Hi, Wallaboosmom,
We have been on the Conquest cruise three times and the last time was this last May. We took all our kids and their girlfriends and boyfriends. Our daughter and her boyfriend and us took a snorkeling excursion on our own, not through the boat. Go to http://www.cozumelinsider.com/Erdsnkl?From=Snorkeling. We had to take a taxi from the boat, but it only took about 15 minutes. When we arrived, we were afraid that we had made a mistake. The boat was kind of ratty looking and small. But the looks were disceiving. We had a young man about early thirties who spoke very good english. The captain and crew did not speak any english. the took us to three different reefs, he went out with us and we swam around for about 45 minutes at each spot. The last spot, our daughter and boyfriend had brought some small individual cereal boxes with them and they opened them up and the fish just started crowding around. The last spot was rather shallow and I got a lot of great pictures of all the fish. Then when we finished snorkeling the captain dropped us off at a pier and we walked across the street and the young man bought us lunch at a rather nice restaurant. He then helped us with a taxi and we returned to the boat with plenty of time to spare. If I remember right we even had time to walk around for a little shopping. I was a little aprehensive about not booking through the ship, but we had a great time and it was well worth the money spent.