Ojos, meaning Two Eyes, refers to the two neighboring cenotes flowing with an enormous subterranean river. It is one of the world’s longest cave systems (Sac Atun) at ~193 miles (310 km).

It is a great option for new divers since you stay near the surface and don’t dive down more than 30 ft (10 m). If you dive at Dos Ojos, you’ll either follow the Barbie Line or the Bat Line circuit (both entrances and lines give way to wildly different diving experiences).

Cenote Dream Gate

If you want to dive in crystal clear water rich with marine life and cave formations, dive in Cenote Dream Gate (often written as Dreamgate). This cenote is unique because you can take two diving routes – upstream or downstream.

Either way, you will have a blast in this cenote! It is often considered one of Tulum’s best cenotes for cave diving. You must have excellent buoyancy skills and Open Water certification to dive here. Depth: 30 ft (9 m)

Cenote Calavera

Cenote Calavera is a fun, skull-shaped cenote with one big hole and two smaller holes (hence the name). At first, it looks like a big swimming hole, but you can enter the Sac Actun cave system here.

This dive features cool cave formations and the cloudy halocline layer. It is recommended for advanced divers since some dark and narrow spots exist. Max depth: ~50 ft (16 m)

Cenote Escondido

Cenote Escondido is a large pool-like cenote hidden in the jungle just south of Tulum. It is great for swimming, snorkeling, and also diving!

When we were there, we saw two divers resurface after making their way through the underground cavern.

The entry fee is 150 or 300 pesos each if you combine a visit with Cenote Cristal just across the street (great for jumping/swimming/snorkeling, but not diving). The price for divers for Escondido is around 200 pesos.

Cenote Nicte-Ha

Cenote Nicte Ha can be found within the Dos Ojos Cenotes park. This cenote is both an open-water underwater garden dive and a cavern line.

It’s definitely less popular as a diving cenote, but it still offers cave divers a short and sweet thrill. Max depth: ~25 ft (8 m)

As you can see, there are TONS of opportunities to go diving in a world-famous Tulum cenote. Ask your diving instructor or dive shop about their various packages and what they’d recommend based on your diving experience.

If you want to dive in the sea for a whole new experience, then you could also scuba dive into the Mesoamerican reef just offshore of Tulum!

Gran Cenote 

Gran Cenote is another hugely popular cenote in Tulum. You used to be able to dive here, but either due to the increase in popularity or tourism, you no longer can.

You can still visit and arrange a snorkeling tour, though. Entry cost is one of the highest in Tulum – around ~500 pesos per person. Equipment rentals, showers, bathrooms, and a rest area/garden are on site.

Tulum Reef Diving

Scuba diving in Tulum is incredible because the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef lies just off the warm coastal waters of Tulum and is the second largest after the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Several reef diving sites in Tulum will allow you to see many rich, colorful marine life, including reef fish, crabs, lobsters, and maybe even the passing turtle, stingray, or bull shark!

Here are just a few of the reef sites!

Cuevitas 

Cuevitas, meaning “Little Caves,” is where we got to do our first reef dive with our private instructor David. It is appropriately named Little Caves because there are several small arches that you can swim through.

On this dive, we saw lobsters, a blowfish, and many blue, yellow, and neon-speckled reef fish swimming around the corals. The dive site is 10 minutes north of Tulum in the sea, just across from Casa Cenote. We dove around 25-30 ft (8-10 m).

Stingray

The Stingray dive in front of Tulum ruins is a great option for new divers (on calm sea days) because it is a fairly shallow dive of ~ 8-24 ft (2.5-10 m).

It is often called the Stingray dive because of the possibility of seeing stingrays exploring the sandy floor.

Coquitos

Coquitos is another Tulum reef dive worth doing. It’s nicknamed Little Coconuts because of the coconut-filled palm trees lining the beach.

You can see lots of colorful sea life on this dive. Max depth is ~ 40 ft (12 m) at the bottom of the corals.

Last Tips for Scuba Diving in Tulum

✈️ Wait 12-18 hours before flying.

You shouldn’t board/fly in a plane for at least 12-18 hours after your last dive.

As David told us, little nitrogen bubbles can build up in our bodies and blood system when we dive, and it needs to be released.

If we fly just after a dive, we are at risk of decompression sickness, aka “the bends,” and this can cause injury or even be fatal.

If you develop symptoms of decompression sickness (weakness, tingling, vertigo, fatigue) after diving in Tulum, see a doctor immediately.

The nearby town of Playa del Carmen has a hyperbaric chamber, and Tulum is planning to get one in the near future. 

Always be sure to purchase scuba diving insurance before your trip!

Most travel insurance doesn’t include scuba diving under their umbrella of care, and you’ll most likely need to get separate coverage through another insurance agency.

💧 Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

The more water you drink, the better. When we hydrate, we clear our sinuses and boost blood pressure.

Without good hydration, you may feel too weak or poor to dive, and you’ll have difficulty equalizing underwater.

👙 Wear comfortable bikinis. 

Diving wetsuits are extremely tight. Ladies, wear a comfortable bikini or one-piece swimsuit and avoid anything you need to tie with knots, as this will stick out and be uncomfortable.

Men should wear comfortable boxers/briefs rather than loose-fitting swimming trunks.

☀️ Have fun! 

Scuba diving is one of the best adventure activities, and the more you relax and just “go with the flow”, the more you’ll enjoy the experience!

After experiencing both cenote and reef dives in Tulum, I believe this has to be one of the best places in the world to scuba dive! 

Not only do you have the chance to see incredible marine diversity and colorful coral along the Mesoamerican Reef, but you also get the opportunity to have a once-in-a-lifetime experience diving in a cenote. 

I highly recommend you consider spending 4 to 5 days in Tulum to get your PADI certification! 

Even if you’re not quite Open Water certified, you can still participate in a cenote or reef dive on a discovery tour. 

If you have any questions about my experiences scuba diving in Tulum, feel free to reach out in the comments or email me. Happy diving!

Discover more of Tulum with these guides:

• 15 Epic Day Trips From Tulum
• Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve
• 12 Things to Do in Tulum, Mexico
• Tulum Street Art