Maybe some of you noticed that I was away from Hive without posting for more than 7 days. I was getting some rest in a well-deserved vacation in Playa de Carmen, Mexico. It has been a while since we don't travel as a family abroad without being our born country Brazil. It is important to visit our family back there but we miss our vacation time as just the 4 of us. I wanted a place with All-inclusive resorts which didn't need to be very expensive, we can't afford much. The cheapest place to go like that from Canada usually is Cuba, but we had an experience in the beginning of 2018 there that maybe it would be better to pay a bit more.
Before Mexico, I had two experiences with all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean, the first was during my honeymoon in Punta Cana in 2012, Dominican Republic, which I spent a lot to create the most romantic scenario and it was perfect and Cuba in 2018, which we saved money and we had an OK trip, but many things we didn't like it, such as empty room fridge and they charged for bottles of water that we asked to bring OURSELVES to our room.
We decided to stay in a resort called Paradisus Playa de Carmen. For those who don't know, Playa de Carmen is a city 40 minutes drive South of Cancun. It is less crowded compared to Cancun and I read better experiences online compared to Cancun. However, we still had to use Cancun Airport to Arrive in Mexico since Playa de Carmen doesn't have an Airport. At first, I decided to rent a car, but after a friend had traveled there a couple of times warned me and after reading many reviews online I decided to quit this idea.
Renting a car there can be challenging for many reasons despite the appellative prices that you see online. First the online price doesn't include the local daily insurance that you need to pay, it isn't optional. So you arrive to the rental shop an get this first surprise. Second: the police are a bit corrupt, well that doesn't surprise me since Brazil is the same. So all rented cars have some stickers so they know when to approach to get tourists and ask for money, they claim that you were speeding or that you weren't using the headlights and any excuse to try to get money from you. And third, you need to be careful with gas stations since they can clone your credit card there or manipulate pumps.
In the end, I canceled the rental booking and hired a shuttle company called Canada Transfers ( there was also another one highly reputed called US Transfers as well, but Canada Transfers was accepting CAD as payment so I decided to jump on the easier way for me) to bring us to the hotel and back to the airport in the end, a total of 250 CAD was spent on that. There is a bus company that can do in a cheaper way, but when I tried it all the tickets from our arrival date were gone, it is a busy season in January there. The bus company is ADO, if you plan to go there check there as soon as you buy your airplane tickets. In the end, I also borrowed a car from friends. I mentioned before that we hosted a girl from Mexico, and she is from that city and we became friends of her family. They borrowed us the car which I didn't have any problems driving around. I was just anxious when I filled up some gas once but it went all good. It was good to have a car for some reasons that I will mention in other posts.
For our resort, we chose by some criteria. First, it needed to be kid-friendly with things to do. We liked that the resort had a waterpark with lots of slides, other pools more for small kids with a pirate ship, and a Kids club. The kids club saved us a couple of times, especially for our little one, we just dropped her there and she had many activities to do. Of course, we did many things as a family but Mom and Dad used entirely 50 minutes of a couples SPA massage and also we used a lot especially when my oldest got sick in the middle of the trip, yep the shittiest thing happened. So I recommend having this type of utility in a resort a lot so couples can also have some moments by themselves. The resort also had a gelato store open for 9 hours and a Nespresso store for 7/24 opened with some snacks. The beach in that place was amazing as well
We paid around 7000 CAD for the 4 of us, for 7 nights and air tickets. We got the cheapest air tickets using Flair, a low-budget Canadian company. They want to charge for anything so you need to be careful and the time of the flight was stressful with the kids, the flight Canada-Mexico began after midnight and arrived their early in the morning, the way back was 8pm arriving at midnight in Calgary, Canada ( it got delayed and we arrived at 1AM). We got very tire,d especially on the way back with my wife and oldest sick.
Wow, I just spent almost 1000 words just explaining the background of the trip, so I will stop here and leave more in the coming posts. I will bring more pictures and more nice experiences in Playa de Carmen during this escape from the winter.
