Cancun, Mexico Master Thread

[wonderlust]

So there is:
-Chabad Cancun regular menu (pickup or delivery)
-Chabad Cancun yeshiva weeks menu (pickup or delivery)
-Kosher Luxus (Eat-in only?)
-Chabad Playa (pickup or delivery)
-Hotel770 (flag waiving bootleg chabad) (Eat-in only?)

I had no idea!

Kosher luxus delivers as well. They even send out playa de Carmen

[wonderlust]

So there is:
-Chabad Cancun regular menu (pickup or delivery)
-Chabad Cancun yeshiva weeks menu (pickup or delivery)
-Kosher Luxus (Eat-in only?)
-Chabad Playa (pickup or delivery)
-Hotel770 (flag waiving bootleg chabad) (Eat-in only?)

I had no idea!

Kosher luxus delivers shabbos to room as well. They sent over food & a warmer in a suitcase ( so hotel won't give problems) right before shabbos

[youG]

So there is:
-Chabad Cancun regular menu (pickup or delivery)
-Chabad Cancun yeshiva weeks menu (pickup or delivery)
-Kosher Luxus (Eat-in only?)
-Chabad Playa (pickup or delivery)
-Hotel770 (flag waiving bootleg chabad) (Eat-in only?)

I had no idea!

Thanks!

[shiframeir]

So there is:
-Chabad Cancun regular menu (pickup or delivery)
-Chabad Cancun yeshiva weeks menu (pickup or delivery)
-Kosher Luxus (Eat-in only?)
-Chabad Playa (pickup or delivery)
-Hotel770 (flag waiving bootleg chabad) (Eat-in only?)

while they are claiming to be temporarily closed, there is also dag dag, a quaint husband/wife restaurant that may be useful to some (only eat in and order in advance if possible as they are slow). http://www.koshercancunrestaurant.com/ they are located next door to the real chabad cancun center. Finally, been told by several peeps there that the falafel at mama sababa in playa is really great, but i have no info on kashrus. http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g150812-d5958211-Reviews-Mama_Sababa-Playa_del_Carmen_Yucatan_Peninsula.html seems they are closed on shabbos http://www.vivagoviva.com/riviera-maya/playa-del-carmen/item/367-mama-sababa

[Dan]

while they are claiming to be temporarily closed, there is also dag dag, a quaint husband/wife restaurant that may be useful to some (only eat in and order in advance if possible as they are slow). http://www.koshercancunrestaurant.com/ they are located next door to the real chabad cancun center. Finally, been told by several peeps there that the falafel at mama sababa in playa is really great, but i have no info on kashrus. http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g150812-d5958211-Reviews-Mama_Sababa-Playa_del_Carmen_Yucatan_Peninsula.html seems they are closed on shabbos http://www.vivagoviva.com/riviera-maya/playa-del-carmen/item/367-mama-sababa

Who's hashgocha are these places under?

[lunatic]

Who's hashgocha are these places under?

+1. I was wondering the same

[shiframeir]

Who's hashgocha are these places under?

Dag Dag is the Chabad rabbi, he covers them (see the chabad website here http://www.jewishcancun.com/templates/articlecco_cdo/aid/513110/jewish/Kosher-Food.htm). no clue on the mama sababa (never went there) but there is an email and phone ariehammer2@gmail.com to find out, or maybe ask the Playa chabad people.

[Dan]

Cleaned up and added to the Wiki a bit.

Anyone want to add more activities to it?

[Dan]

Mama Sababa does not have hashgocha.

[wonderlust]

Just got back from cancun here is my TR I apologize for its length but i figure ppl might find the info useful. I am making different paragraphs for different topics so it will be easy to find what you want and skip the rest:

