Why Cancun

I have been in Canada for 4 years and everything in the country has impressed me a lot, except that the winter here really changes my cognition. For the past 4 years, the temperature of the winter has refreshed the record every year. Normally, snowboarding is the only activity I will do during the extremely cold weather. After 4 years of playing with the snow in Blue Mountain, my girlfriend and I are going to have a gateway from this frozen country to our dream vacation spot -- Cancun. Back to 2003, when the first movie of Pirates of the Caribbean series published, me and my girlfriend were always attracted by the Caribbean sea. The unique tropical landscape and the wild sailors' life from the movie totally fascinates us. In the movie, the legend of pirate makes the Caribbean Sea more mysterious. Before I came to Canada, I often heard people have a getaway to Vuba in winter, but North American have preference to travel to Cancun instead. Although there are lots of tourist destination around the Caribbean Sea, the Mayan culture makes Cancun has advantage in cultural heritage compare to other places. Cancun as the important renowned tourist destination in Mexico is the dream place we want to take the adventure.

Where to stay

Cancun has been developed as a tourist destination early, and the hotel facilities in the city are perfect. After searching from expedia.com and asking friends who have visited Cancun, we decided to choose one of the hotel in the hotel zone in Cancun. One of the hotels names "Secrets the Vine Cancun All Inclusive" really catches our eyes. It gets very high ratings on TripAdvisor, and also has complete hotel services facilities. We will book an ocean view room so that we can enjoy the beauty of the Caribbean Sea from our balcony. Also, all-inclusive deal is very attractive; there are around 12 restaurants within the hotel, and we can enjoy them all, for FREE. It will be really nice to have some drink when sitting on the beach and enjoy the warm sunshine, which is hard to get during the winter in Canada.

Getting there

We are looking for flight tickets to Cancun from different travelling agency website. Because our trip is during the Christmas, tickets and hotel are kind of expensive compare to other seasons. After comparing with different website, we choice the bundle sale with both flights and hotel at expedia.ca. Our Air Canada flight will depart at Toronto Pearson International Airport at 2:55pm, and the trl time is 4h 5m non-stop. The arrival time will be 7:00pm local time. The return time is one day before Christmas; it is hard to find any non-stop flight to Toronto. We chose Air Canada again and will leave Cancun at 2:30pm on Dec 24. Since it's an 1 stop flight, it will take about 4h 5min to Montreal, then come back to Toronto. Although the long fly-back ticket will exhaust us, we still look forward to explore in our dream vacation.

Schedule

Dec 19 -- Arrival

Dec 20 -- Xel-Ha

Dec 21 -- Isla Mujeres

Dec 22 -- Xplor
Dec 23 -- Chichen Itza
Dec 24 -- Leaving

December 20 -- Xel-Ha

On the very first day, we are going to Xel-Ha, an aquarium park built right on the estuary of the Caribbean Sea. It is a true paradise for nature lovers and swimmers. There are all kinds of activities that we could do: snorkelling, scuba diving, swimming in the river, cliff jumping, and sliding down the zip-line above the water!

Snorkelling:

Snorkelling is the major activity in Xel-ha, and we plan to spend at least 2 hours on that since there’s just so much to explore under the water. The water is crystal clear, and there are more than 70 categories of fishes in it. Although I’m not a fish lover, it’s just too fascinating for any curious person like I am. Besides fishes, there are also whole bunch of fun to snorkel. Since we have to wear life jackets in order to snorkel, we can just flow with the water and put our heads into the water to see things. It’s kind of like swimming but not in a tiring way.

Cliff of Courage

Another activity that also seems exciting is called the Cliff of Courage. We have to actually jump from a 10-meter high cliff into the water. I know it must be scary when people stand on the edge and look down, but I believe when you finally decide to jump it definitely would be another unforgettable memory.

Zip-lines

We actually plan to play more zip-lines in another aquarium park call Xplor, which I will talk about more in the following post. But the zip-line in Xel-ha also seems to be fun since it is right above the river, and you have to loose yourself to fall into the water at the end. Otherwise you are going to hit the wall built by stone and you know it’s gonna hurt.

Food and Drinks

There are eight different Mexican restaurants in the park, and the foods are all different from each other, and the best thing is you don’t have to pay for all the food and alcohol; they are all included in the 89USD admission fee!

It would be like this:

December 21 -- Isla Mujeres

Isla Mujeres is a Spanish name meaning island of women. It's would also be a good place for snorkelling. But since we would be really tried playing in the water the day before, Isla Mujeres would be a resting and sightseeing for us. 

we would take the ferry from the dock near our hotel Isla Mujeres, and it would take us around 20m minutes. And the ferry looks beautiful!

It's basically a tiny island near Cancun and it only takes around an hour to drive around the whole place. Since we don't have a car, we are going to rent a gold cart, which is actually a common transportation for tourists. It only costs 50 bucks and you can drive it for whole day!

There is another attraction on the island called dolphin discovery. Swimming with dolphins is everything I have imagined and more. Besides this, we will also learn gestures to make the dolphins do all the tricks, watch them'tail talk', and even touch and kiss with them!

There's also one thing I really want to eat is the lobster tacos. I have seen so many reviews on the lobster tacos on Isla Mujeres, and it really makes my mouth water. And it looks like this:

December 22 -- Xplor

Zip-Lines
After taking a good rest in Isla Mujeres, we are going to experience more excitement in another aquarium park called Xplor. Firstly I though it would be mostly the same as Xel-Ha since they were built by the same company, but after viewing all the reviews online, I found myself totally wrong. Xplor is more like a park built on zip-lines; there are fourteen zip-lines with 3.8 km of trails, and people actually can fly over the jungle!

Amphibious Vehicles
Another attraction that I really want go in Xplor is the amphibious vehicles. I have been driving my car for more than four years, but I have never experienced this kind of vehicle-or maybe it cant't be called a vehicle! it would be an incomparable adventure where we can drive through the jungle, the broken bridge, and driving under the surface into mysterious caverns and caves.

December 23 -- Chichén Itzá

Chichen Itza All-Inclusive Day Trip

On 23 Dec, we are going to Chichen Itza with the travel agency. Chichen Itza is located in the eastern portion of Yucatan State. it will be a long bus trip from Cancun, it will take probably 3 hours. As the one of new Seven Wonders of the World, it is a manifestation of the Mayan culture. Chichen Itza was one of the largest Maya cities and it was likely to have been oene of the mythical great cities. Because of the prefect building structure, it was used as the calendar by watch the shadow of the building, also there is an interesting physical phenomena, and the temple will become a large speaker when people clip in front of it. Can't wait to see the result of Mayan wisdom. During the trip, traditional Mexican food will be provided like taco and all food cost is included.