A Moon Palace Vacation

A Moon Palace Vacation!
by Yours Truly

Here's a moon for ya...

Celebrating yet another birthday is always a good excuse for finding something special or different to do. Sometimes it's a raucous party with too many guests and not enough beer, other times a quiet dinner at a charming little restaurant, or maybe even a trip. Since we did the party last year and a quiet dinner seemed a little too low-profile, yours truly and wife decided on a trip to Cancun, splurging on an "all-inclusive" resort hotel called the Sunrise or Moon Palace, part of the huge Palace Hotels chain of everything-included resorts scattered around the popular Caribbean sun destination.

Your average Moon guest hard at work

Our local travel agent reserved for us a "honeymoon package" and we paid the 700 US$, the most we've paid for a hotel anywhere so far, including New York City, for the two nights 2 1/2 day stay, becoming ever more excited about finally going to a hotel where we would be pampered and have a fabulous time.

Since we live in Merida, we decided to drive to Cancun, and after 3 hours of sheer boredom on the new "super-highway", the toll road to Cancun, we arrived at the Sunrise, which is located 3 kms from the Moon Palace on the same stretch of beach just outside Cancun on what is inappropriately called the Mayan Riviera. I say inappropriate because when you hear or read the word Riviera, you imagine some sort of classy touristy development (a la francaise) with elegant hotels, classy restaurants and wide boulevards under palm trees where you can stroll while enjoying the oceanfront view. The Mayan Riviera is none of the above; simply a stretch of rather poorly paved highway with several "resorts" on the beach side, each one more pretentious than the last. On the other side of the highway, cement plants, farms and other non-related semi-industrial sites. Riviera? I don't think so!

Driving to the hotel from the highway, which takes a little while since it is about 2 or 3 kilometers to the lobby of the imposing Sunrise, you notice all the landscaping that has been done, everything looks neat and almost American, which is always an important goal to be attained since the majority of Cancun's clients are American and they have that egocentric need to have things just like back home in order to feel comfortable. Once at the front door, we turned our tired car over to a valet/security type guy who parked the car while we checked in.

Mauricio was at the front desk and immediately informed us that we were at the Sunrise, and our reservation was probably for the Moon Palace since it didn't show up in his system. He explained that since it had just rained, Telefonos de Mexico was doing it's part to make our weekend unforgettable and the telephone lines were out and so he couldn't confirm this fact so would we please go to the Moon Palace via the hotels lobby to lobby shuttle service and check in there. We thought we would move our car there too, but the valet/security person, apparently the only human being at the reception area in charge of the hotels vehicles, was nowhere to be found. So we took the shuttle to the Moon Palace, thinking that we could get the car sent over later, which our friend Mauricio offered to have done.

Feeling just a little frustrated and upset that our reservation was not made where it was supposedly made, we arrived at the crowded lobby of the Moon Palace, the older of the two 'palaces' and full of gringos of all shapes and sizes, chowing down free food in the lobby bar. Can you guess what happened next? We could; and sure enough the receptionist kindly told us that we were in the wrong hotel; the reservation said Sunrise! No kidding. She said that we would have to go back to the Sunrise and check in there. When we started to get just a little bitchy, she said OK OK and 'found' a room. At this point we decided to take our chances and check in to the Sunrise instead, since we wanted to stay in the newer, less crowded hotel and didn't really want our receptionist to do us any 'favors'. Did I mention there were no telephone lines? She reminded us of that fact and that it was impossible for her to call Mauricio at the other hotel. I urged her to use a radio, smoke signals or a messenger pigeon to get that message back to the Sunrise because we weren't coming back for another visit to the Moon...

Soon we were back on our lobby to lobby shuttle en route to the Sunrise yet again. Once there, Mauricio told us that yes, yes, yes they had a room for us (what the hell was the point of making the reservation anyway - I wondered) and took our information and banded us like a couple of migratory geese and sent us with the bellboy to our room. The bellboy, doing his bit as well to make the weekend memorable, asked us to wait a moment since he had some other luggage that was going to the same area and therefore he would save a trip. Feeling magnanimous, we agreed. When we reached the revolving door that separates the lobby from the tenements that are the guest quarters, the bellman again asked us to wait since he couldn't go through the door with his luggage cart. Just a little impatient and getting just a tad annoyed, we waited as he unloaded his cart and proceeded to take the suitcases through one at a time. Since there were about 10 pieces I told Mr. Bellboy that we were going on ahead and he could catch up to us later, in spite of his protests that the room was hard to find etc. etc.