Traveling to Mexico:
1- mx pesos are now around 14 per dollar. It's annoying that the symbol is the same for both currency so don't freak out when the price seems insane as unless it says usd it's in pesos.
2- as it is closer to the equator the sun is extremely powerful there so make sure you use Constant strong sunscreen
3- I did not encounter bugs due to windy weather but friends were there the week before said it was huge issue-especially by the lagoon area so would recommend bringing repellent.
4- verizon offers share mexico plan which is 15$  for 1000 minutes. It's unclear if text messages are a deduction of minutes as 1 text is 1 min or if it's .50$ a sent text. Every time I called I got different response.
5- in Mexico if they have a pulse and a smile they expect a tip. I brought lots of small bills so I would have singles, 5's & 10s for tipping. You also want a lot of smaller bills because every 1 takes dollars but will only give you change in pesos. You don't want to be stuck with 98$ worth of pesos for buying a coke with a Benjamin.                                                                              6- the weather is like the rest of the Caribbean- unpredictable. We thankfully had no rain till the day we left but we had REALLY strong winds for first few days..
7- unless  the hotel has its own filtering system, do not drink the tap water!
8- You can get by easily with English but remember that it is their second language so nuanced or details can get lost in translation.
9- when you charge to cc (obviously bring one with no foreign transaction fee) you are better off buying in pesos than in dollars. The cc company will give you a much better rate so it will be cheaper. E.g. I had choice of being charged either 25$ in usd or 300 pesos & it came out to 21$.
10-its central time zone. With sundown around half hr later than nyc
11-Things move slowly in Mexico (hey, they coined the term "Monyata"

 Cancun's layout is similar to Miami beach with a strip of land Btwn ocean & lagoon/bay & hotels all along ocean side like Collins. Playa de Carmen is about an hr or so south with river maya in Btwn. Playa is considered more hip & happening than cancun & river maya has more expansive resorts that are isolated as opposed to Cancun which they are lined up one next to each other.

Flying to cancun: as we have a southwest companion pass it was a no Brainer for us to take the bwi-cun non-stop. We left on thanksgiving day & got both our flights rndtrp for 25k &100$ in tax. The planes for the route r older so they don't have tvs & there is no meal service. Thy didn't even have plastic utensils. They do have wifi & for the price I payed I'm more than happy to forgo the meal & TV. In bwi they refused to let us on the TSA pre line because it is an international flight. I have flown many times international & they always allowed us to skip the security line or at least use the first class line, but as the pre line was actually moving slower than the regular we just went with it. I was coming from Lakewood &
Travel time was 2.5 hrs from Lakewood to car park & 50min from car park to gate (it was early in the am). Considering it was thanksgiving day & coming off bad weather I think it would justify any1 from say Lakewood going to bwi over JFK. The outboud went smoothly and they have a huge duty free in airport. the buiz center only takes priority pass and they told me some bs about not opening for pp till after 3:00pm.

 Food: as we were warned about  bringing foods into Mexico we only brought with us beef jerky, oatmeals ( there is a really good one that comes in small bowls we brought) & pitas..we decided to bring our travel croc pot(small 10$) to make a chulent & brought barley & the spices/sauces for it in small container. Thankfully, the jerky & sauce made it thru but my wife's lunch wasn't so lucky. She packed a pasta with some cheese in it for lunch and by the baggage claim in cun they have a dog-sniffer going by everyone's belongings-of course when it came by my wife the dog went straight for her handbag & the security guard confiscated the meal. We bought at Walmart eggs & veg as well as: cereal, milk (Lala)granola bars & sabra chumus. We were told alef alef & mzd r reliable hechsherim. Scattered thru out all the stores u will find random food items that have Ou from the states so keep your eyes out. We were shocked to see the chocolates marriott gave us for the turn down service was from astro in Lakewood & had an Ou! Talk bout a great find  . As I know there has been a lot of discussion here about the Hashgacha & meat I inquired by kosher luxus/red heifer and the lady told me all meats come from Mexico city & not local butcher. The resturant was right across the st from our hotel & we had an amazing experience there for thur & sun dinner as well as fri night where they  sent food to our hotel. The mashgiach is super nice & helpful though he speaks only Hebrew & Spanish.so we were back to sem/yeshiva days of breaking our teeth in ivrit. He gave me meat for my chulent & informed us that they send food out to playa de Carmen for what sounded like a small fee(again,we weren't understanding him 100% but sounded like for only few dollars) Pedro the waiter was great & had the best English from all of them. I got the sirloin 400g with grilled veg  which was amazing on thur but when I ordered it again on sun( it was that good)- it was Medicore.. Wife got tacos which were nothing to write home bout & a fish pasta that she loved. We also tried the stuff avocado which was real good  as well. The Miami vice, sangria, "sob" & strawberry mottios were all great & we sat there enjoying our drinks &
>>> The view of the lagoon well after our meal was over. Originally we were supposed to eat at the hotel fri night but they told us on thur that they were delivering food to every1 instead.Again, the communication wasn't great so it was hard to tell if we had the option of eating in the restaurant fri night. It came fri afternoon well wrapped with a hot plate in a suitcase (so hotel won't give issues) we were apprehensive at first bout the change but it worked out great. The challah,dips& soup were all plentiful ( my wife ordered soup & t was enough for 2 full bowls)& I got the Argentinian beef strips which was phenomenal. I also got grilled wings which were good. The chicken salad wife got was good but bit skimpy on the chicken. The lady who called us to confirm our reservations was from the USA & I would advise trying to contact her so that less will be lost in translation as the staff didn't speak great English. Our Food cost us 209$ total for thur & fri night together & 120$ last night so the pricing wasn't bad at all. We ordered from Chabad on mon & tue & the food was great! The service was impeccable. She dropped off the food at the exact requested time well-wrapped & piping hot. We got the pepper steak which was a very large portion as well burgers, meatballs & chicken salad and everything was fantastic.the burgers & meatballs tasted like the same type of meat but tasted like good homemade burgers/meatballs. The cost was 135 for all our food from her, which was well prices as well.  Both food options are great & it's a pleasure giving both of them your patronage as opposed to a lot of over-priced & horrible food joints you typically find in far off places.
Beer is all light and I couldn't find any premium american/European beers anywhere. The only cocktails I saw that you could get where gin&tonic. You can buy good dry wine at the restaurant but at a steep premium,We brought our own in a wine case that protects it fine.

