06-15-2006
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#1 (permalink) |
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sandflea
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Needville, Texas
Posts: 4
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Hello
What a great site! Tons of info.
 The wife and I and several other groups are coming to visit. However, after reading the reviews, etc. I am more confused, which is easy for me to do. We are looking for a good hotel with great beaches, sand volleyball, and outside bar with Good friendly people cause thats what we are. This is one of those get away and relax long 5 day weekends. We are worried that if we go all inclusive, then we will miss the "real" folks and happening. Any suggestions? Also, what is the best transportation from airport and is it easier to deal in usd or pesos?Harley Guy  |
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06-15-2006
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#2 (permalink) |
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aņejo
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: In my own little world most of the time LOL
Posts: 1,931
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Wow, that's a lot of questions for a short paragraph.
If I may, here would be a few of my recommendations: 1) As you state: "What a great site! Tons of info." You will find the Search tool of the forum extremely useful as many people have responded to questions such as yours. Just try the searches a couple of times using key words or phrases and you will find a smorgasbord of great info. 2) Beach Hotels...the beach in Playa is wonderful North to South so you will be happy with any choice. Also since the beaches are public, you can roam up and down all day, or find a chair/umbrella/palapa at your resort and just 'veg' all day. 3) You will find "Real" people all over. The locals working in the resorts are every bit as hospitable as those you find on the streets of Playa. The people of Playa are wonderful and we had no negative experience with any hotel staff, outside restaurant staff, or locals. The only ones that you have to take with a grain of salt are the vendors on Fifth who try to seduce or badger you into viewing the goods in their shop. It is almost like a little game, and a simple "No, Gracias" keeps you moving on to your next stop. If you do go AI, I strongly suggest at least going out once to see 5th Avenue (La Quinta) 4) Beach Volleyball...I only saw the really large resorts had established nets/courts set up. 5) AI vs Non-AI....don't worry about "Real" people. What you may be missing is "Real" authentic food. You can get some fabulous food at fabulous prices (well below resort prices) that make your AI food appear as if you were eating a piece of white bread. We went semi-AI (breakfast/dinner included, no drinks or lunch). We made sure to get off the resort for all lunches and a couple of dinners. Boy were we glad we did. So much variety is within walking distance too and they best dishes may literally be right next door to where you are staying. There is a food thread called Changarros y mas that you can access via the Forum Jump option above. It is well worth it. 6) Pesos / Cash - you will find many threads about this, I think there was even another new one today. Basically, most eating places down there take currency only (no credit). Most will accept USD but you may get an unfavorable rate when your change is returned (incorrect change). If possible, try to use Pesos...they bargain better, spend easily, and is a small way of saying "I respect the country I am visiting and will use your currency" (I'm not saying that Dollars are not easily accepted). It is just really easy to acquire/convert dollars to pesos at hotels, cambios, ATMs, etc and depending on where you go, change may not be an easy thing to get. 7) Two more suggestions: a) Airport transfer - Do a search for "ADO Bus Schedule" or something along those lines and you should get a good, reliable, and cheap method of transport, or consider using the Trip Planning tab at the top of the page and arrange a private transport from the Playa.info crew who run/maintain this wonderful site. b) If you find a hotel, before you book your reservation check with playa.info on the Trip Planning and look at their "preferred hotels". They can help you book with no additional fee and they will give you something called the Playa Deal Card for FREE which gives you great discounts at many of the notable places (shops, tours, drinking establishments, restaurants, etc) in the Playa area.
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-------------------------------------------------------  -------Shangri-La Caribe 2006------ "The Whole Secret to Life is.....Not Dying". -- George Carlin Last edited by Dallas91 : 06-16-2006 at 08:07 AM. |
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06-15-2006
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#4 (permalink) |
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aņejo
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: In my own little world most of the time LOL
Posts: 1,931
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Wow, just when I thought I had rambled on long enough, another thing I want to mention that we found EXTREMELY useful in getting out of our resort and touring around is a Map Chick Map of Playa Del Carmen. Like the American Express card used to say....Don't leave home without it. There are so many shops on top of one another that it is easy to miss them. This map helped us find the places we had heard so much about. They are cheap and very useful.
http://www.mapchick.com/ |
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06-15-2006
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#6 (permalink) |
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aņejo
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Dallas,TX
Posts: 5,611
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Wow Dallas...I nominate you the official 'greeter' for Playa info!
 All I can add is WELCOME to the forum Harley Guy!  Like D91 said ,you'll have a great time wherever you stay. If you do AI this time go non the next or vice versa and see what fits you best. I do like his food analogy tho...can't beat the great food in the area! Make sure you get out and enjoy some of it. |
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06-15-2006
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#7 (permalink) | |
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aņejo
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Dallas,TX
Posts: 5,611
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Quote:
I'd post you a link but I still haven't figured out how to do that  |
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