Dolphin Discovery Playa del Carmen — Attraction in Quintana Roo

The dolphin program is ok. Like everywhere else. We bought the entry package and had a simple encounter. No complaints there. Pretty much we got what we paid for and what was described on their website. However, the organization itself was not so great and the photography service is a pure scam. First about the organization/requirements to participate. I think we were the only family who followed it and we were those who 'lost'. First, there was a requirement to take ALL the jewelry off. We did. Including tiny earings our daughter was wearing. Surprise 1 - a woman in our group wore sunglasses! Second - my husband and son were told to take off their swimming tops. The sun was quite bright and we didn't want to use any protector (maybe we could do it but we thought we would go with just tops). Anyway, surprise 2 - a kid in our group wears the top, no problem. And the surprise 3 which cost us additional USD 200 for the ...photographs! We were told that no camera or cell phone is allowed in the area. Surprise!! - one family had a couple of family members shooting from the spectators area! Nobody bothered to even point it out. Had we known that it was 'allowed' we would be satisfied with a few pictures done from that far and call it a day. But... The only thing that was left to us was to buy their photos. So, the 'package' per person should include 10 shots. Being an amateur photographer myself I would expect that 10 shots mean just what they say - 10 different poses of the person. We had 4 people in our group and we would hardly be able to get 20 shots that would be worth buying. The price online, at the reception and from the photographer was absolutely different. In the end, we 'agreed, to take all the kids' pictures and a few (I think 3) 'family' shots. Ah! One photo costs $40.00! So, the guy literally sits in the same spot all the time, simply zooming in and out of the scene and gets 40 dolls per picture! Bottom line, when you get promised something for your money and you DON'T get it is a scam! So, the overall impression was awful. 3* ONLY for the fact that the entry ticket to this place gives you access to a nice beach club with a free lunch (drinks are not included, but the food was...

Normally I don't rate places really low but the experience outside of being in the water with the dolphins was horrible. We had 3 families with us that took part in the dolphin experience. When we arrived they tried to sell us a photo package for 1 - 6x8 printed photo and access to the digital photos for $270 USD per family, but couldn't answer how many digital photos we would receive. Ok, we say no thanks to the photos and then proceed to lunch. Lunch was included and good but as soon as our food came we had to head to our dolphin experience. Our server gave us an attitude and blamed us for not telling him the dolphin experience time when it is located on the lunch voucher. The dolphin experience was really great and a photographer took pictures the entire time. We ended that experience and proceeded down to go eat our lunch that was kept warm for us. The server tells us that drinks are not included and no prices are given. We finish up our lunch and the server tells us we owe $24 USD (3 bottles of water at $6 each and 2 Cokes at $3 each). A bit outrageous in my eyes and sort of a shell game. We didn't drink one of the waters and I asked the waiter to take it back and remove the $6 from the $24 which would have brought us to owing $18. The waiter said he would do so, took the bottle of water away and then proceeded to tell my brother that we owed $24. At this point I'm getting pretty angry. Simply be honest and we would be more than willing to tip you well and take care of you. We leave this area a bit frustrated and proceed on to the area where they offered us pictures. We ended up getting all of the pictures digitally for $300 split amongst three families($100/family). Moral of the story is be cautious with this place. There's some shady things going on in my opinion. Transparency is key and if they want to keep up their tourism they better get their stuff together. Hoping this helps someone in the future so they don't experience the same pain...

If you're planning on getting some pictures - DO NOT GO HERE - there are plenty of other places with reasonable prices for your pictures and some where you can even take come pictures of your own. This is a total rip-off. We had a family of 8 - and they wanted to charge 400 bucks. 60.00 or each picture. You can't take your own camera there, so you can't take your own. So like said, if you're planning on taking a picture souvenir with you OR planning on paying rip-off prices - do not go here.

The owner responded two weeks after - "apologizing" - but they never tried to make things right - they could have easily offered their package at a reasonable price - all they did is post a "sorry" response just to try to mitigate the negative review. That tells you they are not willing to work with customers. I remember trying to negotiate the cost of the pictures with the lady there - and when I offered 160.00 for all the pictures, she literally laughed at us. Again - this is no joke -they rip people off. We mentioned it at the hotel we stayed at - and everyone we talked to agreed this is not a good place to visit. I contacted the Secretaria de Turismo because this type of behavior actually drives tourism away. And by the way, do you know what everyone we talked to said? Oh, they do this because the know Americans will pay any price - as long as the Americans pay for it - they will continue to charge ridiculous prices. So it's up to us to stop this. I'm looking at every site I can...