Transportation: I usually always rent a car as I love the independence it affords. However, our friends just rented one the week before &
Had to deal with the car rental trying to charge them a fortune in hidden fees & made up damages. Cancun also is so easily accessible w/o a car that we decided against renting. All the activities in cun  you can either walk to or take bus/cab. The activities you sign up with thru any of the hundreds of outfitters all offer pickups from the hotel. We took the local buses to go downtown & the like & it was very smooth & cheap. To get to our hotel, the JW offers 16$ per person per way pick up. Important!: if you have a shuttle pickup @ the airport, after customs go straight out of the building. Don't listen to anyone  in the walkway because there are literally hundreds of them swarming you & they will lie & tell u they are from your hotel, your ride isn't coming & any possible lie they can say to get your buiz. All along the airport they have official looking kiosks & they tell you they are from ministry of tourism etc it's all bs. All over cancun they do that as well. They all wear tags & tell you they are from tourism ministry, note it's not true. There are buses that can take you to playa as well & if you don't want to deal with buses & the natives you can take cabs anywhere.

 Hotels: it seems the vast majority of hotels in cancun are all-inclusive. The hyatt zlara does look real nice but as you need 25k And I value chase at least at 1.5 the cost would be around 350$. The westin has a good location as it is directly across from a really nice mall/plaza which you should definitely check out. We stayed at the JW and were extremely happy with our choice. I found AAA rates in cancun can really save you money and for JW it was 60$ cheaper a night. I got the room for 165$ a night with marriott brg as Expedia was offering a 4th night free which caused the 5 nights to be cheaper than reg rate of 270$. Marriott matched their rate & took an additional 25% knocking our rate down to 165$. I am Platinum level so we got auto-upgraded to deluxe ocean view room. This hotel doesn't have a club level or regular breakfast just restaurants so no extras on that end. They offered us a jr suite for 50$ more a night or a full suite for 90$ a night but the jr was only available on ground level by pool away with no ocean view & the suite was only available for some of the stay so we stuck with our room. The ground floor also smelled bad so I would advise not staying on that floor. We got a nightly turn down service which I think was because of our status but not sure. We also got free wifi as the wifi in lobby is free but in rooms it's at a cost. the room was really nice with an amazing view from the balcony.we were on the 11th floor so we had a great view of ocean and pool .The hotels in cun we thought were much closer to the ocean then in say Miami so we really enjoyed leaving the porch doors open and listening to the ocean at night. I was not a fan of the bathrooms as they are glass and not all of it is fogged out. The amenities in the room were a bit lacking as the screen was not hd & had little channels. Still we were able to get the NFL games. The mini bar could be turned in to a fridge by taking all drinks out but they just sent us 1 up free of charge. There was no coffee maker but each morning they sent us up hot water. The service of the hotel was exemplary and made up for any lacking amnesties. Where ever we went they greeted us by name & were prompt, cordial & looking to help. The pools & beach were great. The beach was cleaner than the ones next door belonging to hard rock & secrets. The pool was really nice and weaved around the whole property. There was a swim up bar that for some reason was closed & an adult only pool that was always empty. We were pleasantly surprised by how empty the hotel was especially for holiday weekend. There are a lot of hotels that offer more entertainment and the like but we enjoyed being able to to do our own thing. The spa also had a real nice pool. The 2 things lacking were hammocks & more hot tubs as they only had 2 & both weren't really hot. The one issue we had besides for our "shabbos sitch" was at check in. We arrived at 12:00 but didn't get a room till 4:00 which is official check in time. There was a big convention the day before and the pres. Of Mexico just left a few hrs before so I guess I can't hold it against them. I would gladly stay there again and after staying there I see why it's one of the top rated hotels on the strip even surpassing the ritz.

