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Acapulco's most iconic spectacle: local divers leap from a cliff of roughly 35 metres (about 115 feet) into a narrow gorge where the water is only a few metres deep, timing each jump carefully with the incoming waves, several times a day.
Private Tours
A private, full day of Acapulco's real highlights with your own local guide, covering the La Quebrada cliff divers, the Chapel of Peace, Hotel Flamingo, a real turtle-nesting encounter, and a taco lunch at an authentic local eatery.
Private Tours
A private vehicle tour of old and new Acapulco, with a genuinely flexible itinerary — the old cathedral, the legendary La Quebrada cliff divers, the gorgeous Isla La Roqueta, or the resorts, restaurants, and shops of the Golden Zone, built around what you want to see.
Visitor guide
The La Quebrada Cliff Divers are professional high divers who perform in Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico, leaping from the rock cliffs of La Quebrada into a narrow sea channel below. The dives have been a signature spectacle of the city for decades and are widely associated with Acapulco's golden age as a resort.
According to Wikipedia, the divers jump from heights of about 30 or 41 meters (98 or 135 feet) into the sea. The water in the channel, known as the gulch, varies in depth from roughly 4.8 to 5.8 meters (16 to 19 feet) depending on the waves, and the channel is about 12.8 to 14.6 meters (42 to 48 feet) wide. Some tourism descriptions give slightly different figures, such as a roughly 130-foot cliff and 12 feet of water, so numbers vary by source.
Timing is everything. The divers watch the incoming surge and must leave the cliff at the moment the swell fills the narrow channel, so the water is deep enough when they arrive. At night the divers often hold torches as they dive, which adds to the drama of the evening performances.
Wikipedia says cliff diving at La Quebrada predates the formal group, which was formed in 1934, and names Raoul Garcia among the more famous early divers. The Swiss big-band leader, club owner and hotelier Teddy Stauffer, remembered as Mr. Acapulco, is credited with helping develop Acapulco into a world-class resort. He managed the El Mirador Hotel at La Quebrada for a time and, about ten years after the group formed, turned the divers into stars.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Acapulco cliff diving was regularly featured on American weekend sports television, and the USA High Diving Team competed annually with the La Quebrada divers during the Acapulco Christmas Festival, according to Wikipedia. The 1963 Elvis Presley film Fun in Acapulco brought the cliffs wider attention, and the 2002 Guinness Book of World Records is reported to list the dives as the highest regularly performed headfirst dives in the world.
Professional high divers worldwide regard La Quebrada as one of their favorite venues, and the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, established in 2009, belongs to the same tradition of high diving.
The show can be viewed from platforms and from the El Mirador Hotel above the cliffs. Visitors typically arrive in good time to secure a vantage point, as crowds build before the dive. Times and arrangements change, so a private guided visit is helpful: a local guide can explain the history while the driver handles the steep, congested streets of the old city.
See every tour and attraction we cover in Acapulco.
