Cancun in November: Weather, Sea Temperature, Crowds and the Two-Day Plan

CANCUN · NOVEMBER · 21.17° N

November is when Cancun’s rain column collapses. October pours 7.62 inches over the coast and logs 15 wet days; November delivers 3.18 inches and 7.4. The water has barely noticed the change, the Christmas and New Year weeks are still a month off, and the beach half of the trip stops being a gamble.

You pay for that in a couple of degrees. The air gives up 2.4°F against October and the sea cools by 1.5°F, which is the sort of loss you measure on a screen rather than in the water. For a warm-weather vacation booked in late fall, those are cheap terms.

On this page

• Average highs, lows and rain days in NovemberCancun weather in November
• Sea temperature in November83.7°F, and what it feels like
• Crowds, booking and the holiday weeksHow busy Cancun gets in November
• Things to do in NovemberPlaya Delfines, Isla Mujeres, El Rey
• A two-day plan around 11 hours of daylightThe November itinerary
• November vs October vs DecemberHow the three months compare
• Is November a good time to visit Cancun?Who should book it, and who should not
• The best time to visit Cancun overallThe full twelve-month view

Every figure here is a November figure, read from a model reanalysis rather than a station thermometer, and the decimals below carry that label. The other eleven months live in the Cancun best-time guide, and if the destination is still open for debate, our month-by-month desk takes the question from the calendar end.

Cancun weather in November: average highs, lows and rain days

The normals come from Open-Meteo’s ERA5 reanalysis, computed over the model grid cell centered at 21.1743° N, 86.8466° W, and not from a thermometer at Cancún International. Across 1991-2020 that cell gives November an average high of 80.2°F, an average low of 75.1°F and 3.18 inches of rain. The cell sits on the Caribbean coast itself, so read these as coastal numbers: the inland Yucatán behind the city runs hotter and drier, and an official station reading would not land on the same decimals.

Rain shows up on 7.4 days, roughly one day in four, and the other three record nothing measurable. Set against October’s 15.0 wet days, the month halves the count, and 3.18 inches against 7.62 is under half the volume. In a seven-night trip that arithmetic means one or two interrupted afternoons, not a lost week, which is why a boat day booked in November survives more often than the same booking made four weeks earlier.

Between the high and the low sits about five degrees, one of the narrowest day-night gaps you will ever pack for. Nothing cools down after dark: 75.1°F at the bottom of the night means no sweater, no jeans, no evening layer for the air. Bring the light layer anyway, for boat wind and hotel air conditioning, and pack a folding shell rather than an umbrella, since rain on that coast usually arrives with a breeze behind it.

On November 15 the sun rises at 6:57 am and sets at 6:06 pm local time (UTC-5), giving 11 hours 10 minutes of daylight. That clock does the scheduling: the last comfortable swim is around 5:00, dinner happens in the dark, and any inland day trip has to leave before 7:00 if you want the return leg in daylight. Book tours for the morning slot and the light works for you rather than against you.

Can you swim in Cancun in November? Sea temperature and what it feels like

The sea off Cancun averages 83.7°F in November, from Open-Meteo’s marine model over 2015-2024. One label belongs on that number: it is the mean of daily maxima, so it runs a shade warmer than a full 24-hour average. Early morning water sits a little under it, late afternoon a little over, and nothing on either side of that spread changes the answer to the question.

At 83.7°F there is no entry ritual. You walk in, you stay in, and children have to be called out rather than coaxed in. A snorkel hour needs no shorty wetsuit, and an evening swim still works with the air at 75.1°F overnight. Compared with the two neighboring months, November sits 1.5°F under October and 2.2°F over December, a range narrow enough that nobody standing in the surf could rank them.

Wind and swell are where our data stops. The figures checked cover air, rain, sun times and sea surface temperature, and carry nothing on November wind speed, wave height or seaweed, so no claim about calm water appears here. Ask the dive shop or the ferry operator on the morning itself, and read the rebooking rule before you pay for a boat trip.

How busy is Cancun in November? Crowds and when to book

Two calendars pull against each other this month. The weather argument for waiting is mostly spent by the first week, since rainfall has already fallen to 3.18 inches from October’s 7.62. Demand runs the other way: US Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday, which turns the last full week into a short-haul flight surge, and from mid-December the Christmas and New Year weeks take over the Hotel Zone entirely. Early and mid-November sit in the gap between the two.

If your dates touch Thanksgiving week, treat them as holiday dates: book the flight and the hotel together, six to eight weeks out (est.), because that week behaves like late December rather than like November. A long weekend in the first half of the month is a looser proposition. We hold no monthly rate series for Cancun hotels, so nothing here ranks November against the other eleven on price; what is a plain calendar fact is that the two biggest holiday weeks fall outside it.

On the lodging tax, our cards on the table: we could not verify a current Quintana Roo rate from a primary source before publication, so no percentage and no per-night amount goes in this section. Ask the property for the all-in nightly total when you book, taxes and any resort fee included, and check the same figure again at checkout. A number we cannot source is worse than an admitted blank.

The upgrade that changes this month specifically is where the bed sits. With 11 hours 10 minutes of daylight and the sun down at 6:06 pm, every transfer between a downtown room and the sand costs swimmable light, and November has less of it to spend than the summer months. Paying up for a beachfront room buys back the hour before breakfast and the hour before dark, which is most of what the month is for.