shabbos: I have dealt with many shabbos issues in hotels from fridge with 100+ bulbs (costa rica they removed them all) to 22 flights of  steps (sheraton Niagara) &vents that went on when you open the porch door. Obviously, consult your LOR, but I will share the issues we encountered and how we dealt with them. Our room was on the 11th floor so we figured we would just take the steps (if you use shabbos elevators its a lot easier:). The tissues are mostly attached so you might want to be mindful of that. We didn't realize we were going to eat in the room fri night so we weren't very prepared for dealing with lights. The simplest solution would of been to bring a small shabbos clock for the lamp or if you have a suite then you can keep light on in one room. We left the light on in closet but made sure to not close all the way as that turns it off/on. They sent us a hot plate for the food but as we didn't want to keep it on the whole shabbos  and didn't need it for shabbos day, we put the food on before shabbos and turned it off right before shabbos. It worked out great and the food was hot. Friday afternoon I went to check  out the steps and discovered that there was a sensor that triggered a light on each landing! that means we would need a non-jew to walk us down all 11 flights! The front desk was familiar with shabbos observance and they assured me the lights would be turned on,but due to the language barrier I suspected and confirmed right before shabbos that they weren't  understanding the light issue. i told the maintenance guy that if it couldn't be arranged they should send some one to walk us down 1:30pm on shabbos (i assured there would be a nice tip) Well, the message got garbled because at 1:30 fri night we got a call from the front desk!! We ended up just hanging in our room and as shabbos was over early it was enjoyable and not such a big deal. After shabbos I got like 50 emails from amex confirming sbs purchases .If anyone wants to stay there for shabbos I think you should either stay on ground level (though it smelled bad from the pool) or contact the hotel well in advance to see if the lights can be arranged or at least a "walk-down"

Activities:
Most of the activities are sold as a package. Some are a good deal some are a ripoff. xcaret is the most heavily advertised,but its 100$ just to get into the park and every activity costs additional money. We met people that went there and they said it was a complete scam. The dolphin swim also is a fortune and they charge 100$ just for 1 picture!! We booked the jungle tour and BOB thru our hotel activity center using the aquaworld outfitters. They are a huge outfit and are located right next to kosher luxus which made for any easy walk for us. We got both for 110$ a person with the option of para sailing for another 30$. The jungle tour is very nice and has nothing to do with the jungle! You drive mini motor boats as a caravan of say 6 boats out to a reef in the lagoon area for snorkeling. The water there is stunning and the drive is very nice and fun. When we went it was too windy and choppy to enjoy the snorkeling and i was pissed at them for not being honest and upfront when we asked about the conditions. Thankfully i put it on my amex:). The little snorkeling we did do seemed nice but not the same amount of fish you see in Bahamas/or even the keys. The BOB (Breathing Observation Bubble) is extremely cool and highly recommend. Its easier if you just google it than for me to describe but it basically is an underwater cart that has a fish bowl bubble that you breathe into. This trip went out to the reef right across from the hyatt on the ocean side. We saw some cool fish as well as a sting ray and turtle. They took such an awesome underwater pic of us with a huge fish btwn us that we bought it for 25$ (23$ after the conversion). Be advised: We all got sea sick on the way back! You go down for 30min and then have an option to snorkel and no one took them up on the offer. The seasickness though fades as soon as you get on land so I would still recommend. The other issue is that your ears hurt when you ascend/descend and mine hurt for a good 10 min going down and felt funny for the rest of the day. Again, be mindful and decide for yourself if its for you. We did the fish spa where they nibble at the dead skin at your feet and would recommend doing the 15 min/15$ at aquaworld vs sitting in the plaza where they have tons of them for 25$/25min. It is no longer the season for the turtle release so we missed that. We did the explor fumo? (fire) which is their night package. It an was extremely awesome place. Definitely worth the money and again its easier to google than describe. The charge is 100$ to get in at night and 130$ during the day. We got a black friday discount (pretty cool they have that down in mexico as well) where we got transportation for free 9think its 30$ normally) The park is built thru an underground cavern with 4 main activities that run either in the caverns or above ground. swimming thru the caverns which was supper cool. the water wasnt too cold, but there were a few bats which might freak out some ppl. There is "rafting" (really just a nice paddle trip in the same caverns) which was also very nice. They have ATVing  which is basically a 3 mile track thru the jungle that was fun and very cool at night. The main attraction is the zipline course which was really cool. I did it in Costa Rica and this circuit was pretty comparable. The last one goes into water which if you dont want  to get wet you can skip. We chose the night one mainly so that we could still chill by the beach during the day. The park is near playa and if i would contemplate renting a car at all it would be to go to xplore so that you can stay for as long as you want and not be tied down to the buses (they picked us up at 3:30 and dropped us off at 12:30) It's also near the restaurant in Playa so that  might be a nice combo if you have a car.
The night xplore was lit up all along with torches and you even zip line thru a ring of fire so it was very cool and prob worth doing at night. They charge 79$ (76$ if you put on cc and pay in pesos) for a hard drive of all the pictures. As there are a lot of activities and its hard to take the pics they get we spent the money and got a nice set of pics.

