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Originally Posted by Doctordestiny
We're heading to Mexico in January. How much in pesos is required for a week?
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More info. Are you staying at an all inclusive or on your own?
If it's an all inclusive the US dollar bill is king. $1 bills to tip the waiters, bartenders, housekeepers, etc get you better service. You don't need to shower them with cash but a couple of bucks early in the trip will pay off with better service. We don't buy anything so we go with probably around $100-150 and a bunch of that goes to tipping whoever we dive with. If we know say there is a discount to pay the dive op in cash, we'll bring more but in general if you're staying on the resort all the time, a lot isn't necessary. If it's your first trip maybe take a little more, it depends what you like to do.
Remember excursions are extra money so snorkeling/diving, see the Mayan ruins, any other tours are extra. Generally these are payed for with the card to whatever travel group we went through. You'll have an orientation session your first morning where they will try and up sell you on all the excursions. If there is something you like, do it. Want to go see Chichen Itza? Pay the money for it. Who knows if you'll ever be back?
Also if you're going to Cancun there are visitor "guides" who meet you as you walk out of customs/baggage claim. They will give you 5 minute sell job on their excursions. Their offers sound like a good deal as they package up 3 of the trips for the price of two. Their goal is to lock you into doing the trips with them. They try a bit of a pressure tactic but it's not super heavy in my experience. The guys I've talked to are polite if you decline. I'd say unless you know you want to do all 3 things for sure, then book through the rep at the hotel. I don't know anyone who has booked from the airport guys so I can't comment but they're right there in the airport so I doubt if they were disreputable they'd be allowed to setup their booth.
If you're staying on your own at an apartment then I can't really help you. I have stayed in La Paz and eaten out at reastaurants. Many of them take cards, and many of them will be in dollars or pesos. You'd lose a little on the exchange maybe but The Locals want dollars as much as possible. Just get lots of small denominations as you'll likely get change in pesos. Really though, if you're just buying food and trinkets, if you end up spending an extra $5-10 in bad exchange rates it isn't a big deal. They can use the money more than we could.