Spring Break Cancun 2007

The highlight of Cancun versus other Mexican tourist destinations on the Pacific and Baja Peninsula is undoubtedly the very warm and very blue gulf waters. The beach and ocean are incredible and the waves are perfect for body surfing and fun to swim in. Cancun is considerable warmer than other Mexican destinations as well most times of year.

Quick Tips:

Because almost everything is all-inclusive, hotels in Cancun can be expensive without being good quality. They justify the price based on the inclusivity but you don't really know what you're getting until you get there. The pictures of my hotel, Oasis Cancun, looked great and the pool area was expansive but the food and service were horrendous. Definately read reviews about any hotels you are considering before booking. Your classic luxury chains such as the Ritz and Le Meridien are safe bets of course and I hear that the Marriott in Cancun is top notch but look into anything middle of the road before you commit.

Unlike Cabo where essentially everyone is from Southern California, Arizona, Vegas and Colorado the crowd in Cancun is much more international. Lots of people from the east coast, midwest and Canada as well as a sizeable crowd from Europe and South America. If the more international scene is what you like you will love the crowd here. If you like your familiar bubble and are from LA of Socal and are a fan of the Southern California laidback mentality you will probably not be a fan. We were there on spring break and it seemed that everyone except us was from New Jersey and Long Island and there was a pretty noticable personality and attitude difference. Cancun was beautiful but I feel much more comforable in Cabo as did a lot of the people I was with. Just personal preference.

Everything in Cancun is also all-inclusive which we were not used to. It sounds like a good idea except essentially translates into worse food and watered down drinks with little choice at an inflated price. None of us liked having to blindly committing to a club every night that we had never been to. Once you choose one you are stuck there for the night even if you hate it unless you want to go pay somewhere else.

An important thing to note about Cancun is that the weather forecast can be deceiving. We got really upset right before we left because the weather called for thunderstorms and thundershowers every day we were there. We never saw a cloud in 6 days until the last day when we were going to the airport. It was sunny that day until about 2:30 and they started pouring but by the time our plane took off it was sunny again. It also poured one night when we were downtown but it had been sunny all day and was sunny the next day and even then it only lasted like an hour. Point being that Cancun often gets brief squall like thunderstorms like they do in Hawaii and the weather forecast is required to call for thunderstorms even if there is a remote possibility that one is to occur so don't let the weather forecast worry you unless it is calling for rain every hour of the day.

Best Way To Get Around:

Nearly all of the hotels in Cancun are in the hotel-zone (Zona Hotelera) which runs along Kukulcan Blvd with the hotels and Gulf on the east side and the lagoon directly on the west. There are very cheap shuttles that stop along Kukulcan on the way to downtown. The closer you are to downtown, the shorter your shuttle ride will be so you may want to check on a hotel zone map (which you can easily find on the internet) where your hotel is located along the zone as this could determine the difference between a 20 vs. 40 trip every time you want to go into town. You may also want to check how far your hotel is from a stop along the Blvd, our hotel driveway happened to have a stop right at the entrance which was very convenient. The shuttle is very cheap, I think each way. The only downside is that it can get really hot, even at night. Taxis are also readily available and not very expensive. We took taxis home from the clubs a few nights and I don't think that it was more then or .

This is without question the worst hotel experience of my life. The hotel is not luxury but is by no means cheap. For $150-$200 a night plus additional fees per person you'd expect something decent. I've been meaning to write a scathing review of this place for the last year now...

I knew I was in trouble after reading dozens of negative reviews on tripadvisor before we left but we had friends who had already booked at the hotel and didn't really have much choice if we all wanted to be in the same place. The one thing this hotel does have going for it is an expansive pool area. This made up for a lot of the negative aspects as the pool and beach were our primary concerns for a vacation in the sun. The one bad thing with the pool though is that by the end of the day there is so much trash floating around in it that it gets kind of disgusting. Aside from the pool however....

Check in was the first real sign of what was to come. Usually when you check in for a relaxing Mexican vacation you are ushered in to a luxurious (or at least pleasant) lobby with attentive and courteous staff. The lobby at this place consisted of a ballroom filled with plastic folding tables and chairs. We were treated like they were doing us a favor. We had to write our name on a list and sit in the plastic chairs for 40 minutes and wait for our name to be called like we were at a deli counter. Everything was completely disorganized and we had to slip the guy $40 to give us two rooms nearby in the same building instead of splitting our group into 2 rooms on completely opposite sides of the property which would have been extremely inconvenient as the place is at least 1/2 mile long from one end to the other. This is also completely disregarding the fact that I had called a month, the week, and the day before we left requesting adjacent rooms. We came to consider ourselves lucky though as when our other friends checked in the next afternoon they had completely lost all record of their reservation and almost refused them entry(despite the fact that they had a printout WITH their confirmation number on it) After literally 3 hours of arguing and wasting most of their first beach day they finally gave them a room, WITH ONE BED FOR FOUR PEOPLE!!! And no offer of a discount.

