Cancun on the cheap

The advertised price doubled, but a package deal still brought a week in Mexico at the price of just the air fare.

By DAN LEETH
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 6, 2002

[Photo: Dan Leeth] As long as the guest wears that wristband, cerveza and other drinks are already paid for at the Solymar Resort.

CANCUN, Mexico -- Sometimes opportunity doesn't just knock, it hammers. This time, mine came pounding through a newspaper travel section advertisement.

"Affordable Mexico Getaways!" the copy screamed. According to the ad, my wife and I could fly to Cancun and savor four nights in an oceanfront enclave at about the cost of a stateside road trip.

Responding to demand, many tour promoters pitch inexpensive packages to retreats such as Cancun. Volume sales yield hotel discounts and allow for chartering planes from independent carriers. On the downside, options become limited and schedules fixed.

"I'm sorry, the advertised price applies only to Monday departures," my travel agent told me. "If you can leave on Friday, I'll get you a full week for a few dollars more."

We agreed to the extension, then opted for the all-inclusive plan: One payment promised to prepay our consumption of liquor and sustenance.

While extras, taxes and insurance almost doubled the originally advertised rate, my wife and I were still planning to enjoy seven days in Mexico for less than the price of just commercial air fare there.

Onboard our 727, about half the adult passengers look younger than the plane. Training for Cancun's party scene, they exhaust the charter's beer supply before we touch the tropics.

Cancun, near the northeastern corner of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, is mainly a 14-mile-long island covered by resort hotels fronting the Caribbean Sea. Until the 1970s, the area harbored mosquitoes and little else. Realizing the tourism potential, the Mexican government cleared jungle, laid runways and paved streets.

The first development opened in 1974. Cancun now boasts about 140 hotels.

The tour company shuttles us to ours, the Solymar, near the south end of the tourist zone. We could have chosen a more luxurious property, but this was on sale.

Our quarters are clean and spacious. The floor is tile, the walls stucco and the art faded. Doubling as an efficiency condo, it contains a refrigerator, sink and two-burner stove. Glass doors lead to a 3-foot-wide balcony overlooking the parking lot.

Dinner is served at the resort's airy, poolside restaurant. Yellow wristbands tell the staff we are covered under the all-inclusive program.

But as we quickly learn, while we can order anything off the menu, if our choice includes steaks, shrimp or lobster, we will be paying a surcharge. Not much on the menu remains for our prepaid dining pleasure.

What dinner lacks, breakfast salvages. A chef prepares made-to-order omelets, and the buffet includes all the usual, plus salsas, tortillas and beans. Only the coffee wants for flavor.

Cancun buzzes with activities. Personal watercraft zip through the surf while parasailers dangle beneath boat-towed chutes.

"If you want to swim with dolphins, speedboat through jungles or tour ancient ruins, I'll fix you up," advises Alberto, the tour-company representative at our hotel.

Choosing culture over sport, we elect to visit Chichen Itza, one of the premier Mayan sites. This tour is not included in our all-inclusive rate, so our budget trip just got more expensive.

"My name is Wilbur," our guide says. "It is very common to have one English name in this part of Mexico."

Ten vacationers pile into a van for the 115-mile, three-hour drive to the archaeological reserve. Wilbur leads us into a clearing and El Castillo, the site's 98-foot-tall, rock-terraced pyramid. Following throngs of other tourists, we scale the steep steps to its temple crown, where the view could induce an epiphany: The panorama induces pious inspiration while the view down evokes pangs of acrophobia.

Next, Wilbur takes us past temples, a ball court and a water-filled sinkhole cenote, where ancient priests sacrificed virgins.

Throughout, Wilbur deciphers motifs, describes beliefs and explains the Mayan calendar. The 21/2-hour whirlwind tour leaves us reeling -- we learn much but savor little.

The van returns us to the hotel shortly before happy hour. With minutes to spare, we don swim togs and sacrifice ourselves to the pool, happy to have beverages in hand.

For today's tourists, Cancun provides a comfortable first-time international destination. It's easy to reach, passports are recommended but not necessary, and entry formalities present few hassles. A healthy dose of the familiar tempers fears of foreignness. Resorts here resemble those found in Florida or California.

While I am happy to simply relax in the sun, my wife wants to see the "real" Mexico. At her insistence, we catch a bus from the hotel zone. After passing a Mexican flag about the size of cruise ship, we enter downtown Cancun.

Sidewalk vendors offer "real good prices," and timeshare peddlers dangle free excursions in return for "just a few minutes' time."

We find an obscure restaurant and become its only Anglo patrons. Six pollo con queso tacos send my wife's chili cravings up in flames.

For many, it is not the tortillas that draw them to Cancun; it's drinking, dancing and debauchery. To sample this, we let Alfredo entice us into a bar-hopping tour. Four nightclubs' worth of music and mayhem later, we return to the sobriety of the hotel beach.

There, waves roll melodically against the sand, and a light breeze wafts the fragrance of sea and seaweed. Hotel lights glow in a shoreline arc. Moon and stars glimmer overhead. Quiet and time alone are what make surf vacations special to us.

