One Night in Cancun
March 18, 2022 9:54 AM Subscribe
Where in Cancun would be best for a one night stay, assuming our plane will land in the early evening and we'll be heading to a ferry to Holbox in the morning?
One of our party is on crutches and has limited mobility at the moment, so a nice manageable hotel with an elevator and a good restaurant within a block or so would be ideal. By good restaurant it can be anything from a great place to grab tacos to bring back to our room or a nice sit down meal up to $$$ or so (though I tend to think we'll be more up for the former than the latter after a day of travel). Since we'll be arriving in the evening and leaving in the AM, amenities like a pool aren't really important, but it would be a plus to have nice balcony/view from the room. My understanding is that Cancun is the land of the huge resorts, and we'd like to avoid those if possible (though if there's a reason we should consider them that would be good to know as well). Specific hotel recommendations would be fabulous, but neighborhood tips (to look at, to avoid) would also be great as we've never spent any time in Cancun. No real price limitations generally, other than it seems silly to spend a ton of money on a room we'll just be in overnight. Thank you MeFites!
One of our party is on crutches and has limited mobility at the moment, so a nice manageable hotel with an elevator and a good restaurant within a block or so would be ideal. By good restaurant it can be anything from a great place to grab tacos to bring back to our room or a nice sit down meal up to $$$ or so (though I tend to think we'll be more up for the former than the latter after a day of travel). Since we'll be arriving in the evening and leaving in the AM, amenities like a pool aren't really important, but it would be a plus to have nice balcony/view from the room. My understanding is that Cancun is the land of the huge resorts, and we'd like to avoid those if possible (though if there's a reason we should consider them that would be good to know as well). Specific hotel recommendations would be fabulous, but neighborhood tips (to look at, to avoid) would also be great as we've never spent any time in Cancun. No real price limitations generally, other than it seems silly to spend a ton of money on a room we'll just be in overnight. Thank you MeFites!
Response by poster: I won’t threadsit but that’s SUPER helpful info Lyn Never. Totally open to skipping Cancun altogether if that makes sense.
posted by wuzandfuzz at 10:50 AM on March 18, 2022
posted by wuzandfuzz at 10:50 AM on March 18, 2022
Best answer: It depends on your preferences. It is very, very easy to get between CUN and the Cancun hotel zone, so I can also see heading to an easy high-rise hotel there for a night to get settled in. One advantage is that you can have a frozen margarita (hotel zone is the only completely safe water in the Yucatan) and take in a view that's not going to be available in low-rise Holbox. Looks like the Holbox ferry runs on the hour and takes only 15 minutes, so I wouldn't be sweating missing my trip on that unless you have a specific event you want to be at at a certain time. A plan might be to arrive at CUN, taxi to the hotel zone, take a dip in the ocean, check out, shuttle to Chiquila (half on the cuota [toll road], which tends to be pretty good), have lunch until the next convenient ferry, and then check in to your Holbox hotel. The whole Yucatan runs very much on a relaxed schedule, so why not enjoy it? There is nothing to see in the city of Cancun proper or around CUN itself, so I think hotel zone or Chiquila are your two choices. There are a ton of hotels in the zone, most of them are decent at catering to tourists, especially for just one night I would look around on an aggregator for any non-all-inclusive with good reviews and book directly with them. I know you said smaller but that's not really a thing in the Zona Hotelera, very much a chain, Senor Froggs atmosphere.
posted by wnissen at 11:35 AM on March 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by wnissen at 11:35 AM on March 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Seconding Lyn Never's advice. However, one thing to think about is that the situation at the Cancun airport has been really unpredictable lately in terms of wait times to get through passport control. I flew in on JetBlue a month ago and sailed through in 5 minutes. Two hours later in a different terminal, people were waiting up to four hours. You might want to enquire with your airline about getting assistance since you have a member of your party on crutches, but it also means that you might not get out of the airport for a few hours after your arrival. It's hard to predict.
posted by lunasol at 3:17 PM on March 18, 2022
posted by lunasol at 3:17 PM on March 18, 2022
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I would a million times rather do that than try to get from the airport to a CAN hotel, get fed, get a few hours' sleep, and then leave CAN early enough that you've got at least twice the stated drive time to get where you're going. You may not get to Chiquila until the wee hours if there's trouble, but at least in the morning you're going to roll out of bed and into a taxi down the street to the port.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:28 AM on March 18, 2022 [5 favorites]