if you're traveling to cancun you're probably wondering if you should stay on the beach and
if you should stay at one of those beachfront all-inclusive hotels i was wondering the same
exact thing but you want to know what else i was wondering why is it such a steal to stay off of
the beach and not at an all-inclusive in this week's video i'm sharing with you my experience
staying off of the beach here and that's at the aloft cancun i'm going to be giving you a room
tour a review the usual but i'm also going to give you some helpful travel tips as you're considering
where to stay in general in cancun whether you choose here or elsewhere and if you're new here
i'm christine with where in the world is CL and i make travel videos every week to help you get up
get out and go travel all right so i just checked into the aloft hotel in cancun and honest opinion
i was pretty underwhelmed but at the same time this room is with taxes i'm paying 80 a night
for this hotel which is pretty amazing value and it comes with this wristband which gets me free
drinks at the bar from 11 a.m to 11 p.m so that in itself kind of pays for it but i looked at the
year in which this hotel was built and it was kind of a while ago and so you can kind of tell if you
look at the details of the room that that's the case but i would say for value it's pretty awesome
one thing to note is that this is not on the beach it's across from the beach obviously not far
but they did upgrade me to a sea view room so thank you aloft there is a pool upstairs
but there's only a bar downstairs no pool on the roof i would say overall i'm pretty happy
seems fine i'm curious how my stay will be after a couple nights spoiler alert it was good but now
i'm checked in let's talk about some helpful tips for the area in case you're considering
this property or somewhere near it because some of these might help you out then we'll do a room
tour but make sure you check the description below i have tons of helpful show notes in there and i
wouldn't want you to miss a thing all right make me small the aloft hotel is located on the north
part of the hotel zone and to get our bearings really quick in this cancun area you have the
main cancun airport located towards the south and you have this main strip of the hotel zone
running north to south and it's around 8 miles or a 15 minute drive long from north to south the
aloft hotel is around a 25 minute ride from the airport and for me cost me 500 pesos or around 25
to get to the airport if you want more tips like that make sure you check out the
entire cancun playlist which has tons of info around what to pay and things of that nature
all right make it small again let's talk about my favorite thing about this hotel or if you're
just looking to stay in this area my favorite thing about this area which is the location
it was such an awesome spot for three reasons so going back to the map we have the aloft cancun and
when you zoom in the first thing i loved about the location was the proximity to the ultramar fairy
i was right across the street from the ultramar fairy which means when i did my day trip to elo
mujeres link in the description below if you want to see that video such a good time it was
just across the street the second thing i loved and for me cancun was a quick trip which for me
when it's a quick trip i don't want to spend my time in transit jumping in and out of cabs getting
from here to there i want it all right there and so the other thing that i loved was the nightlife
being a literal three-minute walk away and so just around the corner from the aloft and i'm talking
big format clubs not your hole in the wall local spots i'm talking i was at senor frogs
i was at coco bongo i was at places like that a lot of them but all of those are right
in this area and it's right next to the hotel which was super convenient when you
needed to stumble home at 3am and lastly you have the beach literally across the street although
that came with its own issues in case you want to know what it's like walking on the beach it's uh
you kind of like walk through different resorts and stuff and know it's an interesting experience
they don't want you to walk through the resorts when i don't know yeah they cut the beach off
which i don't know what to do because i just want to walk along the beach to the lighthouse
and the beach keeps stopping because i guess maybe it's high tide maybe the beach continues when it's
low tide i'm not sure but if you just want to go for a nice stroll they will stop you at each
resort and be like no you can't walk through here and it's like how am i supposed to get to
the other side i know i know all the beaches in mexico are free everyone in the comments section
of all of my tulum videos told me that but you know what it doesn't mean that the resorts are
gonna make you feel like it's free but your girl will not be told no so to the lighthouse it was
and pro tip the beach to hang out at in this area is playa delfina's every single local and all the
people on tripadvisor rate it as such so consider checking that one out so let's jump to a room tour
and a review and then let's talk about where i'm staying next in cancun because i'm already
planning my return trip but if you're getting some value out of this video cheers that like button
and consider subscribing tell me in the comments where you have stayed in cancun any tips you have
all right let's do the room tour the room was totally adequate i have no complaints especially
because of the price and it was fine like i mentioned this property is just it's not brand
new and you can tell and my girl stacy describes the way it smells as similar to an old hotel room
in south beach florida which is pretty accurate and outside the view was really nice and i loved
