🏝️ The resort tour from hell with a side of bacon
You get what you pay for
This is a real experience I had in 2024.
I saw the deal on Facebook – $199 for a 5 day 4 night Cancun vacation at the Garza Blanca Cancun. It’s a new gorgeous all-inclusive 5* resort selling apartments. What’s the catch? It required a tour. Still sounds like a true Vacation Steal.
It went downhill from there.
The total amount I actually paid for the vacation was about $900, including reservation, booking, and hotel fees and taxes. No longer amazing at $200+ per night for 2. No longer amazing but still a Vacation Steal.
The marketing company couldn’t book me at the resort. They had a list of hotels they could offer. The 4.5* hotel in the marketing ad wasn’t available. That’s a good thing as their reviews were atrocious. The only hotel they offered that received consistently good reviews was a small 3.5* resort that I could have booked directly for a few hundred dollars more. OK, so not a steal. Let’s call it a nice deal.
At this point though I was “in”. I had already paid a deposit and spent a few hours researching everything online and talking to the tour marketer. So I took that hotel. At least it was all-inclusive with good food, unlimited drinks, and two pools, we were on the beach, and extra bonus, it was next to a clothing-optional resort.
The day of the tour:
A little detail - our hotel was a half hour away from the 5* property where the tour would be given. A greeter met us with a taxi.
First visit and wait was check-in.
We met our sales rep who took us to breakfast. The star of the meal was a bacon tower. (cue haunting music) A freaking tower. I should have known. The fried, sizzling, artery-clogging bacon tower was the perfect symbol for gluttony and my descent into the nether resort sales world.
Next was the tour of a few apartments and rooftop pool with inifinity pool looking out to the ocean and Isla Mujeres, truly spectacular. It would have been nice to stay there.
Then over to another building and the open sales room. Thankfully they served drinks. The obligatory bell was rung occasionally for (supposedly) closed sales.
There was the sales video … meeting with the sales rep. … meeting with his manager … drop-in from the sales VP, with waits between them all. Every time, a better deal ... that I could only buy today. I considered and declined all.
We were taken to the transportation booker in a different building. He gave me the 4th sales pitch of the visit for a minideal to return next year. I think they were going to put me up in a tent in the jungle.
Finally we taxied back to our hotel.
The sales tour was supposed to take 2 hours. Our ordeal lasted 6 hours. The experience pretty much wasted the day and stole a part of our souls.
You have to ask yourself - Is all that worth it to save a few hundred dollars?