avoid this $388 mistake

Ritz-Carlton Cancun has been in the news in the last couple of days due to the stay of a prominent family from Texas. The family has frequently enjoyed this resort and chose this week to escape the freezing temperatures back home and enjoy the warm, sandy beaches of Cancun. I honestly have to sympathize with the Dad who had to cut short his time in the sun due to work obligations back home ... but what a great way for the rest of the family to enjoy four days together being pampered Ritz-Carlton style.

The mom texted friends, inviting them to come along and noting the $309 room rate, an incredible value for a stay at a luxury resort. But she could have told her friends about an even more phenomenal value, had she only known about it!

Here's a much better value at Ritz-Carlton Cancun:

• four nights in an Ocean View guest room with balcony — $300 per night + tax
• complimentary daily buffet breakfast for two at El Cafe Mexicano — a $72 daily value
• $100 resort credit (one time) to spend on food and beverage or spa services
• room upgrade at time of arrival if available
• welcome amenity
• early check-in and late check-out if available
• complimentary WiFi

$388 extra value, exclusively yours by booking through a STARS travel advisor. 

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copyright (c) 2021 by Ourisman Travel LLC.  All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell, a Virtuoso® Member.

the Mayakoba resorts

Mayakoba is a luxury resort development, the concept of its Spanish owner, located about 30 minutes south of the Cancun airport and 10 minutes away from Playa del Carmen. Mayakoba's centerpiece is an 18-hole Greg Norman championship golf course, home of the annual Mayakoba Classic PGA event, but the main attraction is a beautiful sliver of Caribbean beach with the softest, finest white sand on which I've ever walked.

Mayakoba consists of three individual resorts designed and run by three luxury hotel families — Rosewood, Banyan Tree, and Fairmont. I had a chance to inspect each of the Mayakoba resorts during a recent site inspection of the Mexican Riviera Maya. Here's what I think:

Rosewood Mayakoba
We spent three nights here in a Deluxe Overwater Suite — one of the largest suites I have ever seen — but my recommendation is to get even closer to the beach. Book a Beachside Lagoonview Suite or a Beachfront Suite for easy beach access (only 10% of the rooms at Mayakoba are built by the beach). The food at all of Rosewood's restaurants is excellent, and the breakfasts are amazing (and complimentary to Virtuoso guests). For an especially good dinner value, eat at the Beach Club and order three tapas each - a very nice meal for about $24 per person plus tax and service.

Banyon Tree Mayakoba is about privacy. This resort features Asian style architecture and interior design, and each of Banyan Tree's suites has its own private courtyard and swimming pool. Don't think of this as a plunge pool; it's large enough to swim laps. If you're going to Mexico for an authentic Mexican experience, there are better choices, but Banyan Tree offers beautiful rooms with an Asian motif if you seek a private haven in the lap of luxury.

Fairmont Mayakoba is for families. A much larger resort than the other two, the Fairmont has 481 rooms. The center of the resort features a large swimming pool with water slide (for kids only!), and children are entitled to three complimentary hours of Kids Club per day. As with the other Mayakoba properties, golf carts are continually running to shuttle guests to and from the beach — and at the Fairmont, you can even borrow bicycles to get around.

Guests at any of the Mayakoba resorts have charge privileges at the others. A complimentary shuttle service takes you to the other resorts, and you can dine in their restaurants, charging everything to your room.


Mayakoba resorts (search here on Google)

copyright (c) 2010 by David Ourisman LLC. All rights reserved. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.
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Chichen Itza, a wonder of Mayan Mexico

Chichén Itzá is one of the seven wonders of the modern world as selected by the New7Wonders Foundation. The other six are the Great Wall of China, Petra (Jordan), Christ the Redeemer (Brazil), Machu Picchu (Peru), the Roman Colosseum, and the Taj Mahal (India). Having visited Chichen Itza yesterday, I can't imagine staying in Cancun or on the Riviera Maya and passing up this experience.

The remarkable step pyramid built by the Mayans in the tenth century dominates the center of the complex. The pyramid is not quite square, although this fact is not readily perceptible to the observer. Intentionally skewed, the four faces and diagonal edges of the pyramid align with the angle of the sun on the two equinoxes and the two solstices. See this picture to appreciate the effect created at sunset on the equinox - the sun shining directly onto the western face and just peeking past the edges to illuminate the north steps with a series of triangular shaped patches of light, the symbol of a serpent in Mayan iconography.

There are countless fascinating stories to hear, and other marvels to see, while at Chichen Itza. The Ball Court is a playing field upon which two men played a sudden-death version of basketball (literally). Using only his elbows, knees and hips in an elaborately choreographed game, the first player to get his ball through a stone ring 22 feet above the ground won the honor to be sacrificed to the gods. The loser would cut off the winner's head and present it to the King who presided over the event. But perhaps the biggest mystery is the presence of thousand-year old carvings depicting figures who resemble a Roman soldier, American Indians in full headdress, and a bearded warrior. No theory exists to explain this apparent anachronism.

A private guide can make your visit something special, whether at Chichen Itza or anywhere else in the world, and Virtuoso onsite Journey Mexico provided us with the very best. Fernando (pictured in front of the pyramid) is an excellent guide who is himself part Mayan. More than a job, Mayan culture, architecture, and iconography are his passion, and he conveyed his love and enthusiasm of Mayan culture to us. Though considerably more expensive than signing up for a bus tour with 40 other tourists, the three hours we shared with Fernando at Chichen Itza, followed by another hour at Ek Balam (where we got to climb a pyramid to see some incredibly well-preserved carvings on the temple at the top), made yesterday an experience we will never forget.


Chichen Itza (search here on Google)

copyright (c) 2009 by David J. Ourisman. All rights reserved. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.
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