All in all Cancun is an awesome place to go and worth while no matter your style of trip.

[Dan]

Thanks for the report, pics?

[Dan]

Dag dag: "Currently closed, thinking of reopening but not sure when."

[cooljoe613]

Just got back from cancun here is my TR I apologize for its length but i figure ppl might find the info useful. I am making different paragraphs for different topics so it will be easy to find what you want and skip the rest:

Traveling to Mexico:
1- mx pesos are now around 14 per dollar. It's annoying that the symbol is the same for both currency so don't freak out when the price seems insane as unless it says usd it's in pesos.
2- as it is closer to the equator the sun is extremely powerful there so make sure you use Constant strong sunscreen
3- I did not encounter bugs due to windy weather but friends were there the week before said it was huge issue-especially by the lagoon area so would recommend bringing repellent.
4- verizon offers share mexico plan which is 15$  for 1000 minutes. It's unclear if text messages are a deduction of minutes as 1 text is 1 min or if it's .50$ a sent text. Every time I called I got different response.
5- in Mexico if they have a pulse and a smile they expect a tip. I brought lots of small bills so I would have singles, 5's & 10s for tipping. You also want a lot of smaller bills because every 1 takes dollars but will only give you change in pesos. You don't want to be stuck with 98$ worth of pesos for buying a coke with a Benjamin.                                                                              6- the weather is like the rest of the Caribbean- unpredictable. We thankfully had no rain till the day we left but we had REALLY strong winds for first few days..
7- unless  the hotel has its own filtering system, do not drink the tap water!
8- You can get by easily with English but remember that it is their second language so nuanced or details can get lost in translation.
9- when you charge to cc (obviously bring one with no foreign transaction fee) you are better off buying in pesos than in dollars. The cc company will give you a much better rate so it will be cheaper. E.g. I had choice of being charged either 25$ in usd or 300 pesos & it came out to 21$.
10-its central time zone. With sundown around half hr later than nyc
11-Things move slowly in Mexico (hey, they coined the term "Monyata"

 Cancun's layout is similar to Miami beach with a strip of land Btwn ocean & lagoon/bay & hotels all along ocean side like Collins. Playa de Carmen is about an hr or so south with river maya in Btwn. Playa is considered more hip & happening than cancun & river maya has more expansive resorts that are isolated as opposed to Cancun which they are lined up one next to each other.

Flying to cancun: as we have a southwest companion pass it was a no Brainer for us to take the bwi-cun non-stop. We left on thanksgiving day & got both our flights rndtrp for 25k &100$ in tax. The planes for the route r older so they don't have tvs & there is no meal service. Thy didn't even have plastic utensils. They do have wifi & for the price I payed I'm more than happy to forgo the meal & TV. In bwi they refused to let us on the TSA pre line because it is an international flight. I have flown many times international & they always allowed us to skip the security line or at least use the first class line, but as the pre line was actually moving slower than the regular we just went with it. I was coming from Lakewood &
Travel time was 2.5 hrs from Lakewood to car park & 50min from car park to gate (it was early in the am). Considering it was thanksgiving day & coming off bad weather I think it would justify any1 from say Lakewood going to bwi over JFK. The outboud went smoothly and they have a huge duty free in airport. the buiz center only takes priority pass and they told me some bs about not opening for pp till after 3:00pm.

