Cenotes Dzitnup — Attraction in Yucatán

The only reason I’m giving it one star is because one of the “guides” tried to scam us. Me and my boyfriend got there early, around 8:30 and before we could even enter the parking lot a “guide” approached us and told us the cenotes were closed due to a storm that had just gone by the previous week, but he offered to take us to another cenote “close by” that was privately owned, he said que wouldn’t charge us anything and that we could just give him a voluntary tip. We agreed to follow him (he was driving a motorcycle), we ended up driving almost for a half an hour even though he told us the cenote was really close by, once we got to the “cenote” he told us that because it was so early he forgot to mention that in order to see this cenote we had to pay $300 pesos each, which I was immediately mad about because the cenotes in Dzitnup are 2 and it’s a $125 pesos each so this was more than double the price and we didn’t even know how they looked liked. After telling him we were not gonna pay that amount and that we didn’t want to stay to see the cenote he tried to play the sad card telling us he had problems with his gf and that he was a man of God so even if we didn’t want it to help him he was going to be blessed with more money during the day (?) we ended up giving him $50 pesos and leaving. Later that day we found out that the Dzitnup cenotes weren’t even closed!!! They were opened but they opened at 10 am. I was really upset because we didn’t even have time to go back and see the cenotes and we missed them only because this guy that was supposedly a “guide” wanted to scam us and trick us into going some place else just so he could take money from us. Please be aware of this...

We came here as part of our Chichen Itza tour with Absolute Adventures. The shady area with lots of trees and the beautiful cool water cenotes were just what we needed after a hot morning visiting the ruins.

When we arrived, my mum became quite entranced by one of the two macaw parrots there, and was offered to take photos with them for a small fee. The birds looked well cared for so we decided to take them up on the offer and the guy at the desk emailed them all to me as well as printing a few.

We first went to cenote Xkeken which was my personal favourite of the two. The water was so clear that you could see the bottom straight away, and a beautiful shade of blue. The sun streaming in from above hit the water in just the right way to give it a lovely natural atmosphere. There were a few people in there, but it didn't feel crowded. Look out for tiny fish swimming around you, and bats flying above.

Next we went for a short walk with our guide to cenote Samula. This one was slightly darker, but just as clear and blue. Both cenotes seemed cold when we got in, but this was likely because our skin was hot from the morning at the ruins. We enjoyed both cenotes and stayed for a little while until we decided it was time to leave for lunch.

In all, this was a wonderful stop to our day and had been recommended by our guide as an alternative to the busy Il Kil. I've not been there so I can't comment on that, but we loved how quiet this place was and that we could relax and cool down a bit before going on with the...

5 stars for the actual cenotes, as they were beautiful, clean and quiet. As others have mentioned, the "guides" feel somewhat scammy. I knew about them beforehand from these reviews, but when we actually got there it was hard to say no since we weren't exactly sure where to go right away and I didn't know who we needed to buy the tickets from. They tried to charge us 500 MXN after showing us where the cenote was.

So, say "no gracias" to everyone at the very front who greets you when you park, walk straight in and you'll see the area with booths to your left after a couple hundred feet where you can actually buy the tickets to get in. Once inside the little courtyard area, Xkeken is to your left (across the road) and Samula to the right. You'll have to get life jackets on the left side of the courtyard and leave an ID as collateral before going to the cenotes.

Also, I was a little confused about the different names on Google Maps (Dzitnup, Samula, Xkeken), but the individual cenotes here are Samula (smaller and shallower) and Xkeken (larger and deeper with cool cave formations), and Cenotes Dzitnup refers to them collectively. Both of the cenotes are very beautiful in their own ways and are well worth visiting! We went on a Monday in the early afternoon and both of them were almost empty with only a few...