Islas Marietas and the Hidden Beach: Who Actually Gets In

The Islas Marietas are two uninhabited islands off Punta de Mita, at the northern tip of Banderas Bay, and they are the most recognisable image the region has. The picture everyone has seen is Playa del Amor – Playa Escondida, the hidden beach – a circle of sand at the bottom of a crater, open to the sky, reachable through a gap in the rock.

They are also a national park, and since 2016 the beach has been one of the most tightly rationed places in Mexico. If you are booking a trip on the strength of that photograph, read this first.

The rules, as CONANP wrote them

The islands are administered by CONANP, Mexico’s national protected areas commission. When Playa del Amor reopened after its closure, the terms were published and they have not become more generous since:

• 116 people a day. That is the carrying capacity for the beach – not per boat, not per operator, but in total. Before the 2016 closure the same beach was taking up to three thousand people a day.
• Groups of no more than 15, entering in turns.
• 30 minutes, counted from the moment you leave the boat.
• Access at low tide only, in single file, along a marked corridor between buoys, supervised by park staff.
• Helmets and life jackets are worn, and they are not optional.
• Fins, mask and snorkel are not allowed at the entrance, and diving in front of it is prohibited.
• The beach is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
• Alcohol is penalised inside the perimeter of the islands.
• Only operators authorised by CONANP may bring visitors in. A boat without that permit can circle the islands; it cannot land anyone.

Opening hours are published by the park itself and the sources we found do not agree on them – some give the park as Tuesday to Sunday, the beach as Wednesday to Sunday. The two closed days are consistent everywhere. If your booking day is a Monday or a Tuesday, the beach is not part of it, whatever the listing implies.

No operator can promise you the beach

This is the part worth reading twice. With a national ceiling of 116 and a fleet of boats leaving from four marinas, a place on the sand is a queue, and the weather closes it as well.

The Marieta Islands snorkelling trip – 5 hours, from €123.92, 4.9 stars from 18 reviews – says so on its own booking page: it notes the 116-person limit and states plainly that entry cannot be guaranteed on every departure. It also gives an age band of 10 to 65 for beach access specifically, separate from the age limits for the trip itself.

Take any listing that implies a guaranteed landing and check the fine print before you pay. A trip sold as “Hidden Beach included” and a trip sold as “Hidden Beach subject to park access” are the same trip; only one of them is honest about it.

What you pay, and to whom

Two charges here are not the operator’s: a park entrance and conservation fee, and a boarding fee. The trip below puts them at 220 and 80 pesos on its booking page; other operators quote different amounts, so treat those two numbers as an order of magnitude and read the page you are buying from. That trip includes both in its price, along with hotel pick-up and drop-off, a mandatory life jacket, travel insurance, up to three hours inside the park and alcoholic drinks. Only gratuities are listed as not included.

Other operators leave those fees to be paid on the day, in cash. That is not a trick – but it is why two Marietas trips that look €20 apart can cost the same, and why you should carry pesos regardless.

The operator lists this trip as not suitable for children under 8, pregnant women, wheelchair users, people with mobility impairments, non-swimmers, people over 130 kg, people over 70, people prone to seasickness and people recovering from surgery. That is the operator’s own assessment rather than a park rule; if one of those describes you, write to them and ask rather than deciding for yourself.

Our Marietas page lists 11 trips from €45.55, and the spread is wide: the cheapest is a seven-hour all-inclusive sightseeing tour with meals and open bar, and most sit well above €100. The cheap end and the expensive end are not buying the same day.

The season nobody mentions when they sell it

Between roughly December and March the humpbacks are in the bay, and the archipelago sits inside the area SEMARNAT regulates for them. For the 2025–26 season the authority declared a restricted zone within a radius of 1.5 kilometres around the Marietas archipelago, together with a two-kilometre coastal strip between Punta Mita and the mouth of the Río Ameca. The dates are set season by season – 8 December to 23 March in 2025–26 – so a winter trip runs under conditions a summer trip does not.

That is not a reason to avoid winter. It is a reason to expect a boat that keeps its distance and a captain who does not chase, and to be suspicious of anything promising otherwise. What the season actually gets you is on our whale watching page — 14 trips from €38.66.

Is it worth it if you never land?

Honestly: often, yes – but only if that is what you booked.

What the islands reliably offer is the water around them. The snorkelling is the reason most of these trips have their ratings, and the rock arches, the bird colonies and the caves do not depend on a permit. Come off a Marietas boat having seen all of that and you have had the day; come off it having been told the beach was full and you have had a disappointment you paid €124 for.

So decide which trip you are buying. If it is the beach, book in advance, avoid Monday and Tuesday, and accept that the answer may still be no. If it is the water, you have cheaper and more certain options: snorkelling runs to 32 trips from €32.51, and the protected reef at Los Arcos – 24 trips from €38.66 – is twenty minutes from town rather than an hour and a half up the bay. For a day on foot instead of on a boat, the hidden beaches south of town cost a bus ticket.

The photograph will still be there. The 116 places will not.