Talvez alguns de vocês tenham notado que fiquei fora do Hive sem postar por mais de 7 dias. Eu estava descansando em umas merecidas férias em Playa de Carmen, México. Já faz um tempo que não viajamos em família para o exterior sem ser nosso país de origem, o Brasil. É importante visitar nossa família lá, mas sentimos falta das nossas férias como apenas nós quatro. Eu queria um lugar com resorts com tudo incluído que não precisassem ser muito caros, não podemos pagar muito. O lugar mais barato para ir assim do Canadá geralmente é Cuba, mas tivemos uma experiência no início de 2018 lá que talvez fosse melhor pagar um pouco mais.
Antes do México, tive duas experiências com resorts all-inclusive no Caribe, a primeira foi durante minha lua de mel em Punta Cana em 2012, República Dominicana, que gastei muito para criar o cenário mais romântico e foi perfeito e Cuba em 2018, que economizamos dinheiro e tivemos uma viagem OK, mas muitas coisas que não gostamos, como geladeira do quarto vazia e eles cobraram por garrafas de água que pedimos para trazer NÓS MESMOS para o nosso quarto.
Decidimos ficar em um resort chamado Paradisus Playa de Carmen. Para quem não sabe, Playa de Carmen é uma cidade a 40 minutos de carro ao sul de Cancún. É menos lotada em comparação com Cancún e li melhores experiências online em comparação com Cancún. No entanto, ainda tivemos que usar o Aeroporto de Cancún para chegar ao México, já que Playa de Carmen não tem um aeroporto. No começo, decidi alugar um carro, mas depois que um amigo viajou para lá algumas vezes me avisou e depois de ler muitas avaliações online, decidi desistir dessa ideia.
Alugar um carro lá pode ser desafiador por muitas razões, apesar dos preços apelativos que você vê online. Primeiro, o preço online não inclui o seguro diário local que você precisa pagar, não é opcional. Então você chega na locadora e tem essa primeira surpresa. Segundo: a polícia é um pouco corrupta, bem, isso não me surpreende, já que o Brasil é igual. Então, todos os carros alugados têm alguns adesivos para que eles saibam quando abordar turistas e pedir dinheiro, eles alegam que você estava em alta velocidade ou que não estava usando os faróis e qualquer desculpa para tentar tirar dinheiro de você. E terceiro, você precisa ter cuidado com os postos de gasolina, pois eles podem clonar seu cartão de crédito lá ou manipular bombas.
No final, cancelei a reserva do aluguel e contratei uma empresa de transporte chamada Canada Transfers (também havia outra muito conceituada chamada US Transfers, mas a Canada Transfers estava aceitando CAD como pagamento, então decidi pegar o caminho mais fácil para mim) para nos levar ao hotel e de volta ao aeroporto no final, um total de 250 CAD foi gasto nisso. Há uma empresa de ônibus que pode fazer de uma forma mais barata, mas quando tentei, todas as passagens da nossa data de chegada tinham acabado, é uma temporada movimentada em janeiro lá. A empresa de ônibus é a ADO, se você planeja ir para lá, verifique lá assim que comprar suas passagens aéreas. No final, também peguei um carro emprestado de amigos. Mencionei antes que hospedamos uma garota do México, e ela é daquela cidade e nos tornamos amigos da família dela. Eles nos pegaram emprestado o carro, e eu não tive problemas em dirigir por aí. Fiquei ansioso quando abasteci um pouco de gasolina uma vez, mas deu tudo certo. Foi bom ter um carro por alguns motivos que mencionarei em outros posts.