Some of Cancun's charms hide below the surface. Stretching from here to Belize lies the fifth longest coral reef system in the world. We book a snorkel tour.

A shuttle boat whisks us to a floating platform tethered off the south side of the island. Luis, an Aqua World guide, leads us on a floating exploration.

We circle blocks of coral, which shimmer in the clear water. Formed by the skeletons of tiny polyps, coral varieties are often named by the objects they resemble. We spot brain, staghorn and other sculpted variations. Fish hide and glide through the surrealistic shapes, their bodies displaying more neon hues than a Mexican disco.

Luis dives down and retrieves a spiny starfish. The prickly creature tickles our bare hands. By the time we return, we have glimpsed a guidebook's guild of marine life. Tonight's dinner will not be seafood.

The Belizean reef originates near Isla Mujeres, a tiny island 8 miles from Cancun. We catch a ferry there in the morning. Renting a golf cart, a common Isla mode of transportation, we embark on a circular exploration of the skinny, 3-mile-long isle. The road south passes a small naval yard, relaxing beaches, a turtle farm and Garrafon, an underwater national park.

We eventually reach Punta Sur, Isla's southernmost point. A footpath leads to a simple Mayan ruin and a natural window in the limestone known as the Pirate's Blue Eye Cave. Below, the Caribbean Sea slugs the shore with foaming splashes and spouts.

Back at the dockside village, we park the cart and walk past buildings painted in colorful Caribbean hues. Hotels advertise "rooms with hot water -- some with air conditioners."

Guests sunbathe on sugar-white sand. Manana-style lassitude permeates everything. Even merchants are subdued in trying to entice shoppers. Where Cancun features a universal menu of beaches and bacchanalia, Isla offers a tasty slice of Mexico.

Reluctantly returning to the hotel, we check the tour board to see what time our return flight will leave. A problem with most packages is that the charters depart only a few times per week. If the plane is late, we wait. If a flight is canceled, we either extend or purchase commercial tickets home.

The previous week's return left the airport a staggering 12 hours behind schedule. Tomorrow, the tour board says, ours will depart on time.

- Freelance writer Dan Leeth lives in Aurora, Colo.

If you go

WHEN TO GO: Cancun offers four overlapping seasons. The wet season extends from May through October. June through November offers hurricane season, with the bulk of the storms blowing in August and September. Although the chances of being hit are rare, late summer travelers might consider purchasing trip-interruption insurance.

November through April is dry season, with warm days and lower humidity. January through mid April brings tourist season; its latter months bring spring break, when the place is crowded with often-raucous college students.

TRAVEL TO MEXICO: Proof of citizenship is required to enter Mexico. Passports are recommended, but U.S. and Canadian citizens may enter with a certified birth certificate bearing an affixed seal and a government-issued photo identification such as a driver's license.

Cancun tap water is supposedly safe to drink, but bottled water is widely sold. Cooked food purchased in clean restaurants should cause no problems; tourists should be careful with sidewalk vendors.

TRIP OPERATORS: The best way to find discount packages to Cancun is to check newspaper ads or call a knowledgeable travel agent. Most companies operate from a limited number of cities, with packages priced from major hubs. Listed below are a few of the larger outfitters:

Apple Vacations (www.applevacations.com) features trips departing from Eastern, Midwestern and West Coast destinations. Its packages are sold only through travel agents.

MLT Worry-Free Vacations (toll-free at 1-888-225-5658, www.worryfreevacations.com) provides Cancun journeys leaving from predominantly Midwestern gateways.

Vacation Express (toll-free at 1-800-309-4717, www.vacationexpress.com) presents an array of package deals, which depart from a number of Eastern and Southern cities.

We booked with SunTours, which operates tours only from Denver and the West Coast. The advertised price was $399, per person, for air fare and four nights in the hotel. We extended the package to seven nights for $100 per person, and the all-inclusive option added $140. Taxes and added fees added $81.48; the actual total per person was $720.48.

According to a search at online travel site Orbitz, round-trip air fare that same week from Denver to Cancun was $750.

Numerous operators feature daily tours to the ruins at Chichen Itza, with the cost of admission included in the price. Trips cost about $50 to $100 depending on amenities.

The best snorkeling in Cancun can be found off the southern end of the island near Club Med. Aqua World (www.aquaworld.com.mx) offers guided trips throughout the day; cost including equipment and souvenir snorkel runs about $30 to $40 per person. Reef rules prohibit the use of any sunscreen not listed as biodegradable.

Ferries to Isla Mujeres leave throughout the day from Puerto Juarez in downtown Cancun and from the Embarcadero in the hotel zone. Cost ranges from about $6 to $20 round-trip. Isla golf carts rent for about $25 to $40 per day, depending on how well one bargains.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Contact Mexico Tourism (toll-free at 1-800-44MEXICO, 1-800-446-39426, www.visitmexico.com) or check out www.cancun.com.

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