The Mayan Cave — Local services in Quintana Roo

ATV rental is unsafe and unreliable. They held my passport hostage. July 20-22nd, 2023

Scary shakes with the back of the ATV wobbling hard, bald tires, difficult to start up, won’t go faster than 10mph without jolting left and right violently, brakes hardly worked, horrible all around.

Paid $2600 pesos cash for 4 days rental (we only got 2 days worth before the bike almost killed us)

2nd day we are driving and hear a scary loud pop while on a busy street that shook us to the point we almost lost control of the ATV, belt broke so we were stuck in crazy heat and zero shade with little water for 40 minutes. We were told they were coming and bringing us a different ATV. They got there and told us to figure it out ourselves, no replacement ATV and no ride back. I quite literally almost had a heat stroke.

Get back to this place to get another ATV to get what I paid for. Second one doesn’t even crank when we get back to our Airbnb in the middle of the jungle around 8pm. They said they will be keeping my passport unless I pay an ADDITIONAL $1300 pesos to replace the belt. They come and get the bike from the Airbnb within 1 hour of us getting the 2nd ATV.

So on top of ruining our trip that I scrounged up every bit of money I could to come to Tulum, we got 2 days of ATV for $3900 pesos and the other 2 days we didn’t have an ATV. Not what I paid for and not what I deserved to experience having my passport held hostage for THEIR equipment failure. Not added is $ we had to pay for taxis to get back, plus hours of waiting on these clowns to come get their bikes. Plans were all ruined.

Even the man’s own friend was trying to hand sign to us not to do business there when we went back to get a replacement ATV. We thought he was just being weird but now know he was warning us.

If you value your life, please do not do business with these crooks. Not worth it. This could have been something much more serious if we weren’t cruising in a bike lane.

“Chess”, his son, the pregnant woman, and another younger guy there are absolute criminals who should not be allowed to operate. Completely ruined 2 days of our trip, put our lives in danger, and took out an entire day we had planned...

Exciting, amazing and perhaps not a little terrifying all at the same time. Diving Dos Ojos is an experience I won’t forget! And the service from The Mayan Cave and my guide/instructor Pedro Sánchez could not have been better. The afternoon before I got fitted out with wetsuit, BCD fins and an extra light. All were pretty new and in good condition. I had brought my own regulator, mask, diving computer and light so I can’t make any really informed comment on those, but the ones I saw looked fine.

Pedro reviewed my diving experience (I’m PADI Open Water certified, with 60 dives, but consider myself still a beginner) and talked about the dives.

Next day we set out relatively early at 8:00 am. Pedro loaded everything into the van and wouldn’t let me lift hardly a finger. We picked up tanks at the filling shop and set out for the park. Once there, we unloaded and again, Pedro insisted on carrying everything down to the entry point. Pedro then went through a detailed safety briefing, describing everything about the dives and did his best to relieve my anxiety. He has done the dives many times and is obviously very experienced and safety conscious. In particular, he described how, even in the caverns, one is not far from a place you can surface. In addition, very reassuring that he carried two tanks while I carried only one. After in initial “check swim” to review my buoyancy and profile, off we went to dive the “Barbie Line” (I leave it to you to find out why it’s called that) and returned without incident after 38 min, max depth 7.7 m. No need for a safety stop, as we were around 5 m or less for more than 3 mins as we approached the end. The clarity of the water was just amazing, as were all the stalactites and stalagmites. We saw some small fish, but the experience was about the formations.

We took a short break for some water and a snack, changed tanks and then took off again to dive the “Bat Cave”. Max depth 10.5 m, total time 36 min.

As I said, altogether an experience I won’t forget. Definitely worth overcoming my trepidation thanks to the professionalism and knowledge...

I did 2 dives at los ojos and 1 dive at El Pit in January 23. I have ~160 dives, so I have quite a lot of experience with different dive shops and this one was the worst so far. First of all, they said it was 190 US Dollars, but then they used their own conversion rate, so I ended up paying 200$ anyways, which I found very intransparent and misleading (1USD = 20MXN$ instead of the actual 19.1MXN$ at that time). I was told that the price includes sandwiches, fruits and water. However, I only got one small box of fruits, so I didnt have water or anything real to eat until I got back at 5pm!! That's a no go, especially because hydration is essential when diving. Next, they told me to be at the dive shop at 10am (other dive shops include hotel pick-up for the same price), but it wasn't until 12.30 that I got into the water because I had to wait for the dive instructor, who was still out diving with other customers. El Pit closes at 3pm (which I just learned that day), so we had to rush through the first 2 dives at los ojos to make it to El Pit. The dives were 45 and 30 mins, I ended the dives with 150 and 170 bars!! For that price I expect much longer dives, especially because I was the only customer, so they can adjust the dive time to my air consumption. I was told in the shop that El Pit is amazing because of the sunlight rays that shine into it, but then I learned at the dive site that it only happens in winter season, so no light for us. Not so important, but the fins they gave me were the most uncomfortable ones I ever had and different from reef diving, los ojos requires a lot of swimming, so there was no blood circulation in my feet and it was super painful. In conclusion, I would not recommend to go with Mayan Cave divers or if you do - make sure to double check the equipment, the food/drinks in the cooler and require early meet up! Personally, I think diving cenotes is a cool experience (esp. the iodine sulfite clouds), but I wouldnt do it more than once, because obviously there's no marine life, so you won't really have a different experience going to the same...