Pina colada's

what sites do you guys use to browse prices for AI packages? i'm looking on tripcentral.ca and there seems to be decent deals. want to do a bit more research though.

I like sunwing. They do direct flights
But don't check prices to often. Otherwise the prices go up. Best is to book within a week from departure

Finally finished editing my Cancun trip.

We stayed at Golden Parnassus (adult only resort)
Went to Xelha, Chichen Itza, Xcarat, Coco Bongo and took a boat to Isla Mujeres (Women's Island)

Long video but enjoy. *watch with sound*

bump

going to krystal in cancun with the gf at the end of april for a week. gotten a couple tips from some friends, anything that we should know? already screwed up a little.. didn't look closely at our flight bookings and only realized now that our flight out is at 7am.. meaning we have to be at the airport around 5:30am. not too impressed about that and united charges $200 pp to change the times

also, we arrive in cancun at 6am, and the hotel check in time is at 3pm. any suggestions on this, should we pay the early check in time, or just check in our bags and sit around on the beach for a couple hours?

Mind giving us a breakdown of what everything cost and your take on its value?

going to mexico isnt cheap anymore. due to the low Canadian to USD,
=(((

Exchange rate dropped right after I got back, so I'm still holding pesos :okay:
Hoping it goes back up a bit before I change it back.

Im going first week of May and staying at Hyatt Ziva, was between Excellence , Finest or Hyatt.

Figured we go Hyatt Ziva because its closer to everything.

One thing about booking with sunwing, for some reason they have 4xx taxes for each person..

Planning to book on my credit card (AMEX) allowing me to use my points and to gather more points for the next trip :)

Comparing Amex's website and travelocity/expedia, prices are about the same.

One question though , do you guys bring USD or Pesos?

I went to Cabo. The resort's website said to bring Pesos because they won't exchange USD and don't accept it. Well it was a lie as workers will accept USD as tip. Any excursions I booked were charged in USD. Going off the resort, everything is in USD. Talking to Americans who were on the resort, they only brought USD and they had no troubles.

I was reading online that people do take pesos but jack up the prices.

sure felt like it, but that could be because canadians already get hosed due to our crappy dollar. Didn't really do the math to fully break it down.

We arrived maybe 3 hours before our check in time. Our bags were kept behind the counter and we just chilled at the beach. The bartender at our place also served us drinks once we arrived into the main lobby. We could also access our bags anytime, and if you needed to change clothes, we just went into the lobby washroom. No point paying extra money to check in early.

Our flight and resort in beginning of September was $1345 from expedia. 6 nights at Golden Parnassus and Westjet.

Xplor (water snorkling park) and Xelha (zipline, atv, caves) we booked together as a package and saved quite a bit of money. It was $314 for both theme parks + transportation. If you can only afford to go to one park, I highly recommend XelHa. Super fun.

Here is the link: Cancun Tours Packages | Xcaret, Xel-Há, Xplor

Chichen Itza and Cenote we booked with Alma's LDS tour group. It is a guided tour with a max of 8 people so you actually learn stuff and it is quite interesting compared to a super large group. The cenote that they take you to is also amazing. Comes with all you can eat lunch and transportation. Costs $120USD

Alma's LDS Tours in Cancun- LDS Tour F. Chichen Itza & Cenote

Can't really remember how much Coco Bongo was. We bought it at our resort and we got a private transportation and a private table there. Believe it was about $60-$70 USD. Everyone should go there though. It is like a mix of Cirque du Soleil and a night club and the performers are literally right in front of you.

All the places I mentioned above are in the video that I posted a couple posts back.

Bring a lot of $1 USD bills. Makes tipping a LOT easier. Bring like $100 worth of $1 bills... not joking

Hyatt Ziva in PV? I stayed there, you're gonna love it. Make sure you go to the beaches down south of the hotel.

No in Cancun, they just renovated a place after a buyout i believe.

that's what i was thinking, but it's one thing if you're talking about 3 hours, we've got 8 hours to kill.. depending on how much the fee was, i was figuring it might be worth it. but if i can access my bag anytime, and have drinks, then that's not so bad

So true. Around 2010-2013 was prime, going to Mexico twice a year was cheap and it would be $600-800 per person for 4.5 star plus places. Even Air Canada concierges were "exchanging" money 1 CDN to 1 US if you go a good convo going, although not all.

I guess now is a good time to save up until the dollar comes back in a few years and Mexico becomes flooded with Canadians again.

Staying at Secrets The Vine now , will be there last weekend of april.

Planning to prebook our taxi from airport to the hotel and hotel to airport , 65 usd for 2 people.

Going back to the Riu in Cabo for a friends wedding in August. I went about 2 years ago and paid just under $1200 CAD all in, it's about $500 more now:fulloffuck:
This is gonna hurt the pocket book dearly.

We just spent 10 days at Barcelo Mayan Riviera, about 20 mins south of Playa del Carmen. Gorgeous resort, nice and big with quite a bit to do. The food was good, the service was excellent and quite a bit of stuff is included, the one thing I would caution is that when booking excursions through the resort the staff/booklets aren't completely accurate on what exactly the excursion is.

Example being a few of us decided to go to Coba (the only Mayan ruins in Mexico where you can still climb to the top of the pyramid) and as a part of the excursion we also went to see a Mayan village, get a protection ceremony from their shaman, see a cenote and have a Mayan style lunch. What the booking agent didn't tell us is that we could actually swim in the cenote, so none of us brought swim gear with us.

Our initial plans were for November to Mayan Riviera but the prices are $1700+ and that's excluding excursions that we'll pay for there...

Riu Palace is my favourite spot in Cabo, to date. Been to 4 resorts there and this one takes the cake so far.

I've heard tons of horror stories about Sunwing, we got direct flights with Westjet and were unable to fly home as planned due to medical issues. Westjet put us up in a great hotel, got us meal vouchers and rebooked us on a flight 2 days later, all at no cost to us.