One of the most fun adventures is spending the day on a catamaran. The tour we chose included sailing, snorkeling, shopping on the Isle de Mujeres, massages, lunch, drinks, and parasailing off of the boat.
You can buy a ticket from pretty much any of the resorts on the row. It’s important to pay attention to all the details when you make your purchase. Read the details carefully, TWICE.
You’ll have to leave fairly early in the morning to arrive at the docks where the catamarans depart (there are often 3-4 leaving at the same time). Be on time! Make sure to allow enough time to walk or taxi as well as check in. The tour will leave on time and you will be left behind.
EVERYONE attending needs to bring their receipt, boarding pass, minimal cash (see next sentence) and ID to confirm they are the one registered. A “dock fee” is required and must be paid in cash (approx. $11).
If you want to buy anything in the shops, you’ll need to bring either cash or a credit/debit card as well. If you’re ok with carrying cash with you it may be useful in negotiating prices for whatever you intend to purchase (see Negotiating Currency).
Make sure you bring and use – the right sunscreen. Some sunscreens are outlawed/banned (they name specific chemicals that hurt the aquatic animals/fish – this is a real thing, check the link). Appropriate sunscreen was available for purchase before we boarded.
Now starts the fun!
As we mentioned previously, multiple catamarans set sail at the same time. They take similar paths, but it’s orchestrated well so that everyone isn’t on top of each other. The trip to the Isle de Mujeres is well planned.
Our trip began with sailing through beautiful, multicolored blue water, over reefs and a bit of history of the Isle de Mujeres.
Next we docked on the island for shopping and lunch which was staggered with the other catamarans. An added surprise were massage stations to the right of the lunch pavilion. Half hour massages under shaded cabanas by the water were available for quite a reasonable price.
While shopping there are two things to remember: 1) try to make it past the first street, that’s where you can get bigger bargains. 2) you can negotiate here, and the more you buy, the deeper the discounts.
There were 4 of us and we opted to negotiate, buy more, and were quite happy with our discount. We had forgotten our credit cards (which we don’t recommend by the way) yet rather than lose a sale they offered to bring everything to our resort and run our card through there. We were quite pleased with the efficiency and honesty we received.
Time to leave the island to go snorking with the fish!
The snorkeling was excellent, but the fun was not over. As we headed back to the dock the catamaran raises the spinniker to allow folks like Dianne (in video below) to sail off the back end of the boat.
Lastly the crew drops anchor and you are able to dive off of the boat. Our exhausting and highly rewarding journey is coming to end, we dock, find our shoes and return to our resorts.
A short time after we returned to our rooms, showered and readied ourselves to start our evening the shop owner from the island arrived with our many purchases.
2’x8′ handmade runner
Truly a great day!