Leaving the Hotel
We woke up early Sunday morning – like 06:00 (6:00am) – showered, gathered our stuff back into our suitcases, and went down a little before 07:00 (7:00am) to meet the hotel shuttle to take us to the O’Hare Airport (ord). The Four Points Hotel has, if I remember correctly, a shuttle leaving every 20 minutes to the airport which is very convenient and reassuring.
The Flight to Cancun
The Island of Cozumel as seen from our plane
We flew about a 3.25 hour chartered flight via United Airlines for Funjet Vacations to Cancun. The flight was delayed about a half an hour due to the flight crew getting in late, if I remember correctly, but after that it took off without a hitch. There was one stewardess that was really, really rude, in general, and seemed to be genuinely annoyed at having to deal with passengers. Fortunately we only had to deal with her a little bit. The rest of the crew was pleasant.
The flight only served refreshments and had played a the Pixar movie ‘Ratatouille‘ which we originally saw in the theater. My wife’s headphone jack did not work without holding it, so she used mine. I did not concern myself overmuch with this situation as I’ve seen the movie before. I mostly enjoyed seeing my wife laugh and smile while enjoying the movie again.
First Day in Cancun
On our descent to the landing strip it was apparent that Cancun was still rebuilding from Hurricane Wilma. From up above we could from see it in the ruined buildings and construction that was going on.
Now, my wife had a bad feeling about the trip with our flight being delayed, leaving her pajama’s at the hotel in Chicago, not being able to find the theater, and the crazy Wisconsin winter weather for our drive down to Chicago. It seemed to be all written in the cards that this trip was doomed and she worried now even more as we would soon have to go through immigration/customs. The Bad Mojo ™ seemed to be flowing about us and our trip.
We went found our luggage and went through customs without any problems. Yea! and then found our way through the airport to our shuttle.
Creatures of the Time Share Sales Kind
Ok, I will get this out now. I really dislike the slick, polished, and silver-tongued sales people, especially those of the time share kind. Focused sales techniques hell bent on the sale regardless of the real need of the person involved. This makes me really, really cranky.
Our letter of welcome from Funjet said that their would be a bunch of time share people there in the airport and we avoided all but one who we promptly got information out of and the deftly left him in our dust.
Here is a quotable quote for you: Friends don’t let friends make decisions while under the influence (of a Sales Person).
Our First Day at the Hotel
Our hotel, the Oasis Palm Beach was about a half an hour from the airport and the shuttle took us there without a problem. We checked in and got our room. They gave us an appointment with the concierge/travel people to get some information later that night.
The view outside our hotel room.
Our room was on the 8th floor and was OK. It was simple and to the point. two beds (one of which we slept in and the other bore our clothes), TV, table, tile floors (and not carpet because of all of the sand), and a tiled bathroom. Our first annoyance was that the towels were stained just a little bit and there was a hair or two in the sink. =( We also later found out that noise travels really well. The view outside our window was nothing amazing. We got the cheapest deal we could so I should not be so cranky. More than serviceable, but nothing that stood out.
Resort Food
After getting settled in we decided to eat. This resort has like 7 places to eat. A small sushi stand, a small hamburger like stand (hamburgers, hotdogs, nachos), the International Buffet, which were open most of the day; and then they had a Thai, Mexican, Italian, and some other restaurant which all were open at night. We ate at the Buffet because the ‘restaurants require require reservations which usually fill up in the morning.
My first fear with a trip like this was that the food was going to be fancy and that my very selective taste in food would find the selection wonting. I expected fancy hotel restaurant foods that my wife would love. That is exactly what we found. My wife was basically in food heaven and I found a few things that I liked. My taste in food is simple and not fancy at all. No surprises there.
The Rest of the Night
Following eating and walking around a bit we went to see this concierge/travel person. We talked with her and she gave us some information and then she also made us an appointment for breakfast in another hotel. I assumed that this was a part of the Funjet package so I did not think anything was amiss. We made our reservation and then went about the rest of our day.
We spent some time checking out pool and the ocean. We swam a little and then towards night time we went to the Sports Bar where they were having a Movie Trivia Contest which started at 21:00 (9:00pm). If you get a question wrong you had to drink a shot of Tequila. They asked about pretty much all American movies. I was quite surprised with this. There was this one guy who was Mexican, I think, who was knew and a crazy amount about American movies. The MC said he question in both English and Spanish.
The Sports Bar had like 4 televisions that showed various sports channels. ESPN plus basketball, football, soccer, boxing and some UFC type stuff. This was open pretty much all day.
After the movie trivia we walked on the beach and then went to bed ready for a full day of sun, ocean, and fun.