We visited Club Med Cancun 8-18 September 2010. We enjoyed it a lot -- probably one of our top 10 holidays. We've been to several Club Meds and always approach them with the attitude that they are summer camp for adults. If you go with that attitude, you won't be disappointed.
- I'd been to this Club Med many years ago with two friends from San Francisco: Leslie Nipper, Hank Grundig. It’s where I learned to windsurf. We’d just moved to Tulsa and I left Deborah and Danielle home to take off on that holiday. My flight back to Tulsa via Dallas was cancelled. The airport, at that time, had no amenities – including pay phones in the departure area – so I couldn’t even call home. I finally got to call them when I eventually reached Dallas some 12 hours late. They thought: (1) I’d been killed. (2) Was in jail. (3) Had decided to never come back. (Sounds like material for a good short story there.)
- The airport has changed a lot in 25 years. It’s beautiful, modern and has all kinds of shops and restaurants. Immigration and security process is as easy as it can be.
o The excellent service. This was a major plus and a pleasant surprise. GOs were friendly, accessible, knowledgeable, and anxious to make our stay a good one. Most spoke English, French, and Spanish. Calls to the front desk were picked up immediately. After about 3 days, many of the GOs knew us by name. Service in the bars and restaurants was fast and good.
- Was the service as good as Mauritius? Darn near, I’d say. There were so few guests, there should have been good service, and there was. I made particular friends with Fernanda, there on a college internship. L made friends with Kyle, the water sports GO. I think he took a shine to her as well. He’s from south of Houston and suggested we get together for sailing and fishing when he’s home. Oscar was the land sport GO and a Riki Martin look-alike. He organized volleyball, but we never played more than 1 on 2. I played the “one” and won more often than not.
- We had meals with several of the other GOs including “Mad Max” from the circus – Jamaica “yah, mon”. Others too, but now I can’t remember with whom.
- See below about the barracuda and croc. The frigate birds are fun to watch in the air. L got a couple good pictures. The iguanas were fun to see. They were all over, especially on the walk to the lunch restaurant. L fed them bananas and it was fun watching two of them arguing over it. L liked pelicans best. We watched them fishing near the bar. Walking back to the room a couple evenings L saw a stingray in the lagoon. Not too exciting, but she got a few pics.
- L won the weekly kayak race Women’s Division. She first raced one of the GOs, who let her win. She then raced a French woman. L did really well. She paddled out to the turning buoy while the Frenchie paddled way right. L made the turn first, then the French came on. She tried to paddle across in front of L. L comes right at her. French falls in the water. L wins. I’m VERY happy.
- They had salsa lessons morning and afternoon, but were only for beginners. A couple mornings we went over and practiced our moves. Their CD music constantly skipped and their equipment was crap. We tried to dance in the gym one afternoon using our PC for music. It didn’t work. PC speakers aren’t loud enough. Next time we’ll bring our travel speakers and use my iPod. We also danced to bands and recorded music in the bar and on the patio just for fun. We were clearly the best … well, OK, … the only salsa dancers at the club. L had to get a band-aid for a blister at the infirmary. When we walked in the nurse said, “Oh, it’s the salsa couple.”
- The club had one Hobie 16 catamaran, which is a real sailboat – sloop rigged, lots of lines to pull, goes like a bat even in light wind – and you can tip it over in a heartbeat.. We opted all but one day to take out the Hobie 12. It has just a mainsail and it’s pretty hard to get in trouble with it. We did take the 16 out on the last day in very light winds. It took me a while to make friends with it, but in light wind, it was really fun.
- Snorkeling was fun. The reef was in good shape. Lots of purple fan coral, big and lots of variety of fish. We didn’t see any eels.
- I swam perhaps 100m out to the swim area buoys each day. It was a good beach, with stones in the surf zone only. Even on the days when the beaches further down were red flagged because of waves, you could swim on our beach.
- I water skied one day. I told the guy I’d never done it before so I could get the beginner’s instructions. I got up on the first try. I made it through a turn just after getting up, made a turn at the far end of the lagoon, came back past the dock, made another turn, got outside the wake and back in, made one more turn and dropped off at the dock. I was TIRED and it didn’t last more than about 4 minutes. Fun. Next time I may try to do it more.
- I windsurfed almost everyday even though there was very little wind. I used the harness one day, but the lines were too short to be comfortable, so I pretty much gave up on that. I didn’t really need it anyway. I used a fun board and a 6.5 sq-m sail. I made a few gybes and tacks. It was fine, if not real windsurfing. I should also say that the sailing area is set up in the wind shadow of the land so even on days when it was quite windy on the beach, there was no wind (or waves) at the sailing area.
- No one wanted to play volleyball. We played three times total, I think. Disappointing. I played 1-on-1 with one of the GOs and beat him – 3-hit-must rule in effect. The other couple times we played 1-on-2 with me as the one. I only lost one game.
- L complained about ants in the bathroom, but they didn’t cause much trouble. We had to run the A/C on full cold to keep the room comfortable. It was all OK. Don’t go to Club Med for the accommodations.
- The tile floors were slick as heck when wet. To compensate, they had people mopping the floor of the bar all day everyday. This got the sand and the water out. Nicely done. Our guest room was very clean, I thought. They serviced the minibar everyday.
- The first show was outdoors on the patio and that was fun. The second week it moved indoors which was OK, but not as fun … and hotter. I thought this circus show was better than a similar show we saw in Florida. At both shows one of the guests performed. Pretty impressive for them to do that.
o No smoke alarm in our room. That concerned me since some of the building is of wood construction, including the path to the single stairway exit. Most of the building was of concrete, however.
- Guess where the people next door were from.
o Celebration of Mexico's 200th year of independence was great fun ... for us and for the GOs.
- If I can ever find the pictures from my first trip to Cancun, I can prove there was a big croc in the lagoon then too. I’ve hunted high and low, but can’t find the pics. I’ll keep looking, I know they’re here.
- The barracuda was cool. We went snorkeling one day and I dove down next to a coral head. I saw this black eye staring at me. I figured it was a big grouper or something. I dove back down and realize I’m looking at a barracuda with a head that seems as big across as my two hands held together … and four white teeth sticking out. Wow. I got L and after several minutes I finally got her to see it too. We spent maybe 10 minutes with it. On the last dive down I see that he’s now facing me head on instead of in profile as he has been. I feel like a target. We swim out of there at that point. We talk with the lady at the snorkel shack, coincidentally nicknamed barracudita (little barracuda), who tells us that when the water is high behind the reef they see lots of big barracuda – some up to 2 meters long. That’s 6.5’. I couldn’t really see all of our barracuda, but I’d guess he was at least 4’ and maybe 5’ – a big fish. Memo to self: next time remember to bring the underwater camera, you dummy.