the location and you do have a fridge in the room which is nice to keep your waters and your wine
cold and all the regular things you would expect are in the closet hi and the shower drain didn't
really do its thing so it was pretty clogged but unlike tulum the toilet flushed every time i told
it to and it was a nice option to have the pool upstairs and again the things i loved about this
spot were its location its proximity to the bars and night life and get a drink with us
so that was really helpful and if you need any more tips around this make sure you check the link
in the description below and again i love that it was across the street from the ultramar fairy
and the beach i like to keep it real and to be honest i didn't choose this hotel my friend did
and i was just trying to book the same property that he was staying at and so would i stay there
again maybe if the price was as inexpensive as it is but i plan on doing cancun very differently
the next time i go back this is a really great budget friendly place and to be honest i'm very
rarely on a budget but i do love aloft hotels i've stayed at so many of them including arkansas
a lot i know that's random but let's take it outside and talk about how i'd redo cancun there
are a few ways i'm thinking about where to stay in cancun and the first one is that it's definitely
going to be an all-inclusive and all-inclusive on the beach i mean that's what you're supposed
to do in cancun the second thing is i think about the weather and so frequently i think
about trying to travel to places when the weather is the best but for me two things one cancun is a
jumping off point in my opinion in other words there's some cool things to do in cancun but
really the exploration in my mind comes from going and exploring places like ilo mujeres or exploring
playa del carmen or exploring tulum or exploring the ruins or exploring and biodelete or the list
is so long and it's not within cancun so if i were in cancun on the beach hotel zone i would
stay in all inclusive and it doesn't matter what's going on with the weather if i'm just going to be
in cancun on that trip because rain or shine i can enjoy it all inclusive the other thing i
think about is staying within the hotel zone but it doesn't matter where on the hotel zone it's
located and again that hotel zone is eight miles long 15 minutes from north to south but it's so
easy in cancun to get a taxi unlike places like oahu or tulum and so i wouldn't feel obligated to
stay right next to something i wanted to explore like the nightlife the next thing is i would be
looking for deals i see cancun as similar to traveling to vegas in which yeah you can do it
really luxurious and expensively but you can also find some phenomenal deals and make sure you check
the links in the description below for all of my show notes and tips around how i find some of
the travel deals that i score and tell me in the comments your favorite way to score deals don't
we all want to know the next way i think about it is i care so much about what other travelers have
to say so in the same way you're watching this and i want my opinion to be one of many opinions
that you're looking at to plan your travel i care about using aggregator sites like tripadvisor to
read others reviews and i have two pro tips for you the first one is that when i'm looking at
the hotels i'm sorting it by traveler ranked and then i'm removing anything that says sponsored
i basically care about what other people have to say and doing traveler ranked is one of my
favorite ways of doing that the second thing is i want the traveler photos i don't want to see
the beautifully shot edited hotel photos i've made and sold some of those before to hotels they are
sometimes accurate but i want the photo like like the photos my mom takes where it's like dark and
the windows are not open and her finger is kind of in the frame i want those photos that give me
the real deal around what this hotel is like so i love to look at traveler photos within tripadvisor
we all want to be smart travelers right tell me any of your tips in the comments below i want
to know okay let's talk about which hotels i would actually pick the first one is the hard rock why i
i care about nightlife so i would probably try to stay at the hard rock around some kind of event or
nightlife thing that they're having the second is the hyatt ziva cancun and the reason for this is
when i was walking past it even though they were trying very hard to kick me off of the property
it looked really nice and also i was trying so hard to stay at their all-inclusive property when
i was in montego bay jamaica i ended up staying at the secret st james which was fine but i've had my
eye on their all-inclusive properties around the world or if it just wasn't fitting in my
price point if i wasn't able to find a deal then i would probably go stay at the canopy by hilton
not only is it ranked one of the top hotels in the area and to be totally honest when i was looking
at this during my last date you could find deals for like 130 dollars a night not an all-inclusive
but a great option and a great way for me to keep my hilton diamond status oh and it's also
off the beach so yeah sometimes a deal is cool sometimes camping in ethiopia is cool but the
part with the hyenas wasn't really that cool link in the description below if you want to see that
and sometimes staying at an all-inclusive where all inclusives are the thing to do is also a good
idea so that's how i would redo cancun yeah yeah yeah i hope that helped if you had some fun with
me in this video cheers that like button if you haven't already share this with someone in my help
i'm christine i'm here every week with new videos and i hope to see you in the next adventure ciao