March 21st, 2006
You are currently browsing the articles from All About Vacations written on March 21st, 2006.
by Rick Chapo
A sleepy island area in the 1970s, Cancun has been transformed into a mega tourist destination. Located on the Caribbean side of Mexico, this resort area has something for everyone.
Cancun
Make no mistake, Cancun is a very tourist friendly destination. Located on the Yucatan peninsula, Cancun is populated with mega resorts and over 20,000 hotel rooms. The economy is based on tourism and the people go out of their way to show tourists a good time.
Cancun proper is actually two distinct areas. Cancun City is located on the mainland and Cancun Island is just off the coast. The island is the stuff of legend.
Cancun Island the classic example of Caribbean beach paradise. Incredibly blue water laps slowly onto insanely white beaches. Light breezes roll in off the water as you lounge on a beach chair and contemplate important things like what you will eat for lunch.
One of the slight downsides of Cancun involves beachfront hotels. They tend to be a bit possessive about the sand in front of them. Put another way, you better be staying at the hotel if you intend to plop down in front of it. Hey, it cant all be great!
Getting To Cancun
As with any mega resort area, getting to Cancun is very easy. Most major airlines fly into Cancun City and the airport is very modern. You are required to have a passport and must fill out a tourist card at customs. The customs agents are easy going and Ive never heard of anyone having any problems with them.
If you want to experience a beach vacation in Mexico, you can do worse than Cancun. You will not get much feel for the local culture, but you will definitely enjoy yourself.
Rick Chapo is with http://www.nomadjournals.com - makers of travel journals. Writing journals are perfect travel accessories. Visit http://www.nomadjournaltrips.com to read more travel articles and travelogues.
Written by info on March 21st, 2006 with comments disabled.
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by Dave Markel
The hotel zone in Cancun host many fabulous hotels and resorts. You can get whatever you need at the resorts and local shops. Arrange for tour to the Mayan Ruins or go on a Sea Doo tour through the mangroves. There is something for everyone in the Cancun Hotel Zone. Below is a short review of 10 of the more popular resorts.
1. Oasis Cancun - A Little Piece of Paradise As the name implies, the Oasis Cancun Hotel and Resort is a literal oasis, located in the middle of the Cancun hotel zone. Surrounded by lush gardens on three sides, and a half mile of white beach on the fourth side, you wont even realize that you are in the middle of a busy tourist area. Your entire vacation could be spent exploring all the Oasis Cancun Hotel and Resort has to offer.
2. Riu Cancun - A Fantasy Hotel and Resort for A Fantasy Vacation Deemed as one of the most luxurious hotel resorts in Cancun, Riu Cancun offers guests everything they can imagine and more. Offering an all inclusive vacation package, the Riu Cancun has been given a rating of five stars. The resort is located in Corazone, which is Cancuns famous resort area. The main building is fourteen stories, with a five story annex building. It takes that much space to house everything the Riu Cancun has to offer guests.
3. Spend Your Next Vacation At The Palace - The Cancun Palace The Cancun Palace Resort, located near Cancuns entertainment area - which includes shopping and party centers - is situated on a white sand beach with mesmerizing turquoise water. The beautiful building, scenic surroundings, and superior staff will make you feel like royalty, living in a real palace. The Concierge and bell staff will handle all the small personal details for you, so you can relax and enjoy your vacation.
4. Moon Palace Cancun - Exclusive Paradise Offering seclusion, beauty, and elegance, the Moon Palace Cancun Golf and Spa Resort is considered to be one of the most luxurious and exclusive resorts in Cancun. The Moon Palace Cancun resort is located just south of Cancun, and is situated between the breathtaking white sand beach of the Caribbean Sea and 55 acres of tropical foliage. Combined, this scenery offers guests a virtual tropical paradise.
5. For A Unique Vacation, Visit The Avalon Grand Cancun Resort A Premiere four star resort, the Avalon Grand Cancun Resort has a uniqueness that isnt found anywhere else in Cancun. Starting with breakfast in bed each morning, your days at the Avalon Grand Cancun Resort will be filled with pampering, relaxation, and sheer enjoyment. The well trained staff ensures that your Caribbean vacation at the Avalon Grand Cancun Resort will be your most memorable vacation ever.
6. Royal Solaris Cancun- The Ultimate Resort Vacation Known as the largest all inclusive resort in Cancun, the Royal Solaris Cancun Resort features pyramid shaped buildings, which house 500 guest rooms, a theater, seven restaurants, and four bars. There are even two-bedroom villas available on the grounds.
7. The Crown Paradise Cancun Resort - Offering A Family Friendly Environment With Style and Elegance The Crown Paradise Cancun Resort is located on the magnificent white sandy beaches of the Caribbean, in the Cancun Hotel Zone. Ten minutes away from Cancuns largest shopping mall, and only fifteen minutes from the International Airport, the Crown Paradise Cancun Resort is the ideal spot for your family vacation.