The food at this place is absolutely horrendous. All-inclusive essentially means you get garbage and have no other option. You can't even pay money to eat additional times at the nicer restaurants on the property (which you are allowed to eat at ONCE during your stay) I would like to clarify that "nicer restaurants" doesn't necessarily mean better food or service. Two of my buddies and I ate at the "nicer" restaurant for our one meal. First of all to eat here involves waiting in a nearly hour long line. Second of all the food was still terrible. I didn't touch mine and my friend almost ran out the front door to throw up after putting a supposed chicken wing in his mouth that still had some disgusting gaggle of fat/(we don't even know what it was) on it. The waiter also tried to sell us cocaine. And you only get one piece of bread, they will not give you any more. I was refused twice even though I didn't want my meal. For every other meal you are free to enjoy the foul buffet, the food at the sports bar (hamburgers, hot dogs and soggy french fries) or the poolside delicacies during the day (again hot dogs, soggy frnech fries and chicken nuggets) The one plus about the buffet is that they have a Corona tap :) I spent five nights and six days at this place and survived on french fries, hamburger buns, pickle chips and ketchup. With the exception of two dinners out downtown this was all I ate on my whole vacation. The meat was questionable at best. The one other place you are allowed to eat during the day is the "sushi bar" where you wait in a 30 to 40 minute line. Once you get seated you get to order a roll. The place is all you can eat which sounds great. Except that after each roll you have to stand up and get back in the end of the line if you want another. Useless and stupid. The waitresses at the sushi bar were also the rudest in the place

Because the booze at this place is all inclusive there is probably about 1/2 ounce of well alcohol in each cocktail. I would highly recommend sticking to beer for the most part or you are going to feel awful from all the drink mix and syrup trying to get drunk off the nearly alcohol free cocktails. Drinks are not that hard to get though and there are quite a lot of bars scattered throughout the pool area (I can think of at least 5 both on land and in the actual pool) Tip the bartender 5 bucks and they'll serve you right away and give you as many drinks as you want. For $5 they will literally give you 5 or 6 drinks so just have all your friends each buy a round and no one will ever have to wait.

The rooms at this place are okay. The beds are comfortable and our room was clean and free of water despite the fact that a lot of reviews said the hotel was very leaky. The bathrooms were so-so. The biggest issue was that the shower didn't drain properly so every time you took a shower the basin would progressively fill with soapy water. By the end you were usually standing if four or five inches of dirty bathwater. PERHAPS THE MOST ANNOYING THING OF THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE AT THIS HOTEL: They have the audacity to shut off your water about an hour before you check out to discourage people from checking out late. I have never in all my travels heard of a hotel doing this regardless of its class. This was absolutely ridiculous and infuriating. I came back from the beach all sandy and covered in sunscreen intending to take a shower before going to the airport only the find my water dribble to a halt when I turned on the shower. The toilet stops flushing too. You just get the one last flush with whatever water is already in the bowl. I thought maybe our room just malfunctioned but they did the same thing to our friends room a few hours later. Completely absurd.

To end on a good note this "hotel" does have a few good things going for it. There were a ton of young people there during spring break which made for a very fun atmosphere. The bars in the lobbies get really crowded before everyone goes out to the clubs and it is a good place to meet people before going out. The shuttle ($.50 or $1 I can't remember) passes right by the front driveway on Kukulcan and takes you to downtown in less than 20 minutes. There is a liquor store almost directly across the street from the main driveway. We went here and bought a couple of bottles to keep in the room in order to balance out the watered down drinks served by the hotel. The best thing about this place, although not exclusive to the hotel, is the beach. The beach in Cancun is beautiful. The water is warm and really fun to go swimming/body surfing in. There are also lots of beach activities right in front of the hotel and you can go parasailing or jetskiing etc. The hotel also has a tourist information booth in the middle of the pool area where you can sign up for excursions and day trips for additional fees. The guys who worked here were very helpful and friendly which was a nice surprise.

