Playa Akumal

Drive all the way inside, park on the Happy Turtle parking, it's also $100 pesos, just like the ones on the entrance. But here the walk is minimal.

Bring your own picnic, beach towels, just no glass containers. Restaurant with touristy prices is available.

Don't hire the guides on the entrance. Big companies. Pay your entrance on the ticket office to this National Park.

Once inside enjoy the clean dressing rooms, bathrooms and showers. Hire the local independent guides to swim with the turtles. $600 pesos. Please only apply SPF until after you finish your tour. Help protect the turtles.

Pro tip from my guide. Get there at 4pm. Take the tour. At that time most of the crowds are gone, and many more turtles come back to hang out.

Amazing snorkeling experience. You need to go on a tour to actually have a chance to see turtles and stingrays. We paid 400 pesos each for a private tour. Only get the tours at the beach, not before the entrance or at the car park. Tell those guides that you're only going to swim and not see turtles, otherwise they will try very hard to convince you and waste your time.

Make sure to drive to the end to park at the official parking lot and to save walking. There is one car park for 40 pesos per hour or 100 pesos for a full day. I carried on driving and found free parking.

Make sure to ask different tour guides as some were going to charge 650 pesos and that would be with a group! The tours give you money back if you don't see any turtles, but you're pretty guaranteed to see them. Try and go early, before 10am.

Entrance to the beach costs 120 pesos each.

Amazing experience seeing turtles and stingrays! Would highly recommend it. You do have to pay for parking and an entrance fee to the beach. We went on a private snorkelling tour for 400 pesos each. The tour guide was wonderful. I would recommend asking around about the price of the tours to find the cheapest one.

wonderful nature and animals under the water
you don’t need to do the snorkeling tour with the guide
just take you glasses and go under the water you will see a lot
we have seen 4 turtles, 2 stingrays/mantarays and a lot of fish
very beautiful beach and water

This is such a lovely place to go snorkeling. GO EARLY! We were one of the first groups out and we saw 6 sea turtles, a pufferfish, some rays, chocolate sea stars, some coral, and various tropical fish like blue tang. By the time we got back to shore at around 9:30, the beach was packed.

Spectacular beach and swim with turtles.it is just a must. We had our guide Anjelo from Sea turtles akumal tours who was super kind and explained us a lot of things.we saw not only turtles,but 3 reys,one super big and different fishes.we were there before 8:30 and had the chance to see the turtles with no people around.after 9 it gets really crowded.the beach is also crowded but beatiful.

Gorgeous beach! If you want to get away to a place where nature comes before tourists, this is the place!

I swam with the turtles here.

Go early. I went in low season (early September 2023) and arrived before they even open. The car path to Akumal Beach is chained off with a guy guarding it. You should say that you're doing a tour with the Akumal Dive Centre (the Akumal Dive Shop is a different place). THEN you can drive in and access the parking lot that's right next to the beach.

Akumal Dive Centre opens at 8am. Keep that in mind for your travel time.

If you want to go for a tour to swim with the sea turtles, Akumal Dive Centre sells them for 700 MXN. You get a locker rental, life jacket, snorkel gear, and then they take you on a one-minute boat ride out with a guide for a small group of people.

During the tour, you can't take anything with you - leave everything in the locker, and the key to the locker you'll hang right by the central desk. No sunscreen of any kind allowed so buy a rash guard / sun shirt.

However, you can also just swim out to see the turtles for FREE without paying for anything once you know what you're doing. You can simply go to the end of the line of boats on the beach, use the anchor chains to move up and you'll come across white buoys that demarcate the area that you're allowed to swim up to WITHOUT a life jacket. I have done this after the tour and still found a couple of sea turtles that swam in past the border.

If you go over the white buoys, you're required to have a life jacket. The dive centre rents them out for less price than a tour. Then all you have to do is see where the people are bobbing in the sea together - most likely they're looking at a turtle. Just go swim up to that area.

Otherwise if you go later in the day, especially in high season, other tourists will have kicked up the sand and drastically lower visibility of the turtles.

When you get hungry, I recommend going to eat at La Buena Vida or La Lunita - about 5 minutes drive up the road into Bahia De La Media Luna (Half Moon Bay).

We visited here with an Airbnb snorkeling tour. You need to pay an entrance fee otherwise. Lockers are free to rent but require a 100 pesos deposit.