8. Grand Oasis Cancun Hotel - Good Things Come In Small Packages With only 288 luxury guest rooms available, the Grand Oasis is often mistakenly thought of as one of the smaller hotels in Cancun. However, you are about to discover that this just isnt so. Once you see all that the hotel offers, the outstanding personal service, the facilities, and the contemporary Mexican landscaping and decor, you will see that this is one of the best places to stay in Cancun.
9. Sheraton Cancun Resort and Towers - The Vacation You Want, At a Price You Can Afford The Sheraton Cancun Resort and Towers offers guests an exotic Caribbean vacation on the beach in the Cancun Hotel Zone. This allows guests the luxury and seclusion of a resort, as well as easy access to local cultural events and sightseeing opportunities.
10. Experience Comfort and Elegance At The Hyatt Regency Cancun The Hyatt Regency Cancun Hotel is located in the Cancuns Hotel Zone, just fifty yards from the Caribbean Sea. If you wish to have close access to the Cancun nightlife, the Hyatt Regency Cancun Hotel is the best place to stay.
For more great information about Cancun Resorts and attractions visit The Cancun Resort Guide. http://cancun-resort-guide.com
Written by info on March 21st, 2006 with comments disabled.
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CANCUN, Mexico - The sugar-white sand beaches are back after being swept away by Hurricane Wilma five months ago. But there are no stages for wet T-shirt contests, and MTV won’t be hosting its spring break beach party.
Instead, the first wave of winter-weary college students who converged on Cancún found that construction workers nearly outnumbered revelers this week in Mexico’s spring break capital of beer and bikinis.
With nearly half its hotels still closed, Cancún has plunged down the list of destinations for spring breakers from the United States. The Caribbean resort fell from No. 2 last year to No. 8 this year for travelers booking trips through Cheap Tickets.com. Miami was the top destination.
FEWER VISITORS
Tourism officials say they expect about 25,000 visitors in Cancún this season, compared with 40,000 last year. Many spring breakers have moved farther south to the Maya Riviera or to Acapulco.
”Obviously it’s not going to be the same this year,” said Cancún tourism director Jesús Rossano.
Many of those who did make the trip found themselves sitting against a backdrop of lumber piles and cement blocks or next to pools lined with brown palms that appeared to have just gotten a buzz cut. Instead of blasting music, the sound of hammers pierced the air.
”It’s not near as nice as I expected,” said MacKenzie Horras, 22, an elementary education student at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa. “Some of the pools are dirty or don’t have water.”
But while some of the hotels were clearly out of business for some time to come, others were fully functioning beyond their damaged facades. The Oasis hotel, popular with spring breakers, showed few signs of being hit by a major hurricane.
The beaches in front of most of the reopened hotels have been restored by a private dredging company, but bare sections remain. And all agree that Mother Nature’s battering has slowed Mexico’s party resort.
Stephanie Streit, who was sunbathing with Horras on the beach, said her friends who had come the year before described a much wilder place.
”Out of control was the term I heard most used,” said Streit, 22, a psychology major at the University of Northern Iowa. “But it’s pretty tame.”
”I heard boobs and beads,” said her friend, Crystal Whitney, 21, referring to the wet T-shirt contests and beaded necklaces worn by revelers who flock to the all-you-can-drink discos. “But I haven’t seen much of that.”
The Mexican government hoped to use spring break as a way to show the world how the country’s prime resort had bounced back. President Vicente Fox’s government poured $19 million into rebuilding the beaches, hiring a Belgian company that dredged sand from the ocean floor and dumped tons of it over rocks and concrete exposed by the hurricane.
With winds reaching 150 mph, Wilma roared ashore Oct. 21, then stalled over Cancún for nearly 40 hours. It toppled trees, demolished homes and left much of the city of 700,000 under brown, foul-smelling flood waters.
Rebuilding began almost immediately and continues around the clock, especially in the hotel zone, a 15-mile spit of coast where glamorous resorts line the Caribbean on one side and posh shops and smaller lodges face a lagoon on the other.
Some of the most popular discotheques, like Dady’O and Coco Bongo, packed people in as in years past. But many bars — which once drew thousands with big-name rock bands and contests aimed at giving people reasons to get naked in public — were closed.
`IT’S SAFE, NORMAL’
Cheryl Scott, 45, said when she realized she was taking her 11-year-old son to Cancún during spring break, she feared it would be a disaster.
‘You hear the `woo-hoo’ and the ‘yee-ha’ and you know where they’re coming from,” said Scott, who lives outside Fort Worth, Texas. “But it’s not been an issue at all. It’s safe, normal and he hasn’t seen anything I wouldn’t want him to see.”
