Mexico - non all-inclusive or DIY.

[Guest]

Pondering options for next year.
Mulling over the Yucatan. Have been before 25 years ago and although commercialised then it was much quieter than it looks now.

If we went we probably wouldn't want to do all Inc as we remember all the fantastic local restaurants.

It seems to be almost difficult to book a non all-inc holiday there these days. Even flights seem hard to come by. (Don't want ba lgw-cun as lgw home is a hard drive).

Is all Inc really the only / best option?

[ali-s]

We did Mexico DIY back in 2010. I booked flights and accommodation separately . Plenty of b&bs , rentals and smaller hotels on TripAdvisor. We did try four nights all inclusive, but like you we preferred the local restaurants.
We stayed in Hotel Aventura Mexicana in Playa del Carmen, Casa Hamica in Valladolid, Hotel Marionetas in Merida , but I haven't been on TripAdvisors Mexico forum for a while so I don't know if these places are still recommended.

I booked all accommodation direct

[Guest]

Thank you! It gives me hope that it can be done.
I couldn't work out if we would get there and find that the place is a sea of all inc's and the eating out at local restaurant is just not really an option. Did you find it easy and cheap to eat out?

Do the Maj of American visitors do all Inc too do you know?

It's the flights that are proving a challenge.

[ali-s]

If you don't want to traipse down to London you could consider indirect. We prefer to fly from Birmingham, even including the connection time it's usually quicker than slogging down to London. KLM , Lufthansa etc fly from local airports. We flew indirect with Continental via New York, but got stuck there coming home due to the ash cloud. We still fly indirect but I prefer to use a European airline so the European rules help us out if we get delayed. Had a 24 he delay in Amsterdam coming back from Costa Rica but KLM refunded us and we weren't out of pocket like in New York. Also make sure you have good insurance that covers for ash clouds, natural disasters etc.

[ali-s]

The all inclusives do tend to be a way out of town . Our four nights was at Grand Palladium, it was nice but really could have been anywhere. Full of Americans, all we heard were American accents!
There are/ were a couple of small all inclusives in Playa del Carmen but why you'd want to be all inclusive in the middle of town I don't know
Hotel Aventura Mexicana is as few minutes walk from 5th Avenue, loads of restaurants to choose from, all very reasonable , I assume they still are. Read some of the restaurant reviews on TripAdvisor to get an idea. We found the food excellent and I got addicted to the fruit smoothies and watermelon juice. The Grand Palladium didn't even serve watermelon juice and the food served was obviously aimed at pleasing the American majority.