We saw a ton of turtles, sting ray and various fish! The beach vibe is super nice and the water is beautiful!

Nice beach, and they offer snorkeling to see turtles. It's about a 30-minute drive from tulum.

Parking is $100 pesos (roughly 6 USD).

The entrance to the beach is $7 USD per person(credit card accepted).

There are a bunch of hotels down there with private beach chairs. You are unable to rent it, unfortunately. Only available for hotel guest.

But once you enter the beach. If you walk about 5 minutes to your right. You can lay your own towels down and should be empty. In front of the boats

Turtles without paying a guide! Nice beach, a bit crowded but very affordable. Not necessary to pay a tour to see turtles. Just bring your own goggles or snorkel and walk along the beach. Pass the boats and swim until you see a group of individual swimmers stopped in one spot in the water, they are most likely watching sea turtles.

Definitely one of my favorite beaches that I visited while in Mexico , it can get very crowded so if you want to snorkel with sea turtles which you can have a chance to see even if you don’t pay for a tour it has to be early , there’s also a lot of fish and rays , beach is very pretty , nice water , and a few restaurants to grab a bite to eat , entrance to the beach is $6 weather you go through the dive shop or The Reserve , there are showers and lockers there that you can use ,they ask for a 100 peso deposit that you get back when you return your locker key that comes with your $6 entrance fee if you go through the reserve which is to the left of the akumal dive shop , there is parking I recommend you park at the second parking lot when coming in , it’s past the dive shop about 100 feet , it’s 100 pesos $5 usd all day , the first parking lot is by the hour, there is a 1 hour snorkel tour there , I paid $30 USD dollars I believe all equipment was included with that price , we just had our own that day , if you decide to do it you can go beyond the designated swimming area out to the reef which we did honestly and you will not regret , we absolutely loved Akumal !

Stunning beach, here we swam with the turtles and manta ray!!! The cost is very reasonable for entry and the tours too, absolute must do especially for younger children as your within an enclosed area so much safer than heading out by boat to a reef

This beach is famous for its sea turtles and it definitely did not disappoint! That said, there are a ton of tour guides (vultures) trying to fleece you to pay 400 pesos just to swim in the ocean even though everyone has free access to the ocean + the first 20ft of land. If you launch off the south side of the beach just outside of the floats which these vultures setup, you can swim up to the turtles. If the vultures come at you, let them know that they have no right to send you off from public federal property.

Parking is something that you cannot avoid but if you will eat at the restaurant, then the 150 pesos that they charge for parking goes towards the bill

Lots turtles in the water. We snorkled not even 10 minutes before spotting the first turtle. We also saw a couple of stingrays and fishes. You can rent snorkel gears and have a guide for your group for $ 20 US per person.

I personally did not go on this tour but my wife did and she loved it. She doesn't even know how to swim but the guide took great care of her. We told him that my wife doesn't swim and he use a life ring to pull her along. He was telling her when to put her face into the water to see the turtles and fish.
For me, I sat at the Lol Ha restaurant with a Pina Colada and waited for her. We have no picture of anything under water but there's no shortage of those pictures from other reviewers. I do have a few from my activity though and I'll share those.

Very beautiful beach!
I liked how they try to preserve the nature and still let you snorkel around.
We got to see a few turtles very closely and it was amazing!
Don't buy tickets of the guys standind on the road, they will get you the same service you can get by yourself for more money.

Beautiful place to spend full day. We drove from Playa del Carmen (35 min).

Once we were there we paid 50 MXN for parking full day, you can find many options around the entrance to the beach.

We managed to get into the beach, and leave 200 MXN at the restaurant as a deposit to use facilities (bathrooms and showers). After swimming and drinking our own drinks that we bought from OXXO (200 meters from the beach) we use the 200 MXN pesos to pay a delicious ceviche at the restaurant.

The color of the water is beautiful, a nice blue/turquoise, highly recommended. It was a very nice experience and memories to keep with you.

Enjoy.

19.09.2022

What are the most awesome experiences I’ve had.

We were very unsure to pay 100 pesos for just visiting the beach. But for us it was absolutely worth it. The beach was very clean and when we arrived (around 11:30 pm) there weren’t a lot people around.

For 450 pesos we did a one hour snorkeling tour with a local guide (equipment included) and saw corals (not impressive if you already have seen big reefs), turtles and mantas. They promised that we will see all of the 3 highlights and will get the money back if not. I really recommend if you want to see the turtles :)