Hello Tangerineys from the Riviera Maya. We are currently at an all-inclusive resort in Cancun,
Mexico
and we wanted to share some things with you, some lessons that we learned after
going to this all-inclusive resort, of what you should not
do, what you should do to save money and have a better time on your vacation. First and foremost,
when you're booking your hotel, don't fall in love with the first price
you see because that's probably not going to be the final price. Let's use the Grand Hyatt in Playa del
Carmen for example. This night that I'm looking at, is $148
that's the listed price, but then you go to check out and you see
$65 more in taxes and fees. For example, a couple of those charges are a $25 a night resort fee and a $10
a night "SVC
Contribution." I looked that one up and it's a service contribution
that's
supposedly going to go to the employees as tips.
So, a $148 night turns out to be well over $200.
Next thing you're going to want to be wary of is also in the booking process and that's if you're looking for an
all-inclusive resort, you need to be sure that the option that you're booking is all-inclusive.
So, let's take The Westin at Cozumel
for example. You can generally get a night there for about $100 but unfortunately, that's not the all-inclusive option.
It's about $200 for everything to be included.
So, you really have to look at the fine print and notice what the different options say for the various rooms and the various types,
so you are getting what you're wanting.
Another thing you want to take care of before coming to Mexico is your airport transportation from the airport to the hotel,
especially if you're flying into Cancun.
The last people you want to deal with are the
Cancun taxis at the airport there. So, a lot of the hotels or resorts that you're going to be booking
include
transportation from the airport to your resort
but in order to take advantage of that, you do have to let the hotel know
that you want the transportation, and let them know what time your flight is arriving, and things like that.
The next thing is, do not forget your sunscreen,
preferably reef safe sunscreen. But if you do forget it
you're going to end up paying about $30 for a very average size bottle in the hotel, (They cost about $24 here but we've seen higher prices at other resorts)
convenience store, their little gift shop or whatever. So, that's very important that you bring it. Along those same lines,
do not forget to apply your sunscreen because the UV index is much higher here,
so it takes a very short amount of time out in the sun to get sunburned,
and you'll be even more burnt than you might expect. Yeah, we went to Tulum a little while back and the lobster people
almost outnumbered the regular humans. It's really sad, though
because if you're used to how long it takes to get sunburned where you're
coming from, it's like a fraction of that time here.
It's so incredibly easy to get sunburned.
Jordan
and I do not even go outside. If we're spending...
I mean really we don't, we try not to spend any time in the sun at all
but if we are, like if we're going to the pool or we're going to the beach or something
we wear UPF shirts also called "rash guard" because that's like the fabric form of sunscreen,
so you don't have to keep reapplying it all the time
and we're always wearing hats and basically covering up as much as we possibly can.
I love those rash guard shirts. I didn't even know about them for the longest time
but I got one for the first time about a year ago and
every time I'm going out to the pool or out to the ocean, I am wearing that. It's this long sleeve shirt.
It's actually cooler to wear than to wear nothing, which is great. Yeah, it's surprising.
You got yours from Kohl's, I got mine from Amazon.
We'll link them down in the description, in case you're not sure what we're talking about
and you want to check them out and
if you do want to purchase something like this for your trip, we highly recommend you download Rakuten -
it's this free extension you can put on your browser and basically if there is ever cash back available at an
online website that you're shopping at, you get that money back,
so it's like if you're going to make a purchase, you would be throwing money away not to have this extension and be getting
3%,
5%, 10%, 15% cash back on that purchase.
Yeah. For example, when we booked this hotel,
we used Rakuten and we got about $10 cash back and to make it even sweeter, if you have an
Amex card that gets you American [Messes up]
If you have an amex... [screws up]
And, to make it even sweeter, if you have an American Express card that gets you Membership Reward Points,
you can elect to get membership reward points
instead of cash, which can be
significantly more valuable, but we're going to be going into the sort of like price hacking of this all in another video...
So, we actually ended up releasing that video first (price hacking)
so, you'll want to watch that to find out how we got this all-inclusive for about $90 a night total,
that means for both of us. We'll link that on the screen now and in the description box below.
Jordan, you're glistening. Oh great!
You're glistening in the sun. Just what I was hoping for! So beautiful! [Laughs]
Just now, Jordan was like, "Can you wipe your sweat mustache off?" and I was like,
"Oh, I still have one?" Because I just dabbed my whole face off on his shirt. And he's like, "Oh wait, never mind."
I'm like, "Wait, do I have an actual mustache?"
And in case you're wondering what the weather is here, it's perma sweat. It's just sweat, all the time. Sticky sweat.
So much fun, but that's why... Temperature 90 - real feel, hot as balls. [Laughter] Which actually leads me
to our next point which is along the same lines of applying sunscreen often.