 Food: as we were warned about  bringing foods into Mexico we only brought with us beef jerky, oatmeals ( there is a really good one that comes in small bowls we brought) & pitas..we decided to bring our travel croc pot(small 10$) to make a chulent & brought barley & the spices/sauces for it in small container. Thankfully, the jerky & sauce made it thru but my wife's lunch wasn't so lucky. She packed a pasta with some cheese in it for lunch and by the baggage claim in cun they have a dog-sniffer going by everyone's belongings-of course when it came by my wife the dog went straight for her handbag & the security guard confiscated the meal. We bought at Walmart eggs & veg as well as: cereal, milk (Lala)granola bars & sabra chumus. We were told alef alef & mzd r reliable hechsherim. Scattered thru out all the stores u will find random food items that have Ou from the states so keep your eyes out. We were shocked to see the chocolates marriott gave us for the turn down service was from astro in Lakewood & had an Ou! Talk bout a great find  . As I know there has been a lot of discussion here about the Hashgacha & meat I inquired by kosher luxus/red heifer and the lady told me all meats come from Mexico city & not local butcher. The resturant was right across the st from our hotel & we had an amazing experience there for thur & sun dinner as well as fri night where they  sent food to our hotel. The mashgiach is super nice & helpful though he speaks only Hebrew & Spanish.so we were back to sem/yeshiva days of breaking our teeth in ivrit. He gave me meat for my chulent & informed us that they send food out to playa de Carmen for what sounded like a small fee(again,we weren't understanding him 100% but sounded like for only few dollars) Pedro the waiter was great & had the best English from all of them. I got the sirloin 400g with grilled veg  which was amazing on thur but when I ordered it again on sun( it was that good)- it was Medicore.. Wife got tacos which were nothing to write home bout & a fish pasta that she loved. We also tried the stuff avocado which was real good  as well. The Miami vice, sangria, "sob" & strawberry mottios were all great & we sat there enjoying our drinks &
>>> The view of the lagoon well after our meal was over. Originally we were supposed to eat at the hotel fri night but they told us on thur that they were delivering food to every1 instead.Again, the communication wasn't great so it was hard to tell if we had the option of eating in the restaurant fri night. It came fri afternoon well wrapped with a hot plate in a suitcase (so hotel won't give issues) we were apprehensive at first bout the change but it worked out great. The challah,dips& soup were all plentiful ( my wife ordered soup & t was enough for 2 full bowls)& I got the Argentinian beef strips which was phenomenal. I also got grilled wings which were good. The chicken salad wife got was good but bit skimpy on the chicken. The lady who called us to confirm our reservations was from the USA & I would advise trying to contact her so that less will be lost in translation as the staff didn't speak great English. Our Food cost us 209$ total for thur & fri night together & 120$ last night so the pricing wasn't bad at all. We ordered from Chabad on mon & tue & the food was great! The service was impeccable. She dropped off the food at the exact requested time well-wrapped & piping hot. We got the pepper steak which was a very large portion as well burgers, meatballs & chicken salad and everything was fantastic.the burgers & meatballs tasted like the same type of meat but tasted like good homemade burgers/meatballs. The cost was 135 for all our food from her, which was well prices as well.  Both food options are great & it's a pleasure giving both of them your patronage as opposed to a lot of over-priced & horrible food joints you typically find in far off places.
Beer is all light and I couldn't find any premium american/European beers anywhere. The only cocktails I saw that you could get where gin&tonic. You can buy good dry wine at the restaurant but at a steep premium,We brought our own in a wine case that protects it fine.

Transportation: I usually always rent a car as I love the independence it affords. However, our friends just rented one the week before &
Had to deal with the car rental trying to charge them a fortune in hidden fees & made up damages. Cancun also is so easily accessible w/o a car that we decided against renting. All the activities in cun  you can either walk to or take bus/cab. The activities you sign up with thru any of the hundreds of outfitters all offer pickups from the hotel. We took the local buses to go downtown & the like & it was very smooth & cheap. To get to our hotel, the JW offers 16$ per person per way pick up. Important!: if you have a shuttle pickup @ the airport, after customs go straight out of the building. Don't listen to anyone  in the walkway because there are literally hundreds of them swarming you & they will lie & tell u they are from your hotel, your ride isn't coming & any possible lie they can say to get your buiz. All along the airport they have official looking kiosks & they tell you they are from ministry of tourism etc it's all bs. All over cancun they do that as well. They all wear tags & tell you they are from tourism ministry, note it's not true. There are buses that can take you to playa as well & if you don't want to deal with buses & the natives you can take cabs anywhere.

