Casual Travel

This was the question on Friday.
We are in the middle of the pissing rainy season and I can feel the seasonal depression creeping slowly into my tired being.
With some mental and emotional effort I started looking for a nice sunny vacation spot.
It took me over 5 hours to gather some information and by the end of the whole process I got angry with myself, with the way information is scattered over the net, with everything. I put the blame on the same overcast that keeps driving me bonkers.

This is the situation: we are a family of three, with a four year old son, who gets bored pretty fast and is a picky eater.
Therefore I had to find some decent hotel, family friendly, with activities for kids (just in case, because I am too paranoid to leave my son out of my sight) and with less night life if possible, as in no disco activities until wee hours of the morning because we need to sleep and relax in preparation for another round of job duties.
All my friends who used to travel to Mexico chant the ‘all-inclusive’ mantra, which fits well with us as well. So all-inclusive is part of the quest equation.

Let’s summarize my findings:

Cancun:
- Nice beaches, super beautiful warm blue water
- Lots of things to do and see
- Organized tours to Chichen Itza where, for about $250 per family you travel by an air conditioned bus, with a bilingual guide and even get lunch while there
- Other tours, including an eco one
- Family friendly hotels with kid’s clubs
- Going there until May will ensure nice weather, because who wants to spend $6000 per week to enjoy- NOT- the rain? I can do it for free here
- March tends to be busy due to the spring break
- In the third week of April starts the mating season of the thimble jellyfish; their stings are not deadly but can cause allergic reactions or fever; the mating last for about 10 days
- It’s more affordable to go there on low season, between May and November, but the area is subject to hurricanes during this time; my friends had their trip to Cancun booked for August last year, and it has been canceled due to hurricane warnings
- Summer is not interesting to us to go there, because with a little bit of luck we may have decent weather here
- June and July are expensive months to go there due to European summer vacation; it may sound bizarre but I have heard about people from Europe coming to Mexico. Why bizarre? Because they have Tenerife and other Canary Islands there, they have lots of sea resorts along the Mediterranean shore, along the Black Sea shore, plenty of sunny places, but hey, people do what they want with their money.
- I had a very hard time finding a direct flight from Vancouver to Cancun. Finally I found it with AirTransat. For about $980 + $280 in taxes/ per person, you can fly without worrying about stops in Houston or other US cities. Traveling with a small kid makes you think about convenience vs. price. I don’t want to see us running like crazy in any given airport to catch a flight, not with the little one taking his sweet time doing everything. Another down to not having a direct flight: it takes longer to reach your destination. With a direct flight you should be able to be there in about 6 hours. One with at least one stop will take you there in at least 11 hours. This difference is a lot while traveling with kids.

Puerto Vallarta
- The beaches are mostly with pebbles and the water is cold and dark; it’s Pacific Ocean right?
- On many beaches the surf is too strong to swim in the ocean, therefore you have to spend your time by the pool
- Not so many things to do
- Time wise is closer, you can reach Puerto Vallarta in 4 hours I guess
- Cost wise it might be a little bit cheaper, depending on the quality of accommodations

Based strictly on the above and considering that on both scenarios the all-inclusive means bottled water in the room along with all the taxes and transfers paid, Cancun will be my preference. It is more expensive but not with much.

The biggest problem: the cost of the vacation. It came to a total of around $6000 per family per week.
Even if our kid will stay and eat free, the plane ticket is the same price as ours.
Based on the above mentioned amount listed by Airtransat, only the plane tickets for the three of us will come up to $3600.
The rest is the hotel, some tours, because we want to see at least Chichen Itza, and now I am sad.
We are not going to afford to spend $6000 on a short vacation.
I have to face the reality and maybe purchase some light therapy kind of lamps to deal with my seasonal disorder.