Cancun trip report

[rayaa3]

Hello,

Just wanted to do a quick trip report for my trip to Cancun. We went to Cancun in the height of Spring Breaker season 3/12/09 -> 3/18.

First the airport: It's been 3 years since I've been to Cancun. The airport has grown some since I left. It took about an hour to clear immigration, and about 5 minutes to get through customs. It was a little hectic when 2 new flights arrived at once, but an hour isn't too bad, not for Spring breaker season.

The hotel: We stayed at Crown Paradise Club. We've stayed in a Crown Paradise hotel once before in Puerto Vallarta. This is a MUCH NICER RESORT. Better food, nicer staff, better rooms, nicer pools. The beds as usual in Mexico, are a little stiff for my tastes, but that's par for the course. I would give the resort 3.5 stars. They would have had 4 stars, except two issues:

1) there was construction at the pool area all week, as they are re-paving the walkways. Jack hammer noises, and the sound of breaking concrete got old by the end of the week.

2) we were harrassed in our hotel by the internal time share staff. She spent about 10 minutes walking with us (chasing) through the lobby offering all kinds of goodies in exchange for a short presentation at one of the resteraunts. This is always a big deal for me. At the airport, I expect it. At my hotel, I want to relax.

The hotel resteraunts were great...we ate the buffet for breakfast every day, then for dinner we tried...

Los Gallos - Mexican food - excellent
Fishermans - Seafood - very good
Waynes boots - Steakhouse - very good (this one books early, you'll need to make reservations 2 days in advance)
La Piazza - Italian - very good

They are work from reservations (except Buffet) and most book a day in advance, Waynes boots was 2-3 days in advance.

They have a nice little sushi bar, with walk up service near the pool. It's open Noon - 5p, and is very popular. Sometimes the line was long, don't go at Noon - try around 3-4p for shorter lines. The sushi is made by a single sushi chef when ordered. So if someone orders 4-5 rolls for their family it may be a few minutes in line.

The bars - I don't drink - however my wife reports that all drinks were very strong, and tasty. My daughter had more virgin pina coladas than any 10 year old should. There are 2 outdoor bars by the main pools, one by the adults only pool, one in the lobby, and of course, you can get drinks with your dinner.

The beach was rough most of our trip, but if the winds die down, it can be very pleasant. Of our 6 day stay, only 2 days were pleasant to be on the beach. The rest were rough. However, the pools are always great.

The dive shop:

OK - this trip was not primarily for diving. This was a family spring break. My wife and I dive. My 10 year old daughter tried her first dive on this trip. She took a discovery course. Needless to say I was very apprehensive about who was taking out my 10 year old daughter diving.

DO NOT USE THE SHOP WITH THE HOTEL. Aquaworld is the resident shop at many hotels in Cancun. They are a oversized shop that offers everything from snorkeling/diving to parasailing, jet ski rentals, and kayaking. I dove with them 3 years ago...never again. This trip, we used "Mayan Aqua Divers" Ben Mooney is the owner/operator. He is located out of a hotel on the north end of the hotel zone. For the price of your diving, Ben will arrange for a van to carriage you to-from the dive shop and any Cancun Hotel. His driver is professional, and ON TIME. My daughter took the resort course with Ben, while my wife and I watched. He did very well with her. In the water my daughter was paired directly with the DM (Jorge) while Ben lead the rest of the group. My daughter had trouble equalizing on the first dive and was very slow to make it down. After talking to the DM (Jorge) at the surface, she found that she could equalize much easier by swallowing and clicking her jaw than by holding her nose. The 2nd dive was much smoother, and she decended much smoother. During both dives Jorge was always at her side, check ing if she was ok, making her safe and comfortable. I really can't say enough about the level of attention she got from him.

The dives were nice, we dove Manchones off the coast of isla mujeres. They were nice easy 30 foot dives, which was very good for my daughter. The reefs were very nice. The primary reason for the dives (in my my mind) wasn't to see the most spectacular reefs (though they were nice) but to give my daughter a good introductory experience into diving. Mission accomplished, she loved it. I think she might end up getting the diving bug.

All in all it was a wonderful trip...I'll post some links to pictures shortly.

Ben/Jorge, if you read this, thanks for a great day diving. See you next time we are in town.

Ray

[hychang]

Thanks Ray for your excellent trip report.

How was the airfare for your trip. That is the single, biggest factor in planning a trip for our family of 4. I'd love to get down there with my family, but airfare is high for us here in the D.C. area.

