Excursions review in Riviera Maya: Xcaret Sharks encounter

northernflasher · July 5, 2010

SHARK ENCOUNTER: 8/10

This was much more nerveracking than I thought it would be. You have a cheesy presentation from the staff and then a safety briefing in an underground viewing area before entering the water, we were like, yeah yeah its all for show but my god those things are strong!!!

We had a few small barracuda swimming in the enclosure and our interaction was with 3 nurse sharks approx 6ft long.

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Before you go into the water you sit at a platform on the edge and they bring the sharks to you to touch and feed and the power of them as they snatch the food is awesome.

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You are then allowed to snorkel in the enclosure. The sharks tend to stay close to the bottom but they move fast and its kind of exciting. You are forbidden from returning to the "feeding platform" until the staff call you forward one by one to exit the water and they all stand guard. I didnt expect it to be so thrilling but the reactions of the staff show you that these are in fact predators that need to be respected!

We took our camera in with us whilst we snorkelled and also had an official picture done as we sat on the platform. Hubbys dad also took some from inside the underground viewing area which seemed like a good place to watch the snorkelling from. It also appeared to look onto a dolphin enclosure from the other side.

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This is a closed lagoon area and the water in here is very smelly, wash your stuff asap when you return to your hotel, we left them in the bath and headed to the bar and the smell was awful when we returned!

There's a lot to see as you walk around the resort but we missed so much. By the time we had done our activities it was time to head towards the theatre for the shows. We could definately have done with a second day here. We didn't get any time just to snorkel in the various areas and missed out on a lot of the land areas. Two of our group dont do water based activities at all but they still managed to spend the whole day here seeing other things and really enjoyed it.

We stayed for the show, have your camera ready for the walk to the theatre.

We really liked the first half and the finale of the show, all the mayan history is really interesting and the most visually spectacular parts of the show. Our group as a whole thought the show went on for a bit too long, for me there was a lot of dancing and singing in the middle that it wouldn't hurt to do away with.

Everybody tends to leave at the same time so the exits and photo purchase points get pretty crowded. Unless you're a real culture junkie I say beat the crowds and head off at the interval.