You need to drink a lot of water because you're constantly sweating. It's very hot and humid,
so it's easy to get dehydrated, especially if you're at an all-inclusive like this
where the drinks might be flowing, the free drinks.
And along the same lines of those free drinks,
it's very important not to overdo it. I mean, it's tempting because they're free, you could get as many as you want
but you're probably paying a hefty amount per night, even if it's a budget place like this.
It's decently expensive,
so you don't want to waste any of your all-inclusive awesome vacation feeling sick or hungover.
If you're liking this video so far, we'll have many more videos coming out from the Riviera Maya.
So, please subscribe to our channel and gong that bell,
so you get notified when we upload a new video.
So, a lot of these hotels and resorts will try to get you to sign up for a timeshare presentation and they'll offer you
free stuff in return for going to this presentation.
But these are going to be really hard sells and if you're not good at saying no, I'd recommend avoiding them all together.
Me! Not good at saying no in those situations. [Laughs]
If you do end up signing up for one of these timeshare presentations, before you go, at the very least, go to a second hand
timeshare resale site like
www.sellmytimesharenow.com
and
people who have bought these in the past will be reselling them. And for example, here at Ocean Coral & Turquesa,
I don't know what their timeshare price is, but I'm guessing they quote you around $20,000 or $30 000 to start off. Well,
on this resale site,
you can get one for a little over $2,000.
So, once you know how much they sell for on the resale market by going to one of these websites or even
onto something like Ebay,
this gives you a lot of negotiating leverage
and reason to say 'no'. Like if they're trying to sell you something for $10,000, you know
you can get for $2,000 on ebay, there's no way you're going to say yes.
This is just my personal opinion
but something I think you shouldn't do is waste your time doing hair and makeup
because even when I try to make this look nice,
it ends up getting matted to my face and the curls and the frizz are just everywhere
and if I had makeup on right now, it would be completely melted off.
So, in my opinion, it's an absolute waste of time.
Just enjoy being here, you know, let your skin breathe and just liberate yourself from all the time
you have to spend in front of the mirror normally.
Something else you're going to want to avoid doing at an all-inclusive
is losing your wristband
or like your pool towel, for example. Here at this resort, if you lose a wristband and they need to replace it,
it's $100 or if you lose your $10 pool towel,
they charge you something like $30 or $40 to replace it.
Like we said earlier, some of these resorts and hotels do charge a service fee on top of the room rate
that goes to the employees as tips
but that doesn't mean that if someone's going above and beyond for you
that you shouldn't throw a little something extra their way.
For the people who have given us exceptional service, we're giving them 20 pesos to 70 pesos (about $1 to $3 USD). Another thing
you should not forget is the most powerful bug repellent,whatever works for you, because
you have to remember we're in the jungle.
These are jungle mosquitoes and they're out for blood,
literally. So, if you're mosquito magnet like me, definitely bring that! [Laughs]
Another thing you shouldn't do at an all-inclusive
is wait until dinner time to make a reservation for dinner or not make reservations at all.
I recommend that as soon as you get to the resort, you learn how the reservation system works, if there is one
because the most popular restaurants fill up quickly. For example,
we woke up at about 7 am this morning and I think there were only 6 spots left
at the most popular restaurant and that's not 6 tables,
that's 6 actual seats - 6 places for people to book. And this thing might be
pretty obvious
if you're going to an all-inclusive resort that everything is included
but it was surprisingly hard for us to wrap our mind around the fact that everything is included!
Do you want an extra appetizer?
That's fine. You want three desserts? That's fine. You want to go get coffee, ice cream,
an extra lunch, room service even, everything is included - just about everything. There are some exceptions
But so, when you're coming to these places, find out everything that's going to be included for your nightly price because that could include
activities,
All your meals, all your drinks. Tours, even room service, that one blows my mind.
I've never had room service in my life until we did this all inclusive, that was so awesome!
We ate it in the bathtub too. That was even better. [Laughs]
Like we mentioned earlier in this video, if you want to book an all-inclusive
or if you want to buy one of those rash guard shirts for your upcoming trip, be sure to sign up for Rakuten.
We'll link to that down in the description
and if you sign up through our link, you'll get a $10 cash bonus after your first time using the service
so we hope this video was helpful for you. If you enjoyed it,
be sure to give it a thumbs up, to know that we did a good job,
and we helped you out and consider subscribing to our channel
if you want to see other videos we have coming up about the all-inclusive resorts.
But one more thing. One more thing before you go! I feel like I'm in the WWE
[Bell ringing]
And gong that bell! So you'll be the first to be notified whenever we release our new videos or start a live stream on Sunday
and we'll see you soon!