Tuesday:We left early Tuesday morning, and hoped to find free parking on the streets near Newark airport (had done that before), but everywhere there was alternate side parking, so we went to Jiffy and pre-paid a few minutes before $60 for 6 days.
Wanted to surprise my DW with business class, but ended up with frustrated United employees
fussing over the overweight luggage (would advise to just go direct to premium check-in). At security we saw a couple people being stopped as they had left their thermos with coffee in the hand luggage. They were told they could either go back to the beginning of the line to drink it or the thermos with the coffee would be thrown out… We saw an officer who was sanitizing his gloves between handling people’s hand luggages……
United flight 1052 almost always arrives 30 mins early, but by us it arrived almost an hour early, at around 1:30PM. We hoped to use our Immigration Form which was filled out online in advance, but the officer did not want to accept it and we had to go out of line to fill it out then
. We had filled out the health questionnaire but nobody looked at it.
We arrived at Terminal 3 but we did not see any red light or green light to let us go through, despite being nervous about that (we did see an article that they are going to stop with this).
Most people went out at the suitcase screening section. We went to the other side where 2 officers approached us right away (Jew Police?) and asked us if we have any food. We said yes. We asked them if they want to see all the suitcases or just the suitcase with food. We had packed the more “legal” foods in one small suitcase and spread out the less “legal” stuff amongst the clothes etc. They said just the suitcase with food so they looked through the packaged goods and got excited when they found tuna cans and homemade meringues. But, they didn’t take anything away and did not look through the other suitcases, so we had milk, yogurt, jerky, dried fruit and salami, as well as crackers and bread etc. After all the stories we had read this in itself made us feel like it was worth travelling!
We waited around 15 minutes, in the heat with all the Mexicans asking us if we needed a taxi
, until the shuttle came to take us to Sixt car rental. 2 employees loaded on the luggage and it took less than 5 minutes to get to their base. They gave us cold water bottles, my DW was waiting outside, and there was 2 stray dogs there which scared her a little
. They took a $1000 security deposit (returned at car return). They took plenty of photos of the car (as did we). We got a red Nissan Versa.
It was a 30 minute drive to the Hyatt Ziva, (we got a little lost the first few exits until we got used to the roads and the car. DW kept me in check with the speed as I didn’t want any experiences with the Mexican police. She asked me if she could keep the job in the USA too, lol
.
We arrived at the Hyatt to the most gorgeous views! The bell boys took the luggage and gave us a tag to take to the check-in. Currently there is no valet parking so DW had to wait until I had parked the car. Throughout our stay upon entering and exiting the parking garage we had to wait several minutes for an attendant to open the barrier.
Our room was in the Ocean Sky Room in Turquoize Tower. (A swim-up Suite wasn’t available due to renovations). The room was prepared with anniversary decorations (banner on door and heart shaped balloons above the bed, and fresh fruit and wine(not kosher)). One additional time during our stay they brought more balloons. It isn’t possible to describe in words how absolutely stunning the views were from all angles in the hotel.
After we unpacked we went immediately to the ballroom to register for our COVID test. It was the only place we had to wear a mask. The process took around 15 minutes and we then went to check out the SuperChedraui supermarket. There were very few products with kosher certification and we bought mostly fresh produce.
We decided it would be most convenient to order from Kosher Cancun (Chabad). We had beef tacos, schnitzel sandwich, burger and fries. Food was okay, but by the time we came to get it in the hotel lobby it was cool. We ate at the fire pits which was not a good idea as the wind kept blowing the fire into our faces.
We had a WhatsApp group with our personal butlers and we could request whatever we wanted. We got the butler this night (and every night) to prepare the jacuzzi with bubbles on the porch. If it’s a windy day and you don’t get in immediately there will be no bubbles left after a short time. Throughout our stay we wanted to experience the full butler service, so he polished my shoes and ironed 2 shirts lekovod shabbat. We got a variety of pillows, aromatherapy, coffee in the morning (much faster than room service).
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