There are some businesses who are purely transactional and other businesses that also want to establish genuine relationships. Phocea is definitely the latter. The staff were incredibly friendly, helpful, and caring. All of this added up to one of the best vacations I have ever had and definitely the best diving I have experienced to date. In total, my buddy and I did 10 dives with Phocea. We had arrived in Play del Carmen without any of our dives planned. The first day we were there, we did a night dive with a different shop in which the guide had difficulty navigating and communicating with the group. The experience was made worse when they damaged my buddy's camera, causing it to be mostly unusable for the remainder of the trip. Luckily, the next day we stumbled upon Phocea, and booked a couple day drift dives. We first dove with Tim at Moc Che Deep and Moc Che Shallow. Tim was a great guide. Those first 2 dives were easy and relaxing even with the water being 84 degree(I run hot)! We decided to book another dive for the next day to check out the cenotes in Tulum. We arrived at the shop in the morning and met up with our guide Fabien. He drove us out to Tulum so we could get our first experience at Cenote Dos Ojos. We went over the do's and don't of cenote diving and hopped in the water. It was incredible. My buddy and I dive a couple times a week here in San Diego, where the water is cold and visibility is usually less than 10 feet. Being able to dive in perfectly clear water was mind blowing. Plus the water was the perfect temperature for me(79 F). It was like being in a different world. We did 2 dives in different sections of Dos Ojos with the highlight being the bat cave. It's truly amazing what's hidden away in the jungles of Tulum. Like Tim, Fabien was friendly, helpful, and great at communicating expectations of our dives. Because of this, we booked another set of cenote dives for the next day. These dives required a bit more skill as they included some narrow sections in which your buoyancy needed to be perfect. Fabien would be guiding us again and Tim wound up tagging along with the group so he could take what would be some amazing pictures. We first dove Cenote Nichte-Ha. It was even more beautiful than Dos Ojos, as it was more illuminated by the sun light compared to Dos Ojos. There were some very narrow sections that I enjoyed going through. We enjoyed the challenge. After that dive we moved over to "The Pit!" Before getting in, I had issues with my transmitter. Lucky for me Fabien was able to attach an SPG to my regulator so I wouldn't have to miss the dive. I'm incredibly grateful for this, as The Pit dive was the greatest dive I've been on in my life! I could have easily spent a whole week checking out the different parts of this cenote. It was massive plus it features this hydrogen sulfide layer that looks like an underwater cloud. They also take you to this excellent restaurant that's in the cenote park. Make sure to get the lime-ade! After those 6 dives, we decided to check out the diving off of Cozumel and again, Phocea paired us with another excellent guide in Margot. We first dove the Palancar Caves which was incredible. Margot skillfully guided us through all of these cool coral structures and pointed out the unique wildlife of the reef. We then did a shallower dive in the Yucab reef. Our last 2 dives would be with Mathis for a couple relaxing drift dives off of Playa del Carmen. Like the other days, we met at the shop in the morning. We then walked a couple blocks to the beach and hopped on the boat. Every dive we did with Phocea was enjoyable without any stress or doubts. The entire staff was incredibly friendly to the point that we felt like we were just diving with friends rather than someone we paid to dive with. We wound up going out to dinner with most of the crew towards the end of our trip. We even met up with Attilio at the Los Angeles Scuba Show a couple weeks later and went out to dinner afterwards. They are not only skilled dive guides, but also incredible people who I now consider friends. I will definitely be back to dive with all the great people at Phocea Playa Del Carmen! I apologize if I got anyone's names wrong as it's been almost a year since our trip. I was going through my pictures and just realized I had not finished this review. Better late than never. read more