The room was hard to find since there are about 4 two-story tenement buildings to walk through, it was already getting dark and the mosquitos were coming out to dine on unwary bare skinned tourists. We finally made it to our assigned room and after checking three times the number on the electronic key card, realized that the key didn't work. To our immense relief, a housekeeper appeared at that moment with her cart and after checking our room number against the one on the door, she let us in, apologizing for the mistake and assuring us that the key card was probably just misprogrammed. My first impression upon seeing the room was 'Wow, they have straw hats for the tourists! What a nice detail' but when I saw the shirts in the closet and the underwear on the closet floor two things crossed my mind. Or this really was an 'all-inclusive' hotel or the room was occupied. Obviously, the latter was correct. We went back to the deserted open-air hallway and voiced our concern to the maid, who said she would send someone and went about her way, leaving her cart with us. Since there was no hall phone for either her nor us to call the front desk we sat on the concrete stairs in the breeze and waited for either the maid or our very slow bellboy. The mosquitos discovered us as we sat there, dejected and tired, wondering if this was the vacation from hell. Feeling a little peckish, I raided the cart and found the turn-down chocolates and we ate a couple and waited. Happy tourist couples passed us on their way to to their rooms, while we enjoyed the ambiance on the concrete stairwell.

The housekeeping supervisors arrived and both of them entered the occupied room and used their radios to try to contact the front desk. Did I mention that there was no phone service? After a while they left us sitting in the stairwell, telling us they were sorry and that someone was on the way to show us to a new room. The bellboy arrived shortly thereafter, also entered the room to ensure that it was occupied and informed us that since there were no phones, he would run back to the reception for a new key. Again we sat dejectedly on the stairs, sucking on turn-down chocolates and fighting off the mosquitos and the surging adrenaline rush that runs through your blood when you're getting ready for a fight. Soon the bellboy arrived with a new key and, after a good earful from my pissed off wife, showed us to our room. It turned out to be a twin room, not exactly the kind of room you would want from a 'honeymoon' package. A quick glance at each other was all we needed to confirm our thirst for blood and we stormed off to the lobby to shoot the receptionist.

Mauricio was in hiding either accidentally or on purpose so his life was spared and another desk clerk informed us that there was no need to to speak to the manager; he could solve our problem. When my wife gave him the story and mentioned that we supposedly had a VIP reservation, he assured us that no, we did not have a VIP reservation but that he would give us the room we had wanted. He gave us our third room key for the night, and we stomped off to the second room for the baggage and finally got our king-size room. If this was a "honeymoon" package, I'd hate to see what a regular reservation would have been like, since the stress of this check-in was enough to put a damper on anybody's honeymoon! My feeling is that our travel agent simply typed in "honeymoon package" on our reservation to make us feel better about paying $350.00 U.S. per night and that there really is no such thing at the Moon Palace, since this usually includes a king size room, some flowers or fruit, and maybe a bottle of bubbly.

Obviously, the first night and the 1 1/2 hour check-in made a definite impression and the rest of the vacation was uneventful but we saw nothing that justified the price tag. The facilities are fine, the restaurants and the food plentiful but boring, and the pool enticing. The artificial beach, in spite of the best efforts of the hotel, which included a tractor scraping seaweed off the sand, was a mess; full of ocean flora and about as uninviting as swimming in your toilet bowl.

Maybe it was the time of year, but the beach was pretty grungy! Would you swim in this?

Besides the fact that we felt like we were on a cruise ship full of happy piña colada guzzling (it's FREE!!!!!) gringos of all shapes and sizes (mostly extra large) there were a few more little quibbles:

At pool side, little rock speakers play gentle music to lull you to sleep while you soak up the sun and swim in the pool. All is calm, all is peaceful until the towel person decides to plug in her Mana CD and play it at full volume ("No soy tu perro") on a powerful JBL sound system, thereby shattering anyone's illusions of getting some rest. Since she liked that first song so much, she played it over and over again for most of the morning, and no hotel staff supervisor told her to stick her CD where the sun never shines.

The pool side grill is a hot place to work, and the sweating cook there let everyone know that he was none too happy about being there, swearing non-stop in Spanish and throwing things around right and left. No hotel supervisor ever came by to ask him to tone it down a little or kick his pissed off Mexican butt off the hotel grounds.

Food at the Palaces is abundant and made for the masses. It's quantity not quality here and while your average Iowa sun starved redneck probably appreciates great mounds of bland food from enormous unappetizing buffets, it is by no means a gourmet experience. The second night we were there we decided to take our car, escape the compound and eat in Cancun, just so we wouldn't have to suffer through another mediocre meal.

The rooms, while comfortable, are nothing to write home about. At night, every little noise echoes through the concrete buildings and hallways and off the tiles in the room.

In retrospect, we should have known better. We would have never gone on a cruise, and this all-inclusive stuff reeks of cruise ship cheesiness. Also, Cancun has never been famous for it's service and the Palaces are no exception. You can find beautiful hotels, gorgeous swimming pools, manicured landscaping and incredible beaches in Cancun, but as soon as you ask for some service, a human being appears and the illusion is shattered. Cancun is about stripping dollars from tourists, from the moment they step off the plane to the moment they board that last taxi and Palaces, in spite of their very expensive 'look' and what they charge for the night, is definitely another victim of this mentality. If you must go to Cancun, and there are plenty of other beach-type places to go instead, like maybe JAMAICA, you would be better off staying at a hotel along the strip and eating when and where you want to. Your money will be a lot better spent and you will not feel like a deceived sheep. Thinking all-inclusive and considering Cancun and the Moon Palace? Don't go.