Bottom line, avoid this place at all costs unless you have limited travel experience and don't know to expect any better. If you have traveled before and are accustomed to a certain level of service, cleanliness and luxury this is not the place for you and you will likely end up spending a sizeable portion of your trip hungry and irritated.

We ended up going to Pat O'Briens one night after having dinner at the adjacent Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville restaurant. This place was a lot of fun.

Like pretty much everywhere else in Cancun, this club is all-inclusive, meaning that you pay $30 or $40 at the door and all the drinks are made with lousy alcohol. Also like every club in Cancun, there is a huge line of people outside waiting to get herded like cattle through the doors. There will be a bunch of people that either work there or pay people off at the door that will bring you right in without waiting in line for an extra $10 or $20 per person. It is definately worth it to do this unless you are on an extremely tight budget. They will part the tides for you. We paid $40 or $50 to get in, I don't remember exactly how much but this price is typical of anywhere you go in Cancun which is why I found this city so annoying.

Once inside however, we all had a lot of fun. The place is huge with a large indoor area and a huge area outside that is probably 300 feet long and fronts the lagoon. Keep in mind that the "lagoon" is not the same body of water as the Gulf of Mexico. It is a stagnant body of dirty brown water that is full of algae. (**NOTE - This is especially important to remember if you go to Senor Frog's and ride the waterslide that sends you plunging from the bar into the lagoon. Lots of people don't realize that they aren't sliding into the clear blue gulf waters until after they've climbed out)Despite it being dirty it is still a nice setting with the lights of Cancun across the water.

The whole place has a Mardi Gras these given that the original branch of the bar is in New Orleans. Everyone is wearing beads and they have dance contests going on all over the club on different stages with multiple dance areas. There are plenty of bars scattered throughout the club and it is not hard to get a drink with a decent tip prominently displayed even when the place is packed. There are also waitresses walking around trying to sell you jello shots or beer bongs.
Drinks are not expensive and the place feels much more like a bar you would find in Cabo then some of the large discos in downtown Cancun. The all inclusive factor is the same but they don't have all the theatricals here that you will find at places like Coco Bongo, The City or Dady Rock which I like. It is just one huge party. It is also nice being in an open air environment as the masses of people can make the indoor clubs quite schweaty...

Corona Bar is located right in front of "The City" nightclub. You can't miss it. I absolutely loved this place because in a city of all-inclusive everything everywhere you go this place was just a normal Mexican tourist bar. You could go right in without waiting in any line, find a table to post up at with your friends and start ordering drinks.

Coronas were only a couple of dollars each and getting drinks never took more then a minute. A tip goes a long way in Cancun. There is a girl that walks around here with a belt carrying pitchers of Kamikaze shots (brightly colored vodka/sweet and sour) that she sells for a couple of dollars. She is an employee of the bar and she goes through a little routine pouring the shots and shaking your head and so on. We made friends with her throughout the course of the evening and it never hurts to be friendly with the employees of the place you're drinking at.

This place has good music and you can carve out a little area to dance in pretty much whereever you want. There are always girls dancing on the bar which usually provides some extra entertainment. They even let some girls behind the bar from time to time to do some impromptu bartending even though I'm sure they're not supposed to.

This place was a much needed refreshing change from the overcrowded and overpriced discos where you essentially just lose all your friends in 10 minutes and spend half the night trying to find anybody/everybody. It was great to spend a night in Cancun drinking with your buddy's in a place where you could hear eachother and talk to girls without having to scream.

This would also be a great place to go before a disco if you really have your heart set on hitting up one of the major clubs every night. Maybe stop by here from 9-11 and then be on your way. All of the major clubs are literally within a block of this place so you are right in the heart of the action. It would probably be worth it to go pay your entry and get your wristband to one of the discos and then come back here and drink so you don't have to wait in line later.

Bottom line: Great place to go for VERY reasonably priced coronas and tequila shots.

This place will either drive you crazy or be exactly what you were looking for. It is a nightclub/rap concert/Las Vegas burlesque show/magic show/Cirque du Soleil knockoff. Every single person I went here with was just kind of confused by what this place was trying to do....I'll explain in further detail in a minute.