Para nosso resort, escolhemos por alguns critérios. Primeiro, precisava ser adequado para crianças com coisas para fazer. Gostamos que o resort tivesse um parque aquático com muitos toboáguas, outras piscinas mais para crianças pequenas com um navio pirata e um clube infantil. O clube infantil nos salvou algumas vezes, especialmente para nossa pequena, nós simplesmente a deixamos lá e ela tinha muitas atividades para fazer. Claro, fizemos muitas coisas como uma família, mas mamãe e papai usaram inteiramente 50 minutos de uma massagem de SPA para casais e também usamos muito, especialmente quando meu filho mais velho ficou doente no meio da viagem, sim, a coisa mais horrível aconteceu. Então eu recomendo ter esse tipo de utilidade em um resort para que os casais também possam ter alguns momentos sozinhos. O resort também tinha uma loja de sorvetes aberta por 9 horas e uma loja Nespresso aberta por 24/7 com alguns lanches. A praia naquele lugar também era incrível
Pagamos cerca de 7000 CAD para nós 4, por 7 noites e passagens aéreas. Conseguimos as passagens aéreas mais baratas usando a Flair, uma empresa canadense de baixo orçamento. Eles querem cobrar por qualquer coisa, então você precisa ter cuidado e o horário do voo foi estressante com as crianças, o voo Canadá-México começou depois da meia-noite e chegou lá cedo pela manhã, o caminho de volta foi às 20h, chegando à meia-noite em Calgary, Canadá (atrasou e chegamos à 1h). Ficamos muito cansados, especialmente no caminho de volta com minha esposa e meu filho mais velho doentes.
Uau, acabei de gastar quase 1000 palavras só para explicar o contexto da viagem, então vou parar por aqui e deixar mais nos próximos posts. Trarei mais fotos e mais experiências legais em Playa de Carmen durante essa fuga do inverno.
Okey, so much for beating around the bush. Show me some travelling!!
;)
hahaha yes in the end this posts was more about the technical part of the trip than anything! I am a very technical and these points were extremely important in how to deal with it! hehehe In the end I wrote almost 1000 words about it hopefully someone thinks some of that information is worth it at least, I would think about it xD.
One interesting fact of the trip about beers...I only drank regular beers there since the resort and most of the places offered there like XX (double equis), a regular lager. But in my way back in the airport in those expensive restaurants in the airport (even fast food is expensive in airports), I saw something interesting in the Menu: Bohemia Clara and Bohemia Oscura(light and dark), I order the Bohemia Clara, I was curious...it reminded me a lot about Czech amber lager despite of calling it Pilsner. Well it is still a commercial beer but at least not a regular one that I find anywhere even down in the corner here in Canada.
What a fun trip! I used to travel to Mexico a lot before the cartel issue popped up. At the time I was still in the Army reserve and Mexico was on their no travel list. It looks like a lot of fun, and it looks like the kids had a great time too! Way to pick up that appreciator vote!
!BBH
!DOOK
I remember that, if I am not mistaken that was the reason why I didn't go there during my honeymoon... now it is a bit better at least in Riviera Maya part. What impressed me that it looked like Rio in certain ways when I saw police officers with very heavy guns, like AR15. While I was there I saw some bad news about some cities in the pacific region of the country so indeed security is something to think about when going to Mexico.
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Bzzzrrr, gwajnberg! Eu adorei as suas férias no México! O resort Paradisus Playa de Carmen parece então perfeito para umas férias relaxantes. Espero que tenha aproveitado ao máximo aquele tempo no sol! #hivebr
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Obrigado por promover a comunidade Hive-BR em suas postagens.
Vamos seguir fortalecendo a Hive
I have been there too 7 years ago! Playa del Carmen too! All inclusive resort, we did excursions only with official guide, never on our own to avoid problems like you said... But it was great, I hope you visited chichenitza and such... Only thing, they were obsessed with tips, always want a tip
HA you guessed, my next post about the trip I will show you Chichen Itza, it is a beautiful place indeed. We hired a company through Expedia to go there. I am for a third-world country like Mexico and I know how tricky is to be a foreigner, many people want to exploit that.
you must have gone to tulum too then!
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