Swimming with Giants - I can’t speak highly enough about VIP Holbox as your guide for this incredible adventure. Their guides are bilingual, their staff is competent and knowledgeable, and they do their absolute best to ensure a successful trip. I had promised my daughter a graduation trip. She said she wanted to swim with whalesharks. Knowing that we are going to see wild animals in unpredictable conditions I decided to book a private tour. This means you pay for the boat, the guide and the captain regardless of how many passengers you have (up to 8 I believe). It was only the two of us, my daughter and I. Our guide was Willi and our captain was Ali. It’s important to understand how swimming with whalesharks is conducted when you decide to choose what company will charter you. The first challenge to overcome is to find a whaleshark. Once a shark has been found, it is common for boats to signal each other and that boats converge on that location. Since only two people and a guide are swimming with the shark at any given time, boats line up and take turns to drop people in the water to start their swim. So to understand the math, if there are four boats, each with 8 passenger, that is 32 people taking turns, two at a time, to swim with the shark. You will get an opportunity every 16th turn. Eventually the shark will start to get stressed and attempt to avoid the swimmers. We were out during a rougher sea making it harder to find the shark as the waves obstruct signs like fins. So naturally, like many other boats do, we went to a location that had found a shark and boats were already taking turns. Not ideal, but we did one swim. Then our guide and captain made a bold move. They decided to leave the shark we were with in an attempt to find one on their own. The move is bold because from a business perspective you can end up with complaining customers because you spent your time looking for a shark when there were known locations already. However, with great risk comes great reward. After twenty minutes of searching we encountered a shark. Probably 25-30 feet long. But now, we’re the only boat, it is only two of us, the shark is not stressed, and any other boat is quite a distance away before they can join us. My daughter and I had an incredible experience. Compared to the normative experience of having a brief moment, we were able to swim for a very extended period of time next to such a gracious animal and just coexisting…in harmony. About 25 minutes later other boats showed up…but we had already had the experience of a lifetime. After the other boats showed up we did stay for a while to continue the experience and we were able to observe other boats and their guides. There is a quality difference. We got clear and concise instructions to make the most of our experience, while other boats dropped off their people and only confusion arose severely reducing the experience. If you’re going to swim with whalesharks, I can recommend VIP Holbox. I further suggest getting your own group a private boat, and make decisions with your guide and captain to maximize your experience.

Hugely rewarding - Great experience with Willy. Very respectful of animals and has explained to us very well about whale sharks. We have been delighted

Whale shark tour - amazing experience - Friendly staff, very considerate of animal welfare. Everything happened as explained, we had a great time swimming next to the whale sharks. Our guide was very helpful, took extra care and helped my partner in the water who was new to snorkeling. On our way back we stopped for some snorkeling at a beautiful spot, and had some nice ceviche. The experience was worth its price, I can only recommend it!

Incredible Experience - Our guide and captain were awesome and the whale shark swim was absolutely stunning. It is a few hour boat trip, but it was worth it.

Whale Shark Excursion - My husband and I are so happy with our VIP Holbox experience. Willie was an intelligent and conscientious guide who led us to swim with the sharks and helped each person as little or as much as they were comfortable with to make an amazing experience for everyone. He was eager to share his knowledge with us and I am happy to give my money to companies who following all regulations and rules to ensure the safety and conservation of the sharks and their environment.

Whale Shark Tour - An amazing tour with professional guides and a one of a kind experience! The tour is long and the boat ride in the beginning can be bumpy, but if or when you find the whale sharks, the adrenaline rush is real. I highly recommend booking this tour as this company respects the animals and does it well from beginning to end. If you have an underwater camera - bring it!

Overall very good ! - Overall it was very good. The staff was nice and welcoming. The breakfast is good in a nice restaurant. The swim with the whale shark is quick, you gotta be ready and open your eyes. There are several rules to protect the whales sharks and that is good. You also need to understand that maybe you won’t see any of them because nature is unpredictable. We were lucky and there were around 100 whale sharks. And our way back we first stop to do some snorkeling and that’s maybe my only deception. There was nothing to see and our fins touched the sand so I’m not surprised fishes left the area because we were more than 50 people and this is almost everyday.I suggest they should change spot or skip that activity. What I liked the most was when we stop twice to get the fish to a local fisherman for the seviche. This was a real plus but it was because our boat was in charge to get the fish for lunch. Also the stop at the lost beach was nice. Liked that.

Bring on the competition! - Do not book online but on site by playing with the competition! We paid way too much online (€1000 for 5)! A single 30-second dive... + 20-minute snorkeling and Ceviche sent to the beach! We didn't feel like we were being considered and our guide only had eyes for one of the participants who was in a thong! Honestly, it’s not a very VIP tour!!

A dishonest company to avoid - This is the first time I am posting a comment on Tripadvisor but I truly felt that I had to do it this time so that other people could benefit from the terribly bad experience we had. The whale shark trip we booked with V.I.P Holbox Experience was supposed to be the best activity of our family trip in Yucatan. It unfortunately turned out to be only (by far!) the most expensive and disappointing one. We spent 1500 USD (26950 pesos) and nine hours at sea to view one small shark from the boat at a distance of 40 m during 20 seconds, with 50+ other vessels around. Very far away from our expectations (and what was advertised by V.I.P Holbox Experience), e.g., 2X2min per person snorkeling 2 meter away from these peaceful giants... On the way back, we spotted ourselves some dolphins and had to beg our crew (Willy and Ali) to go closer to them and hence have something concrete to show to our kids after such a long boat trip... If this wasn't disappointing enough, we met at the harbor several ecotourists gone with other companies who had the chance to swim with 5+ sharks in a nearby spot on the same day, an information that was communicated to but deliberately ignored by our crew, probably to save on time/fuel. When complaining to the company about that, they said that (1) after thoughtful research, the group of 4 sharks was in fact the same shark saw 4 times in row (incredible response and bad luck we saw the videos from that day where different animals can easily be recognized) and (2) that this was the first day in history where no company had the chance to swim with whale sharks (which is not true since we saw ourselves people doing snorkeling with the whale shark we saw from the boat). We then asked for a partial refund given how exceptionally bad the day was (something that was spontaneously provided by other companies) and they never responded to us... In short, V.I.P Holbox Experience clearly appear to be a company more interested in making profit rather than in providing a great experience to their customers. To avoid absolutely.

What a nightmare - If you want whale sharks to survive, please, do not go on tour to see them. I have never be that ashamed of myself. Whatever you are told (whale sharks are very protected, you pay a high price so that only respectful profesional bring you onsite, no more than 2 persons + 1 guide with the shark), this is how it ends: More than 100 boats, tracking that giant yet defenseless animal. Maybe if your boat is first on site it doesn't look like that, but once the animals are found, all the boats come as quickly as they can to track them down. Then, the whale sharks try to escape, but there is always another boat on their path, with 3 people jumping 2 meters ahead, so they have to change direction, and it lasts for hours, so that each of the 300 tourists onsite has the "chance" and "hapiness" to swim with them. This is a traumatic experience for the animal : the boats, the noise, the people, and eventually (as you can see on our picture), the motors cutting their fins. Be repsonsible, more than we have been, and protect those magnific animals: leave them alone.