First of all this place is relatively expensive. As I explained in the Pat O'Briens review you will have people trying to solicit you to go to the club from the second you get off the shuttle that will bring you downtown from your hotel. For an extra $10 or $20 they will take you right past the line and to the cashier...and the line at The City will be LONG during peak times so this will definately be worth. The place is all-inclusive (as usual in Cancun) which is really annoying because you are essentially just getting ripped off but have no other options. The drinks are all made with piss alcohol and barely contain any booze and there is no option to really buy anything better. This place is also a huge hassle to get a drink at. They bill themselves as being the largest nightclub in Latin America and absolutely don't have the bar capacity to effetively handle thousands of people. My advice would be to find the most remote bar possible (on the second floor in the corner), tip very well the first time and then get taken care of for the rest of the night. Including paying the guy to skip the line I think we each paid $55 to get into this place. I then tipped the guy at the corner bar $20 to take care of me after waiting 20 minutes to get a drink at one of the other bars. Keep in mind that with everywhere being all-inclusive spending 5 nights in Cancun can easily equate to $250 toward club entry fees.

As far as the atmosphere of this club goes...the whole bottom floor is essentially for dancing with many platforms and stadium style features to dance on. There is a huge stage in the front for performances. Girls are allowed on stage to dance if they are attractive enough. Not to be blunt but I would watch them admit/reject girls waiting in line based solely on how attractive they were. There are three floors to the place although the top two floors just run the periphery of the club and look down on the dance floor below.

What was weird was the theatrics of this place. They stop the music like every 10 minutes for a live show which we all found really weird. Most people want to dance and it was annoying to keep getting interrupted so acrobats or magicians or contortionists or firebreathers could take center stage over the dance floor and put on a little show. ??? Kind of bizarre but hey, maybe that's what most people are looking for and we were the minority. If this kind of thing floats your boat you're in for a great time. We just wanted the dancing to stop getting interrupted constantly.

In the middle of the night they had a 10 or so minute performance by some C-grade rapper. I know I'd heard of him and that he had one big song that was getting a lot of radio time in the states at the time but a year later and I couldn't tell you who the heck it was for the life of me so definately not a big enough name to warrant remembering. Cancun is really big on the celebrity guest appearances at the clubs. They all advertise how "so and so" will be making an appearance at "such and such" club ALL SPRING BREAK!! this usually consists of the person appearing on stage for five minutes before being ushered out the back door so don't get too excited. Again....personally I'd rather keep dancing than having the whole vibe of the place interrupted.

I belive at this place you can buy tables for the evening that surround the periphery of the dance floor. I don't know why on earth anyone would waste money on this as they have virtually no control on people entering the area and the table area is so crowded that I would never leave anything there unattended let alone want to sit down when there were people towering over me and lumbering by in all directions.

Overall we had a lot of fun at this place but it was just a little too much of a scene. If you are looking for the typical huge Cancun disco and willing to look past the lousy drinks this place is pretty fun. I had a good time but would be inclined to go somewhere else. It's a huge party but we just weren't into the theatrics.

We went to Dady O's the first night we were in Cancun essentially because someone offered us a no waiting in line deal and ushered us straight there as soon as we got off of our shuttle. Being our first night we didn't realize had we said no that within the next hundred feet some guy from every club in the area would have tried to do the same thing to get our business. Naive Americans, what can I say.

Anyway I think the deal was something like $40 all you can drink and no waiting in line which actually wasn't a bad deal. Be advised that if you go to Dady Rock for dinner, the sister business in the adjacent building you can get into Dady O for free after without any wait in line.

I actually had a lot of fun at Dady O. It was a good kind of crowded. You could move but there were a ton of people and the booth areas surrounding the dance floor were somewhat sheltered so you could hold a conversation by the bar or at a table without screaming. The upstairs bar is probably the easiest place to get a drink. Just hold out a tip that is more then a dollar and you are usually golden.

They have a stage that had a quick performance or two throughout the evening but nothing like the constant dancing interruptions at The City Nightclub (see other review) As mentioned in The City review as well Cancun's fascination with celebrity guests was present here as well...with Steve-O from Jackass taking the stage for 5 minutes of antics to welcome us all to Spring Break 2007 at Dady O. It was funny but considering that all he did was come on stage, hurt himself, cut his tongue open and then leave I probably could have done without it.

Overall this place was a lot of fun. It was much more like a club that would expect to find in the states and less of a production. It was a good place to dance without trying to be over the top like The City or Coco Bongo. It was reasonably priced to get into and drinks were relatively easy to get and contained useful amounts of alcohol unlike some of the other establishments we visited later in the week. I'd recommend going here, especially if you go to Dady Rock first and avoid the line/fee.