 Hotels: it seems the vast majority of hotels in cancun are all-inclusive. The hyatt zlara does look real nice but as you need 25k And I value chase at least at 1.5 the cost would be around 350$. The westin has a good location as it is directly across from a really nice mall/plaza which you should definitely check out. We stayed at the JW and were extremely happy with our choice. I found AAA rates in cancun can really save you money and for JW it was 60$ cheaper a night. I got the room for 165$ a night with marriott brg as Expedia was offering a 4th night free which caused the 5 nights to be cheaper than reg rate of 270$. Marriott matched their rate & took an additional 25% knocking our rate down to 165$. I am Platinum level so we got auto-upgraded to deluxe ocean view room. This hotel doesn't have a club level or regular breakfast just restaurants so no extras on that end. They offered us a jr suite for 50$ more a night or a full suite for 90$ a night but the jr was only available on ground level by pool away with no ocean view & the suite was only available for some of the stay so we stuck with our room. The ground floor also smelled bad so I would advise not staying on that floor. We got a nightly turn down service which I think was because of our status but not sure. We also got free wifi as the wifi in lobby is free but in rooms it's at a cost. the room was really nice with an amazing view from the balcony.we were on the 11th floor so we had a great view of ocean and pool .The hotels in cun we thought were much closer to the ocean then in say Miami so we really enjoyed leaving the porch doors open and listening to the ocean at night. I was not a fan of the bathrooms as they are glass and not all of it is fogged out. The amenities in the room were a bit lacking as the screen was not hd & had little channels. Still we were able to get the NFL games. The mini bar could be turned in to a fridge by taking all drinks out but they just sent us 1 up free of charge. There was no coffee maker but each morning they sent us up hot water. The service of the hotel was exemplary and made up for any lacking amnesties. Where ever we went they greeted us by name & were prompt, cordial & looking to help. The pools & beach were great. The beach was cleaner than the ones next door belonging to hard rock & secrets. The pool was really nice and weaved around the whole property. There was a swim up bar that for some reason was closed & an adult only pool that was always empty. We were pleasantly surprised by how empty the hotel was especially for holiday weekend. There are a lot of hotels that offer more entertainment and the like but we enjoyed being able to to do our own thing. The spa also had a real nice pool. The 2 things lacking were hammocks & more hot tubs as they only had 2 & both weren't really hot. The one issue we had besides for our "shabbos sitch" was at check in. We arrived at 12:00 but didn't get a room till 4:00 which is official check in time. There was a big convention the day before and the pres. Of Mexico just left a few hrs before so I guess I can't hold it against them. I would gladly stay there again and after staying there I see why it's one of the top rated hotels on the strip even surpassing the ritz.

shabbos: I have dealt with many shabbos issues in hotels from fridge with 100+ bulbs (costa rica they removed them all) to 22 flights of  steps (sheraton Niagara) &vents that went on when you open the porch door. Obviously, consult your LOR, but I will share the issues we encountered and how we dealt with them. Our room was on the 11th floor so we figured we would just take the steps (if you use shabbos elevators its a lot easier:). The tissues are mostly attached so you might want to be mindful of that. We didn't realize we were going to eat in the room fri night so we weren't very prepared for dealing with lights. The simplest solution would of been to bring a small shabbos clock for the lamp or if you have a suite then you can keep light on in one room. We left the light on in closet but made sure to not close all the way as that turns it off/on. They sent us a hot plate for the food but as we didn't want to keep it on the whole shabbos  and didn't need it for shabbos day, we put the food on before shabbos and turned it off right before shabbos. It worked out great and the food was hot. Friday afternoon I went to check  out the steps and discovered that there was a sensor that triggered a light on each landing! that means we would need a non-jew to walk us down all 11 flights! The front desk was familiar with shabbos observance and they assured me the lights would be turned on,but due to the language barrier I suspected and confirmed right before shabbos that they weren't  understanding the light issue. i told the maintenance guy that if it couldn't be arranged they should send some one to walk us down 1:30pm on shabbos (i assured there would be a nice tip) Well, the message got garbled because at 1:30 fri night we got a call from the front desk!! We ended up just hanging in our room and as shabbos was over early it was enjoyable and not such a big deal. After shabbos I got like 50 emails from amex confirming sbs purchases .If anyone wants to stay there for shabbos I think you should either stay on ground level (though it smelled bad from the pool) or contact the hotel well in advance to see if the lights can be arranged or at least a "walk-down"

