How young people Save Money!
We sat next to a young couple on the bus into Playa del Carmen the other day. They live in South Carolina and had left their children behind with grandparents. The husband was a mechanical engineer for BMW and the wife worked for Progressive Insurance as an adjuster. They were making trade offs in luxury so they could take advantage of a rented car and the mobility that it gave them. Well let me see...was that a luxury? Maybe not.
If you refuse to attend the Grand Mayan sales pitch, you will pay full price for all the tours. If you attend, the cost of the tours are cut drastically. A trip to a ruin site can cost you a $100 or more per person. They rented their car for $180 for three days. They traveled all over the area avoiding the toll roads and the taxes attached to those highways. I suppose they did manage to save money in the long run.
What did they do?
- They cooked all their meals in their room.
- They took a shuttle ($8.00 per person) to guy groceries at WalMart.
- They used melted ice from the vending machine to replace bottled water.
- They took the back roads back to the resort after a day trip because the tolls and taxes were too much.
- They paid for a shuttle trip to Playa del Carmen to buy gifts for their children. Note: The same stuff is available here on the resort but I suppose they compared prices. That may have saved them money even after factoring the shuttle costs in. I don't know.
Cost for Our Day on the Resort
Food here at the resort is on a par with what it would cost us to eat in the states. We do not go to fast food restaurants EVER!!! We make coffee in our room because I don't like their coffee anyway. I buy a bottle of wine at the deli for around $10. We don't have drinks out very often.
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| Blue Fish Kitchen |
Happy hour runs from 11:00 am 1:00 pm. Drinks are half price during that time. If you think you need alcohol you can drink early. If you don't drink before 5:00 pm, you can buy a bottle and mix in the deli and make mixed drinks in your room.
So here would be the tally for food:
- Breakfast: $17.00 (approx.)
- Drinks: $17.00 (pool side)
- Snack: `$8.00 (guacamole and chips)
- Dinner: $36.94 (pad thai for both of us, no drinks)
They charge you by the cup for coffee. The first cup is $2.50 and the second is $1.25. A glass of wine is around $7.50. A gin and tonic tall will cost you $14.00. Be careful what you drink! It can sneak up on you in more ways than one.
Cooking in the room can be costly too. Remember a shuttle taxi trip to Playa del Carmen to make a grocery run is $16 for two of us round trip. It is convenient though because we are dropped at WalMart and Mega Mart is very close to the shuttle stop too. Buying just the right amount is a trick. Small quantities cost more and waste can cost a lot. We have not done this yet but we will probably do it today.
Laundry
We used the self-service laundry yesterday. The cost for that was $7.50 to both wash and dry our clothes. We bought a card at the desk that takes care of both the wash and dryer. Washing was necessary since we are spending an extra week. There is an laundry room on each floor here at the Grand Bliss building. It is very convenient.
Conclusion
So there you have it...the real story of what a day will look like for two couples. I am not unhappy with the costs. I would not want to try to do this on the extreme cheap and be aware of every penny I spent. That would not work for me. That is why I needed the pile of yellow paper with numbers all over them to write this for you. I don't change my life when I go on vacation.
Have a wonderful day.
b
When we travel we almost always cook in our condo. When we were in Yucatan last month, though, we didn't have a kitchen so we ate out several times. It was expensive. Usually, buying our own food and cooking is a real money saver.
ReplyDeleteDepends on the kind of vacation you want to have.
Yes you are right Linda. We love the local culture so we do eat when we are in town. We did not have a kitchen last week so we scheduled meals around when the restaurants we liked were open.
ReplyDeleteb
While in Florida, we cooked almost every night. Try not to buy alcohol when we do go out. That adds up. Instead we have one in the apt. We try to keep under 100 per day in food and restaurants. Interesting about the younger couple. Sometimes it's just too much hassle for a little bit of savings.
ReplyDeleteLa Asociación Mexicana de Desarrolladores Turísticos reporta que 8 de cada 10 Propietarios de una Membresía Vacacional se encuentran satisfechos con el servicio que reciben de sus respectivos Clubes.
ReplyDeleteSi tú eres uno de los 2 Propietarios restantes que no están conformes con el servicio que reciben…
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