Snorkeling in Cabo. Santa Maria or Chileno Bay?

[emerald3582]

We will be in Cabo in March 2021 on Princess. At first, I was going to do a day pass on Medano Beach and then realized that it was spring break for college students too. Yikes! Now, I'm looking into sail & snorkel excursions to either Santa Maria with EcoCat or Chileno Bay on La Princesa. Anyone with any experience on either one of these? Princess offers both but at 74.95 and 79.95 respectively. I can get EcoCat for 69.99 if I pay full price through them, but hopefully if I book early enough, I can get it for 41.99. And I can get La Princesa for 59.00. Since almost all excursions are outsourced, I refuse to pay the cruise lines upcharge. 

[CruiserBruce]

If you look around the board, you will see many threads on snorkeling the Mexican Rivera. It isn't all that good. Cabo ocean temps in March can be chilly (was just there in March 2019...cold water), and visibility was not good. Have snorkeled many areas of the world...the Pacific side of Mexico is definitely below average.

[Mike45LC]

Emerald, in order to maximize the sale of the Princess excursions, Princess forces some of the local tour companies to refuse to accept cruise passengers for direct bookings.  Good luck bypassing the Princess shore excursion desk!

 

[emerald3582]

I have read that the snorkeling is sub-par but I don't want to hang around a bunch of Spring Breakers. And it can't possibly be colder than Lake Tahoe which never gets above 72. History and/or shopping tours are not our thing, at least with DD17 and DD15. They want to do some sort of activity. In Mazatlan, we're going to Stone Island, ATV, horseback riding, kayaks, etc. In PV, we're going ziplining.

As for bypassing Princess excursions, I've already checked into the tours. I know the "Adventures" tours prohibit cruisers from booking. I'm assuming the resort day pass resorts might, particularly the ones Princess uses, but that's not what we want to do anyway. Thanks for the heads up, just in case.