The zow Family's First Cancun Vacation Trip Report, 2/2016
Part 1 - Introduction and Planning.
First, I want to say thank you to everyone here who provided advice, either directly or via TR here, with special HT to shiframeir, Dan and DG613, Chapshnell, JayR, Mordyk, among others. I hope this report is as useful to others as theirs were to me.
We had been looking forward to this trip for a long time, made especially appealing by the weather at home the day before our departure:
Overview:
The five of us (zow, DW, DS, DD1, DD2) spent six nights in Cancun during the children's February 2016 school vacation. Trip was a mix of sightseeing, pool/beach, fitness and dining indulgence. We rented a car, which was useful for airport transfers, a Costco run, shlepping from Aloft to Lagunamar, and tiyyul to Chichen Itza; otherwise the R1 and R2 busses running up and down the strip were frequent, cheap and convenient.
Trip Planning:
As JetBlue is the only carrier to fly nonstop BOS-CUN, and I wouldn't expect any reasonably priced fares on the peak travel dates we wanted to travel, we would definitely need connecting flights. DW still has a CP on WN (Southwest), and we had a few hundred dollars in travel credit from Pesach weather-related delay, so traveling WN made the most sense. We stayed the first night at Aloft to save points and, IIRC, because our arrival date (but thankfully only that date) was sold out at the Westin Lagunamar, way back in March.
Flights:
Monday, 2/15: BOS-BWI-CUN
Sunday, 2/21: CUN-BWI-BOS
Reserved by phone with WN on June 30 (first day reservations opened for these dates).
Total about 36,000 WN +$80 taxes RT.
(One person was paid via WN flight credit and one person was on CP).
Many points were direct transfer from UR, which is instantaneous (impressive to the WN PR, who said, "where did those come from?"
A few months after reserving the seats, WN called and emailed to advise of a schedule change, making our departure from CUN three hours earlier (shortening our vacation
) and leaving us with a five-hour layover in BWI. I contacted WN but they appeared to have no availability on an earlier connecting flight and the PR, although sympathetic, was unable to award compensation, but recommended that I call customer relations. I did that, and they gave me $75 per person (for four of us, not for the CP) for our inconvenience. A few days later, when I was looking carefully at all the itineraries, I realized that they had put three of us on the later connecting flight and two of us on the earlier one. This must have happened because we had three or four separate itineraries. So, I got to looking carefully at the BWI-BOS leg, and it turned out at that time there was availability remaining on the earlier of the two BWI-BOS flights. So, I called again, and this time they were able to put all 5 of us on the earlier connecting flight. This resulted in a shorter layover (now just 2 hours), though it still meant we would not have the morning to hang out in the hotel as we had originally booked. Oh well, at least we got $300 compensation for that "hardship."
Hotel:
The whole point of this trip was to stay at the Westin Lagunamar (LM). When I first booked, way back in March, they didn't have availability on the first day we wanted to arrive in Cancun. I originally booked two rooms for that first night at the HIE. But a few months before our trip, I was checking our plans and kept having difficulty looking at reservation details. When I tried to find the HIE online, Google said it was closed. Sure enough, when I called they were closed. I was hoping that maybe I could get IHG to put us up in the IC instead. Alas, they put us in the HI at a very good rate of something like $90 per room for the one night. I hung onto that for a while until I realized that the Aloft, at 4,000 SPG per room per night was a better value. So, the plan was to stay in Aloft for the first night just to get our bearings, use the next day to gather provisions and prepare for our check in at LM.
For the LM, we originally booked a studio villa at a rate of 12,000 SPG per night X 4 nights, plus the 5th night free. Several months later I called and upgraded to 1br villa. In retrospect, I do think that we could have gotten the comp upgrade when we arrived, but with 5 of us traveling, I didn't want to take the chance on being "stuck" in a studio.
Car rental:
I had about four or five different rentals reserved. Rental car pickup desks in the terminal were woefully understaffed. I was prepared to negotiate for best deal, as they are all walkable from the terminal. Ultimately went with Hertz, as I usually use them and figured my fake status ("gold plus"?) might help with upgrade. Got to the regular hertz office and they said, oh, you are Gold Plus or whatever, you need to go next door. Now, I'm thinking I'm going to walk into some lounge, with at least free water and soft chairs. But in fact , the "premier" office next door is more of a closet and less plush than the main office. Whatever. I actually paid to upgrade from sedan to suv. Got a brand new Jeep. A few minor scratches but otherwise pristine. Still, I took pix to be on safe side:
Total cost was $380, after the 5% discount for using debit card. I made the latter decision after returning and being told that car was fine, no damage or problems. Btw, no stops from police, though I was driving pretty carefully re speed.
Aiming for more installments in next week or two....
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