Activities:
Most of the activities are sold as a package. Some are a good deal some are a ripoff. xcaret is the most heavily advertised,but its 100$ just to get into the park and every activity costs additional money. We met people that went there and they said it was a complete scam. The dolphin swim also is a fortune and they charge 100$ just for 1 picture!! We booked the jungle tour and BOB thru our hotel activity center using the aquaworld outfitters. They are a huge outfit and are located right next to kosher luxus which made for any easy walk for us. We got both for 110$ a person with the option of para sailing for another 30$. The jungle tour is very nice and has nothing to do with the jungle! You drive mini motor boats as a caravan of say 6 boats out to a reef in the lagoon area for snorkeling. The water there is stunning and the drive is very nice and fun. When we went it was too windy and choppy to enjoy the snorkeling and i was pissed at them for not being honest and upfront when we asked about the conditions. Thankfully i put it on my amex:). The little snorkeling we did do seemed nice but not the same amount of fish you see in Bahamas/or even the keys. The BOB (Breathing Observation Bubble) is extremely cool and highly recommend. Its easier if you just google it than for me to describe but it basically is an underwater cart that has a fish bowl bubble that you breathe into. This trip went out to the reef right across from the hyatt on the ocean side. We saw some cool fish as well as a sting ray and turtle. They took such an awesome underwater pic of us with a huge fish btwn us that we bought it for 25$ (23$ after the conversion). Be advised: We all got sea sick on the way back! You go down for 30min and then have an option to snorkel and no one took them up on the offer. The seasickness though fades as soon as you get on land so I would still recommend. The other issue is that your ears hurt when you ascend/descend and mine hurt for a good 10 min going down and felt funny for the rest of the day. Again, be mindful and decide for yourself if its for you. We did the fish spa where they nibble at the dead skin at your feet and would recommend doing the 15 min/15$ at aquaworld vs sitting in the plaza where they have tons of them for 25$/25min. It is no longer the season for the turtle release so we missed that. We did the explor fumo? (fire) which is their night package. It an was extremely awesome place. Definitely worth the money and again its easier to google than describe. The charge is 100$ to get in at night and 130$ during the day. We got a black friday discount (pretty cool they have that down in mexico as well) where we got transportation for free 9think its 30$ normally) The park is built thru an underground cavern with 4 main activities that run either in the caverns or above ground. swimming thru the caverns which was supper cool. the water wasnt too cold, but there were a few bats which might freak out some ppl. There is "rafting" (really just a nice paddle trip in the same caverns) which was also very nice. They have ATVing  which is basically a 3 mile track thru the jungle that was fun and very cool at night. The main attraction is the zipline course which was really cool. I did it in Costa Rica and this circuit was pretty comparable. The last one goes into water which if you dont want  to get wet you can skip. We chose the night one mainly so that we could still chill by the beach during the day. The park is near playa and if i would contemplate renting a car at all it would be to go to xplore so that you can stay for as long as you want and not be tied down to the buses (they picked us up at 3:30 and dropped us off at 12:30) It's also near the restaurant in Playa so that  might be a nice combo if you have a car.
The night xplore was lit up all along with torches and you even zip line thru a ring of fire so it was very cool and prob worth doing at night. They charge 79$ (76$ if you put on cc and pay in pesos) for a hard drive of all the pictures. As there are a lot of activities and its hard to take the pics they get we spent the money and got a nice set of pics.

All in all Cancun is an awesome place to go and worth while no matter your style of trip.

wow amazingly helpful!

one question was there minyanim? what about on shaboss is it walkable from the westin?

[Yaalili]

Do you realize what you just did ?

[Yehoshua]

Just got back from cancun...

Great TR! Now you need to post pix.

[wonderlust]

wow amazingly helpful!

one question was there minyanim? what about on shabos is it walkable from the westin?

The restaurant has minyanim depending on whos there that week. they told me their policy  is never to commit as its not in their hands. When I was there it sounded like there was about 15/20 ppl they were delivering to on the strip. The Westin is prob 45 min walk. google maps is very helpful for distances on the strip

[wonderlust]

Great TR! Now you need to post pix.

Glad you found it helpful. Pics are a royal pain to post here as it only allows 4 per post and it keeps telling me my file is too large..

[Yaalili]

Glad you found it helpful. Pics are a royal pain to post here as it only allows 4 per post and it keeps telling me my file is too large..

Try this way - http://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=46084.0.

[wonderlust]

Thanks for the report, pics?

will try to upload, but having issues

[Yehoshua]

Try this way - http://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=46084.0.

I was looking for that thread...