Part 1 of the series!! Maybe the boring part for some, not for me! Excel sheets comparing all the flights, and the lists of what to pack - heaven for me.
We'll dig right into it!! So, I thought I had done plenty of research before picking our travel dates, but I had read some misinformation - October is the rainy season in Cancun, so don't go in October if you don't want to be interrupted by a storm each day (they don't last long, but still ruined our afternoon tanning time). On the plus side: it was not crowded. At all. Not the beach, not the pools, not the restaurants (we only had to wait for dinner one night because it was the one day we didn't make a reservation, but we got a cool surprise out of it anyway -more on that in the review Part 3: Food). I mean, don't get me wrong, there were plenty of people there (it wasn't deserted), but it was not crowded, which would have annoyed me, because I don't want to be jam-packed somewhere that I'm supposed to be relaxing on vacation. AND I don't want a million people in the background of my beach photos.
Also, you still have plenty to do when it rains. One day we stayed out in our beach cabana during the rain and just chilled until it stopped. You can go to eat (some restaurants are open for breakfast & lunch, and others for dinner, one restaurant and one bar for snacks). Some days we went back to the room to get ready for dinner. One day we went back to order room service (24 hours). One day we went to the spa. Still lots of options!
The storms weren't that bad, but when it rained it did bring some mosquitoes and gnats, so if you go during rainy season - take bug spray. They do have some bug balm for sale in the gift shop if you forget it. The terrible part about these bugs is that they would swarm your patio door, and also die in the pool/lazy river, so it was hard for us to use our swim-up room when the bugs got bad during parts of the morning/evening. The staff worked daily to control this - spraying for the bugs, smoking them out, and constantly cleaning the pools. Not an all-day problem though, by any means.
So, bottom line - do better research than I did about the stormy seasons, and no, you probably won't be hit by a hurricane there - one of our bell boys told me that the last time they had a hurricane was 13 or 14 years ago (noted above in Trip Advisor's tidbit).
Next, booking the trip -- as I mentioned in the introduction, my Aunt and Uncle have the member's perks, so to be honest, I'm not sure I can tell you how to book the resort if you don't have the perks, except to go to their website. However, we used funjet.com for our flights (enter Excel sheets), and I searched our closest airports with non-stop flights, found a great non-stop from St. Louis to Cancun International for only $325 each, round trip, on Frontier. Here is where you have to pay attention -- this price didn't come with a carry-on or checked bag, only personal item (think, purse), so we paid $50 each way, each person, for my checked bag and Austin's carry-on. Plus we also had to pay $20 each way, each person, to choose our seats so we could sit next to each other. So grand total for flights = $465 (ish) per person, round trip.
NOTE: purchasing the bags at the airport was more expensive than purchasing them on Frontier's website.
I'm always curious as to what other people bring on their flights, and I'm always looking at Pinterest before a trip to see if I've forgotten anything. Earlier this year when my sister, cousin, and I flew to Miami - I brought so much junk in my backpack on the plane. Like I'm really going to need all those snacks, the adult coloring book, the notepad, the colored pencils, three novels, etc. All I took this time was my purse (not a backpack), and my essentials:
1. iPad charged & Netflix shows downloaded (thank you Blacklist, and Friends)
2. Anker portable charger (lipstick size)
3. AirPods (which turns out, I didn't even need because Austin bought me some amazing Bose noise cancelling, in-ear headphones for this trip - he's the best!)
4. A book (ONE book, Luxe by Anna Godberson)
5. Carmex (if you know me at all, you know I'm addicted to Carmex and I go NOWHERE without it)
6. Hand sanitizer (because - you're on a plane and people are gross)
7. Two packets of crackers - one for me, one for Austin (yes we did eat them)
8. Obviously our passports/wallets, which my passport/ID case came in handy when they gave us all the customs/immigration forms to fill out during the flight (don't lose those!)
And that's it. Maybe that's a lot to you, but not to MY purse.
Next, what to bring to Mexico?!
Again, I have entire Excel sheets - one for me, one for Austin (which I did update and re-send to him about 3 times)
So there's a few things in red I didn't take. I read a blog that suggested you take cheap sunglasses instead of your expensive pair, in case they get lost in the ocean, but we take ours in the river every year, so we wore our expensive pairs anyway. The one thing I did not bring, for this reason, was my Fitbit watch - I didn't want it to get ruined, or to have a tan line on my wrist (it wasn't super cute in our pictures last Fall). I didn't bring shampoo, conditioner, or body wash either, because I know they always have it there, and my suitcase was overweight to begin with. Same on the aloe - we could buy it if we needed it once we got there.
I made sure to bring my Yeti, because you can take that up to the bartender and he'll fill you up twice the size as their normal cups, and it stays cold longer! Can't beat that. Austin was regretting not bringing his, even though I put it on his list ;)
We also put travel notices on our credit cards - so our charges wouldn't come up as fraud if we bought something (even though it's all inclusive, better safe than sorry).
If you have any other items you've taken on vacay you can't live without - comment below! I would love to keep updating my list.
Noted on Austin's side of the Excel sheet - we checked our phone plans to see if they included Mexico, but we also had WiFi throughout the entire resort (good WiFi signals, might I add).
So now that I kind of went backwards on the packing, I'm just going to give you a quick rundown of how the trip to Cancun went:
We decided instead of me having a panic attack trying to get to the airport on time during rush hour traffic in St. Louis on a Tuesday morning, we stayed the night in a cheap(er) hotel across from Lambert Airport, then they shuttled us to our terminal. My sweet grandpa came and picked up the car so we didn't have to pay airport parking (you can also pay for extended parking at the hotels, and it's cheaper than the airport - I've been told). I was talking with a coworker about this, and she totally agreed with me - it's worth the extra $100 to stay close, because 1-no rushing 2-you can sleep in, duh 3-the shuttle drivers know exactly where your terminal/gate/check-in is.
We had breakfast (with some drinks to start our vacation off right) at the airport, because we got there too early (sorry, not sorry). Boarded, had a great flight, less than 3 hours later, we are in Cancun. Then....the immigration/customs line comes when you unload. Lots of people! It took probably an hour to get through the lines. So go to the bathroom as soon as you get off the plane, before getting in line, FYI. After that, we were instructed by Aunt G and also the transportation company that the resort sets up for you, to go straight out of the airport, don't stop and book an excursion, don't get a taxi, nothing. We went outside - there was Lomas Travel, however our car wasn't there yet, so we did have to wait a little while, but don't worry, there is a beer and snack stand outside with all the car service stands. Our ride was about 45 minutes to our resort (had to share a car with a family and take them to their resort first - some of the taxis had an accident, and this family's car wasn't available anymore - this isn't a normal thing).
Check-in: pretty cool - champagne when we arrived, they drove us to the main office on a golf cart. (Funny side story, they accidentally took us to the Palafitos - Overwater Bungalow check-in office first, then we all realized the mistake, they drove us back and kept giving us more champagne!) Then once we checked in (with even more champagne), they asked what time we wanted our dinner reservation made, and which restaurant we wanted that night. We chose our pillows from their pillow menu, I chose the essential oil scents we wanted on our pillows each night at turn-down service, and also the scent we wanted them to spray in the room when they tidied up (which was like 3 times a day). So pampering.
They drove us to our room on the golf cart, giving us a quick little tour while they were at it. Our personal concierge came to introduce himself at the room. And I could keep going from there, but the room and the beach are going to be Part 2!
Love,
Christine