Hi All! We've lived off all the rest of your pictures, dreams, advice and trip reports since we planned our own honeymoon to PDC. Thanks for all of the help answering some fairly primitive questions - this enhanced the trip greatly. So here's your payback - sincerely hope you are happy with the return!
Expectations
Enjoy the beauty of God’s Creation
Have fun together
Appreciate the Mayan culture
Relax! You're on vacation!
Top 10 Recommendations
10) Learn Spanish!
9) ASK FIRST how much things cost and negotiate when possible.
8) Email resort/hotel ahead of time to request and confirm
7) Attempt some form of exercise, occasionally...
6) Wear the bracelet on your ankle
5) Downtown Playa at night
4) Tip for good service as you would anywhere
3) Plastic cooler cups, size L!
2) Get to a Peep meet
1) Invest in Map Chicks Maps!
Wednesday 3-19-08
The day before, this was my view driving to work:
Thursday 3-20-08
Up at 4:30 a.m. to load up for the 1.5 hour drive to the MSP airport and 9:44 am departure with arrival at Cancun at 12:42 p.m. local time. We were extremely excited as you all are or have been as this was our honeymoon and first trip alone together of any substance for years.
Can't remember the name of this river that the pilot announced but the view was great:
Landed and as luck would have it, I had to press a button and it turned red, our bags got searched. The customs officials were very polite and in a matter of minutes we were through and outside in the sweet, tropical, humid air!
Our transfer arrangements were made by our travel agent through American Express tourism division. Amex employs extremely friendly and bilingual local people working to pick up tourists and van them off to their hotels. Hola Hernan!
We rode with a dad, mom, their sons and grandma from Chicago who told us about the other resorts they’d stayed at in the area, and they were dropped off at the Iberostar El Pariso complx (consisting of 4 connected resorts north of PDC) which were beautiful! We also rode with an older couple from Miami who were dropped off at the Wyndham Azteca. We were last stop and made it to the Sandos Playacar at about 3:00 p.m.
There were about 50 people in line (yikes!) and they had complimentary iced tea, orange juice, papaya juice and water to keep you well hydrated during the wait to check in. We witnessed some irritated people whose rooms were not yet ready after spending the last 6 hours on the beach while their luggage was parked in a secure room off the check in desk – guess I may be too if I had waited 6 hours and was ready for a shower in a room I had paid for.
Following a glass of champagne and a 20 minute wait, we were fortunate enough to have absolutely no problem checking in. Tip: Ask for an extra key – explained below… We were soon following the bellboy to our room. Flipped open the curtains to the sliding door (no balcony, unfortunately) and we had a partial ocean view and sweet, humid smells of the sea and waves washing ashore!
And the view across the corner of the Iberostar Tucan:
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