Wanna know how we went to Mexico for 5 day all inclusive for under $900 a person? KEEP READING
Hey babes, I’m back! Honestly holy cow the past few months have been WILD so I haven’t been on here much but if you have been following along on IG, you know I have been traveling and working my tail off #blessed
Jake and I recently went on our first real adult vacation (it sounds kinda weird) together. We’ve traveled together on family tripes, works trips, and road trips from college but this was a real adventure! We traveled together to a place neither of us have been before and just enjoyed some time away from work and responsibilities.
Let’s get into the good details! We booked our trip on CheapCaribbean.Com and it was SO EASY. You can enter your destination, add flights and excursions all at once. We traveled to Cancun for 4 nightS and 5 days for $1553.67. We flew from Detroit to Mexico City and then had a connection to Cancun! Truly, we booked this trip on a whim. We didn’t even think we would have time to go on a vacation this summer and it just kinda happened!
We stayed at the Now Emerald Cancun which used to be The Grand Oasis. It was recently sold and is undergoing slight renovations (as on June 2019). Our trip was all inclusive, meaning for the price we paid, it included all food, unlimited alcoholic beverages, flights and shuttles to and from the airport!
HOTEL:
This was our first time traveling all inclusive. I have been on plenty of cruises but I didn’t have much to compare it to besides that! So here is my honest review. The hotel is (as of June 2019) under going renovations but truly, it’s mostly cosmetic. Our room was HUGE, I’m talking Vegas suite! We had king bed, ocean view, a nice seating area, giant jacuzzi tub, and a mini fridge that was fully stocked with beer, bottled water and coke. Our fridge was restocked every night and our room was always clean. Before our trip, we checked the reviews and we got a little nervous but it turned out to be totally fine! The hotel offered complementary wifi and the staff was so accommodating the entire time. The resort had a breakfast buffet, a coffee shop (that was so good) and a sushi bar, along with Mediterranean, French, Italian and Mexican restaurants that were open for dinner. Our resort had 6 different pool options, and it walked down to the beach with tons of cabanas and day beds. It was honestly a DREAM!
Now, of course there were some kinks in the trip. While we loved the resort and the food was great, only certain restaurants were open on certain days. We did not know this before arriving, so we didn’t plan accordingly. This also created waits for tables and some of the restaurants required a dress code. Men needed to wear full length pants and Jake only packed shorts (duh Mexico). So that meant, there were 2/4 nights we did not have “dinner” options at the resort. Luckily there was 24hr room service included in our stay and so we took advantage of that!
ENTERTAINMENT:
Another con of the resort, there wasn’t much going on besides the pool and the beach. This was okay because we wanted to relax but after 7pm, our hotel was ghost town unless we went to the bar. For 12 pesos, you can ride the bus to the “clubs”. It’s safe, just be careful and aware of your surroundings. The “clubs” are a few blocks of shopping, restaurants, bars and nightclubs.
In the daytime its super chill. You can buy souvenirs and get street tacos, there is a huge luxury mall near by, but at night its SO LOUD. They literally blare music and the streets are packed with people. This really wasn’t the vibe of our trip and if you’re traveling with kids, I would avoid the “clubs” after sunset. Don’t confuse downtown with the “clubs”. We asked the concierge about traveling downtown and they told us “since you don’t speak broken or fluent Spanish, we don’t suggest it” so we didn’t travel there. If you’re on the hotel strip, you want take busses R1 or R2, they go back and forth from hotels to the “clubs”
While we were in Cancun, we did book an excursion to Isla Mujeres! It was beautiful. This was not included in the initial cost of the trip, it was an extra $200 for both of us to go. We had a shuttle transport us from our resort to the marina (1 hour) at 9am. We boarded our boat with Cancun Adventures and we had a chance to snorkel & swim in the most beautiful water I have ever seen. We arrived at the island at 1 pm and rented a golf cart to travel around the island. This was easily, the best part of our trip. We had so much fun exploring the shops and the beach was killer. We had lunch and then rode our cart to an old Mayan Ruin. If its in your budget, I totally suggest this excursion. There is also a ferry you can take to the island from Cancun if you’re looking to cut your expenses.
TIPS:
Convert your spending money into pesos and look up the conversion rate before you travel. The current rate is 1 USD = 17.07 pesos. We knew this before our trip but a lot of gift shops had signs with the rate 1= 14.
Arrange your shuttle when you book your trip. Traveling to an unknown country can be hectic and clearly language barriers are real. Just make your life easier and book this ahead of time!
Book everything with your resort. When you walk around town, everyone is going to try and sell you excursions and tickets, half of these are scams. We booked everything (shuttles and excursions) with Amstar.
EXTRA COSTS:
So we covered the initial costs of our trip but there are some extra things that we added to enjoy our trip a little more. These are totally optional, I think our vacation would have been just as great with out them!
Passports – Okay you need these to go to Mexico. $170 each expedited.
Seat upgrades on our flight – We are delta people and Jake is 6’4 so we upgraded to delta comfort. If the flight is longer that 3 hours, its worth the extra leg room plus your seat is bigger. Bonus – unlimited cocktails. This was an extra $140 per person, round trip.
Spending $ – We each took $200 USD with us. Really, we didn’t need it but we didn’t want to use our cards on the trip and we knew we would want food at the airport in Mexico City. We ended up purchasing a bottle of tequila to bring home and also had food off the resort twice. It wasn’t necessary but it was nice to have if we saw something we wanted.
Excursions – These are going to cost extra as well. If you use CheapCarribean.Com to book your trip, you can add these onto your initial trip cost. We decide to wait until we arrived and checked the weather.
Tip $ – Another great reason to bring cash, its polite to tip your servers and bartenders at the resort. Even though it is all inclusive, these people are busting their butts. Plus Jake and I have served before so we always tip nicely 💕
If you have read to this point, thank you! Hopefully this was informational and inspired you to book your own trip to Mexico. If you want to know anything else about Mexico, please reach out to me!
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