[rayaa3]

airfare is the hardest part to swallow...however...right now the peso is doing pretty badly against the dollar (14:1) and the hotel costs are not too bad, so it balances out. The best deals I've found are using sites that combo the price...

Best Fares.com :. Cheap discount airfares, Cheap discount flights, Cheap discount tickets, Cheap discount cruises

for grins I went to bestfares.com and did round trip for 2 adults, and 2 10 year old children (total 4) - from BWI to Cancun, from 6/27/09 -> 07/04/09....seaching for bestfares+hotels. When it came up with a list of hotels, I put "inclusive" in the "name of hotel" field,to filter with only hotels in the list with "all inclusive" in the name, then clicked "price" to sort by price.

For that week in the summer it came out to as little as 625.00 per person (including taxes) to much much more. The place I stayed at (Crown Paradise) came out at 932.00 per person. The prices on this site include hotel, air, taxes, and if all inclusive usually includes, drinks, meals, etc (not diving) They do not include aiport xfers (though they will try to add that in for you, for an extra cost)

Cancun airport xfers will cost you about 60.00 from airport-> hotel (15 per person to ride a van from airport to hotel) and 25.00 for a taxi for the return trip from the hotel to the airport. These websites always overcharge for the xfers - so if I never buy that service from them. It's ALWAYS cheaper at the airport.

Here are the details on what I found...
Sat, Jun 27 Depart:10:40am
Arrive: 03:13pm
Baltimore Washington International Airport (BWI) to
Cancun (CUN)
US Airways - 1 Stop
Flight 3272 / Flight 821
Operated by US AIRWAYS EXPRESS-REPUBLIC AIRLINES
Sat, Jul 4 Depart:12:45pm
Arrive: 07:07pm
Cancun (CUN) to
Baltimore Washington International Airport (BWI) US Airways - 1 Stop
Flight 808 / Flight 1476

The airfare if bought alone is likely >500.00 So for airfare + all inclusive hotel to come out at 600-700 your doing pretty good.

Of course what's a good deal is relative to what kind of budget you have to work with.

I spent 3200 total for the week in Cancun last week, using the site above. If you assume that 1800 of my expense was airfare - I spent 1400 on a hotel for 3 people, for the week, with all meals, my wife's bar tab, my daughter's Virgin Pina Cololada tab, etc included. It was a good deal for us.

I also like Continental Airlines Vacations Home. They do include airport xfers in their cost. Houston is a continental hub, and we are a 1:20 flight to houston, so it tends to work out well for us (OKC, OK).

[rayaa3]

Scuba pics - some of these aren't very good - I was not such a good photographer this trip (hard to work on focus or light when your little munchkin is on her first dive!)

Ray Aslin's Photos - Cancun scuba photos - Makalyn's first dive | Facebook

I have a few favorites - but they are all for Daddy reasons.

[rayaa3]

tonight or tomorrow will upload some topside photos of the hotel and beach...

[Tully Mars]

Thanks for the report.

Did you come in term 2 or the newer 3?

Did you use the GreyLine shuttle or haggle with a taxi?

[rayaa3]

the terminal .... I didn't look for a number, but construction seemed recent.

After the hour in customs we were ready to go! I swallowed it and paid a greyline taxi the 60 bucks. Shuttle was going to be 45, with multiple stops.

the airport has grown since my last visit in 2006. All in all I like the airport experience at Cozumel more. Next time we go to the area I want to try playa though.

[chace_nicole]

Thanks for the report & I'm glad to hear you were happy with Mayan Aqua Divers, I plan on contacting them about a whaleshark tour in July.

[rayaa3]

Absolutely would recommend them.

[Tully Mars]

Originally Posted by rayaa3

the terminal .... I didn't look for a number, but construction seemed recent.

After the hour in customs we were ready to go! I swallowed it and paid a greyline taxi the 60 bucks. Shuttle was going to be 45, with multiple stops.

the airport has grown since my last visit in 2006. All in all I like the airport experience at Cozumel more. Next time we go to the area I want to try playa though.

If you walked out the front door of the term and had a bar, Coconuts, to your right you were at term 3.

Playa's cool, if you like Coz you'll probably like Playa. One thing about being at Playa, unlike Coz, it's easy to get up and down the coast for alt dive sites and cenotes.

I'm glad Mayan Aqua Divers worked for you. They're part of the Thomas Moore Travel and somehow assoc. with the Royal resorts. There's three dive ops, Mayan Aqua Divers, Dive Balam and one other that I can't remember right now. They're a big operation but manage to keep personal service.