Quote:
Originally Posted by Hans Landa
Need to go to a wedding in Riviera Maya Mexico in May.
The engaged couple sent me the pricing they received from the travel agent they are using (based in Ontario) for their destination wedding and from Calgary, it's $1600/person. All inclusive, 5 nights at Gran Bahia Akumal.
I dunno... it's Mexico. That's outrageously expensive, no? I've done my own searching hoping to find something cheaper, even at a different resort on the same beach, but I'm having no luck.
I've never been anywhere outside of Canada/US (with exception of Japan and New Zealand), so the whole Mexico/Caribbean/Cuba vacation nonsense is new to me.
Suggestions?? Can I just fly there, build a sand castle on the beach and live in that for a few nights?
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There's a few factors at play here...
1. The Canadian tour operators haven't even begun to think about May price cuts on their all-inclusive packages yet. They usually start thinking about cutting package prices about 3 months before departure.
2. By *far* the most common package length offered by the Canadian tour operators is 7 nights, so packages that are shorter (3-5 nights) can actually be more expensive than a 7 night package. If it were me, I'd focus on the 7 night packages from the various Canadian tour operators.
3. The Gran Bahia properties go on sale very frequently. As Puxlut mentioned, the Gran Bahia Akumal is part of what is now a quartet of Gran Bahia properties all in the same location (Akumal, Tulum, Coba, and the Sian Ka'an). When you stay at one, you can access the others.
I'd probably keep an eye on 7 night packages from the Canadian tour operators for all 4 of the Gran Bahia resorts starting around March/April when they'll likely start slashing the price. It's not uncommon for the Gran Bahia packages to go sub-$1000/person after taxes for flight + 7 nights (that's based on 2 people in the room).
All of the travel agents in Canada access the same package prices from the same database. The same database used by all the major Canadian-based travel sites.