Three years ago my sisters and I vacationed at The Royal Islander in Cancun and had a fabulous time.
This year sister T. traded in timeshare points again and invited us both to join her. Only I was able to go and then a couple of months beforehand sister T had to change her plans so I invited my husband to join me.
Travel to Dallas
Last time Southwest had Saturday flights that worked for travels to and from Cancun but not this year. Other airlines would get us there after dinner so we decided to fly to a hub city Friday evening and then on to Cancun on Saturday. We were able to get there with miles on American Airlines.
I scheduled a Lyft ride for 2 pm which arrived right on time. There already was Friday holiday traffic going into San Diego but we had left early enough.
San Diego Airport
We checked in our bags at the skycap and proceeded to the TSA security line which had no wait.
I know it’s a busy air travel weekend (Labor Day weekend) but the airport was pretty empty at this time of day; at least in this part of terminal 2. I picked up a package of salami and cheddar cheese to eat on the plane for dinner and boarding started on time.
Flight to Dallas
Steve had packed his lunch so we ate during the flight. I watched a couple of shows on my iPad and soon enough we were landing. Since our layover in Dallas was more than 12 hours we had to pick up our checked baggage. One of our bags was in the very last batch to come out (after 10 minutes of no bags so we were getting worried). Once we got that, I called the hotel for the shuttle and it was just 5 minutes before it arrived.
I booked the Homewood Suites using Hilton points earned from business travel. They gave us a welcome gift of kettle corn and two bottles of water due to my status. Steve bought a soda from the market and we went up to get settled in for the night.
Travel to Cancun
It was nice having a living room to relax before bed and again the morning. We woke after a good sleep early and enjoyed coffee in the room before going to breakfast shortly after it opened at 7 am.
It was a nice spread with hot breakfast options of scrambled eggs, sausage links, french toast and tater tots. Of course, there was fruit, cereal, yogurts, waffle maker and more. The only thing missing in my mind was hard boiled eggs.
I had booked the shuttle for 10:30 am when checking in but we were ready to go at 10 and headed down to see if we could go early. Luckily, they were able to accommodate that request and we had a nice ride back to the airport.
Dallas Airport
There was no line in the priority check in or the TSA precheck line. We got into terminal D and I was impressed by how nice this part of DFW is compared to other terminals I’ve traveled through there recently. Hopefully, the entire airport will get this kind of makeover.
We spent time walking around for some exercise and looked at the various restaurant options to figure out where we wanted to get lunch. We ended up choosing a BBQ restaurant. I selected pulled pork with a side of green beans…
and Steve had half rack ribs with beans as his side.
We shared a Diet Coke from McDonald’s and Steve also had a chocolate milkshake. We then headed to our gate and it wasn’t long before boarding started around 12:20 pm. The flight to Cancun was even shorter than the one from San. Diego. I watched the movie “Book Club” which was enjoyable.
Cancun Arrival
The lines for immigration in Cancun were smaller than we’ve experienced in the past but it got longer while we waited. Once through there, our luggage was already out and we headed through customs. We got stopped for random agricultural check right before the customs exit but of course I didn’t have any fresh foods.
Once outside, we found the Canada Transfers employees and checked in and taken to our van. I had booked a private transfer for only about $10 more round trip than shared. The pre-ordered Corona and Diet Coke and they were waiting on ice for us.
In about 15 minutes we arrived at the resort and our luggage was taken for us and we were given a claim check.
The rest of our day and suite review with lots of pictures will be in the next Cancun post.
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