Cancun - Swim with Whale Sharks recs?

Please keep us updated on how the trip with the whale sharks goes.

I'll be going in June and want to take my kids to do the same thing.

I did some reading and they said there are many boats that go out looking for them, and when they find them they spread the word amongst the armada. It didn't say it was a guarantee, but it sounded VERY likely you will find sharks.

If you are already in Cancun/Isla Mujeures I would suggest not booking this through an internet site. Ask around and find one of the local places. The internet sites are great, but we books at a local place with a spanish sign outfront with a whale shark on it and it was fantastic! Fresh civiche, fish, and guac on the way back. We fished on the way out for our lunch, and on the way back catch and release. An AWESOME experience. Highly recommend it.

Yes, We went on Thursday and had perfect weather. We ran pretty hard for about 2.5 hours looking for them but with no luck.

One was then spotted by a plane overhead and provided the location over the radio. It took us about ten minutes to get there and there was already 6 other boats there. They form a line of boats and allow 2-5 people per boat to jump off at a time. We were in very deep water and it was a bit rough. Most people could only keep up with it for about 30 seconds, I stayed with it for about three minutes. Once your group falls back, the boat picks you up and another group jumps in, then your boat goes to the back of the line. We all did three jumps and by the time we left there was 15 boats in line. It is controlled chaos.

Total there were four whale sharks spotted that day, but unfortunately that was the only one close enough to us. I considered ourselves lucky because no whale sharks were spotted on Wednesday or Friday.

The whale shark we swam with was about 32 feet in length. We were in a 32 foot center console and it was roughly the same size as the boat. It is a pretty shocking experience first seeing the giant mouth directly in front of you.

Overall it was a great experience being able to be in the water with such a massive, gentle animal. I do wish there wouldn't have been so many people and boats around, but whatever. Around 1pm we made our way to a reef to snorkel and eat. I was impressed with the ceviche and sandwiches that were served.

I will try to upload the videos from my gopro in the next couple days.

Here you go. LINK