”I’m not an old fuddy duddy,” she added. “But this is my speed: My son is making sand castles and I’m drinking strawberry daiquiris.”
Many students also said Wilma did not ruin their vacations. ”Looking at the ocean all day is a lot better than staring at a cornfield,” said 22-year-old University of Nebraska at Lincoln student Ben Hansen.
Written by info on March 21st, 2006 with comments disabled.
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CANCUN, Mexico – Classical music wafts through the Zen-like lobby of Le Blanc Spa Resort, a luxurious hotel where guests are greeted with fresh fruit drinks and a scented, moist towel.It’s a far cry from what some may consider to be a typical Cancun hotel – teeming with the hollering, drunken U.S. college students who helped turn this Caribbean resort into Mexico’s No. 1 foreign-tourist destination.
As Cancun recovers from the devastation of Hurricane Wilma – a category-4 storm that roared ashore last October, causing an estimated US$1 billion (euro830 million) in damage – many hotel and resort owners are hoping to switch from booze cruises, deafening club music and wet T-shirt contests to a more mature environment for high-end tourists and families.
Le Blanc Spa Resort, which opened its doors in August, represents the more grown-up Cancun. Only blocks from the all-you-can-drink discos, the chic hotel is an oasis of serenity, featuring stepping stones across indoor waterways and glowing candles in onyx vases.
“All of the activities here are to promote rest and tranquility,” said hotel spokeswoman Alma Mondragon. “It’s not about partying.”
In addition to the soothing natural beverages and moist towels, each room comes with a menu of pillows to choose from, including lavender-scented, goose-feather, water-filled and hypoallergenic.
For the past few years, Cancun has attempted to tone down its wild party image and attract more families and business travelers – just as Fort Lauderdale, Florida, years ago broadened its tourist base beyond students.
A “civility pact” signed by Cancun travel agents, hotel operators and bar owners in 2002 prevents drunken patrons from entering restaurants and clubs and restricts student-oriented contests and advertising that promote drinking. More recently, some hotels have limited the number of spring breakers who can pack into a room and have added security to guard against damage or unruliness.
But the measures did little to tame the place – until Wilma hit.
Now many hotels are not only repairing the damage, but remodeling and rethinking their mission.
“In a lot of ways, we can thank God for the hurricane because a lot of hotels are investing in upgrading their facilities,” said Antonio Pitta, a Cancun resident and Latin America director for Orbitz.com and Cheaptickets.com.
“I think we have every opportunity now to shift from the party-type image that the destination has always had to a more upscale place with quite a bit of options,” Pitta said.
Last year, Cancun was the No. 2 destination for spring break travelers booking their trips through CheapTickets.com, second only to Miami.
This year, Cancun fell to eighth place, and thus far has staged a mellower spring break – without the plethora of get-naked-in-public contests. Only about 25,000 students are expected this year, compared with the approximately 40,000 who showed up in 2005. Nearly half of the city’s hotels remain closed.
MTV, which traditionally hosts spring shows in Cancun, decided this year to film celebrities in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco – the new spring break hotspot, according to a news release from the network.
While Cancun will continue to lure college students with its sugary beaches, tropical sun and legendary night clubs, the city’s tourism director, Jesus Rossano, said it will rebound from the hurricane damage as a world-class resort as well.
“Spring break is not bad, but we are also looking to attract other kinds of tourists,” he said.
Gordon Viberg, CEO of Grupo Presidente, which operates Cancun’s Presidente Intercontinental hotel, said the move toward a more upscale crowd is simply good business. The Presidente has installed a new oceanfront deck bar, five additional whirlpool spas and a rooftop tennis court, among other upgrades. It also added more than 15 feet (4.5 meters) of frontage to its beach.
“They’re a rambunctious crowd and that sometimes creates problems,” Viberg said of the spring breakers. “Your business cannot survive on the six-week period when the college kids come.”
Spring breakers account for less than 1 percent of the approximately 3.5 million visitors expected in Cancun this year, and generate US$12 million (euro9.85 million) of Cancun’s US$6 billion (euro5 billion) in yearly foreign tourist revenue, according to the Cancun Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Some warn, however, that Cancun should be careful not to turn its back on the young revelers who helped put the city on the map.
“Spring breakers are the future tourists,” said Edgar Paniagua, vice president of the Mexican Association of Travel Agencies. “When they grow up and have kids, they’ll want to come back.”
For Steve Twinam, 19, no place matches Cancun.
“All day, 24-7, you can carry a drink,” said the Northern Illinois University student. “You can drink in a taxi – that’s … awesome.”
Written by info on March 21st, 2006 with comments disabled.
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