Things to do in Cancun in November: Playa Delfines, Isla Mujeres and El Rey

November lets you bank both halves of a Cancun trip at once. The sea is still 83.7°F, within 1.5°F of October, while rain has dropped to 3.18 inches, so beach days run at near-October warmth with under half of October’s wet days. The same 80.2°F daytime average makes a shadeless archaeological site walkable at noon, which is a different proposition from a day built around a pool and an air-conditioned lobby.

Named, and close together: Playa Delfines, the wide public beach on Boulevard Kukulcán with no hotel behind it. Playa Norte on Isla Mujeres, reached by the passenger ferries from Puerto Juárez. El Rey, the small archaeological site inside the Hotel Zone, with the Museo Maya de Cancún beside it. Admission prices, ferry fares and opening hours for all four sit outside the data checked: take them from the operator or the site when you book, never from a page that has not read them.

What November moves at these places is the air, not the water. The sea swings only 3.7°F across the three months in the table below, so Playa Delfines feels much the same in October, November or December. Rain is the variable: 7.4 wet days against October’s 15.0 turns the Isla Mujeres crossing from a coin toss into a plan, and the loop around El Rey from a wet-season sprint into an unhurried hour.

The free part of the month is the sand. Mexican beaches are federal public land, so Playa Delfines and the public access points along the boulevard cost nothing, while the lounger and the umbrella behind them do. No free-admission day for any Cancun museum or site appears in the data checked here, and an unsourced free day has no business in anyone’s itinerary.

Cancun in November: a two-day itinerary

Day one runs on Hotel Zone time. Out by 7:00, with sunrise at 6:57 and the sand still cool, for an hour at Playa Delfines before the loungers fill. Breakfast, then El Rey and the Museo Maya while the morning holds its 80.2°F. Water from noon to 4:00, when the sea asks for no persuasion at all. Back on the beach by 5:00 for the last usable light, and dinner after 6:06, by which point it is fully dark.

Day two belongs to the crossing: an early ferry from Puerto Juárez, Playa Norte for the swimming, and a return boat booked well before dark, since this coast keeps almost no twilight past sunset. If the sky turns, as it does on 7.4 days in an average November, the Museo Maya and the boulevard’s indoor blocks absorb an afternoon. Ask about the rebooking rule when you pay for the boat trip: in this month it matters more than the forecast does.

Cancun in November vs October and December

All three columns move the same way, at different speeds. From October to November the average high drops 2.4°F and the sea 1.5°F, while rain nearly halves: 3.18 inches against 7.62, 7.4 wet days against 15.0. From November to December the air gives up another 1.5°F and the sea another 2.2°F, down to 81.5, and rain shaves off a further 1.08 inches to 2.10 over 5.8 days. The big jump is the first one, and it lands in the rain column.

Shift four weeks earlier and you buy the warmest water of the three at 85.2°F, paying with double the wet days. Shift four weeks later and December hands over the driest air and the quietest rain map, at the cost of a 3.7°F cooler sea than October and the holiday weeks from mid-month. November is the compromise, and the numbers put the compromise much nearer October’s water than December’s calendar.

Is November a good time to visit Cancun?

For swimmers, snorkelers and anyone building a beach-first week, yes without hedging: 83.7°F water, 80.2°F air and 7.4 wet days is a strong hand for a fall trip. The no list is short and specific. Travelers who want cool mornings for long inland walking will find 75.1°F overnight too warm, and anyone booking Thanksgiving week while expecting shoulder-season quiet has picked the wrong seven nights of the month.

When the answer is no, December is the one to slide to rather than anything further out. It trims the rain map to 2.10 inches over 5.8 days and drops the air 1.5°F for walking, and it charges for that with an 81.5°F sea and the holiday surge after mid-month. The first three weeks of December sit before that surge and keep most of November’s warmth, which makes them the natural fallback dates.

What no other month offers is this pairing: October’s water, within 1.5°F, on a rain map already cut to half of October’s wet days.

The last word

The decision worth making first is which half of the month you take, because the first two weeks sit clear of Thanksgiving and that single choice shifts more than any packing tip. The weather risk you are accepting is small and countable: an average November records just 0.3 day with an inch of rain or more, roughly one year in three producing a single soaking day, against 7.4 days of the lighter kind. Book the beachfront room, pack the shell, and leave the inland day trip unbooked until you have seen a sky.

Sources & data for this guide

• November normals (high 80.2°F, low 75.1°F, 3.18 in, 7.4 days at 0.10 in or more, 0.3 day at 1 in or more) · Open-Meteo / ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis, 1991-2020, model grid cell 21.1743° N, 86.8466° W · a reanalysis, not an airport station reading · checked Sep 16, 2026
• October and December normals used in the comparison table · same ERA5 reanalysis, same 1991-2020 period · checked Sep 16, 2026
• Sea surface temperature (83.7°F November, 85.2°F October, 81.5°F December) · Open-Meteo Marine API, 2015-2024 average of daily maxima · a different source and period from the air normals · checked Sep 16, 2026
• Daylight, sunrise and sunset for November 15 (11 h 10 min, 11:57 and 23:06 UTC, converted to UTC-5) · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 16, 2026
• Editorial admission: no lodging-tax rate, no admission price, no ferry fare and no monthly hotel rate series was verified for this page, so none is quoted · fares, hours and taxes change, confirm with the operator when you book.