justretired

This is a trip report on our week at the Club Méd in Cancún, Mexico, from 27 February through 6 March, 2009. We are Margie and Larry, two travelers in our mid sixties, and be both post on Fodor’s as “justretired”. The Club Med Cancún web page can be found at:
http://www.clubmed.us/cm/resorts-nor...09H-ac-vh.html.

<b>The Club Méd</b>

For those who are not familiar with a Club Méd (“<i>Club Méditerranée</i>”): it was one of the original “all-inclusive” vacation resorts. It’s a French organization, where a member of the professional staff is called a “GO” (for “<i>Gentile Organizateur</i>”, “nice organizer”), and a guest is called a “GM” ” (for “<i>Gentile Membre</i>”, “nice member” (of the Club)).

My wife and I honeymooned in 1970 at a Club in Martinique. We love the Club concept. We were in Cancún with our children in 1987 and 1993. When we were first at a club, there were no locks on the doors, no TV, and very few amenities. Drinks were not included in the fixed price – you paid for them with plastic poppet beads, which served as money in the Club. Meals were always at a large table, with other guests and members of the staff.

Things have now changed – there is now a lock on the door, a TV, a refrigerator, a hair dryer, and a safe in the rooms, and no more beads (drinks are now included in the fixed price). There are still large tables in the dining rooms, but there are also smaller tables where couples and families can sit by themselves. I used to love coming to the dining room, picking a language, and always being seated at a large table with others. Practicing my foreign languages is one of the pleasures of a visit to the Club. We were able to generally repeat that experience this time by asking to “<i>compartir una mesa</i>”, but other guests didn’t always join us. This was in part because there were so many families wanting to eat as a unit. We enjoyed often having a GO join us (but never more than one at a time, a Club policy). I was able to practice my Spanish, French, and even a little Italian.

We liked one of the changes from past years: in Cancún, it seemed this time that the majority of the GO’s were Mexican. In the past, the GO’s have been from all over, with many from France, and being at a Club didn’t give you a feeling of being in whatever country the club was actually located in. In fact, before this trip, I had told my Spanish class that I wasn’t really going to Mexico, but that rather a Club Med is a Club Med, and is the same, wherever it is. That turned out to be not the case – the Club in Cancún really had a feeling of being in Mexico, and I enjoyed that (especially since all the Mexican staff were just as friendly as the GO’s).

One oddity of the Club in Cancún: although Cancún is on Central time, the Club operates on permanent Central <i>Daylight</i> time, to give an hour of extra daylight at the end of the day. But in the winter, when Mexico is on Standard, not Daylight, time, the Club is an hour later than Cancún itself (e.g. when it's 6:00 in Cancún, it's 7:00 at the Club). My wife liked this, due to the later sunset. In the winter, it also has the effect of putting the Club on Eastern Standard Time, so coming from Boston, we never had to change our watches when we arrived.

<b>Our vacation</b>

We very much enjoyed our vacation at the Club. The GO’s and the local staff were uniformly friendly, helpful, and competent. The Chef de Village, Olivier, greeted us warmly, and was much in evidence all around the Club. The variety of food offered was wonderful, and we enjoyed the tropical drinks (although we’re not big drinkers). We love the Club, had a great vacation, and will doubtless return some day to this Club, or to others.

Sailing was my main sporting activity, and I found the staff to be very welcoming and capable. They also were very attentive to safety, reacting quickly to boats in trouble or too far out (it was a week of rather strong wind). However, I must say that the equipment was not in good shape. Several of the Hobie Cats were out of commission due to lack of spare parts, so GM’s had to wait for boats. The lack of boats also seemed to limit the availability of lessons. Many of the windsurfing boards were very beaten up, and it was hard to find a life jacket with three working snaps.

We also did snorkeling. In fact, one of the attractions of the Club in Cancún is the ease of snorkeling – you can just walk in from the beach, instead of spending the whole morning in a boat. My wife has done things like silk painting at other clubs, and missed having more adult arts and crafts activities in Cancún. Unless we missed something, the arts and crafts that were provided seemed to be mainly aimed at children.

The Club in Cancún has a “Mini-club”, providing activities for children, including circus (trapeze) training.

We thought the Club could have used a naturalist. We were very curious about the plants, flowers, animals and birds that we saw, but found that nobody could identify them. With a naturalist, you could possibly also add some excursions about the local flora and fauna. I asked a man grooming a group of plantings what a particular flower was. He replied, “Una Planta”. Duh.

I brought a pair of magnetic clip-on sunglasses for my regular prescription glasses, but I forgot to bring an inexpensive pair of sunglasses that I could tie on and use for sailing. I was annoyed to find that I couldn’t buy these in the boutique! The sunglasses for sale there were all designer glasses, at around $150 or more. I was not about to wear them on a boat, where they could easily be lost. I thought they Club ought to have provided some inexpensive sunglasses. The sunscreen they sold (a must) was reasonably priced.

I would have loved a massage, but balked at $100 for an hour. I can get a massage here at home for $50 to $65 an hour – why should I pay more in Mexico?

E-mail is now such an important part of our lives that I was not too happy having to pay for computer time. On the other hand, I understand that it costs money to maintain their equipment and connection. It’s not clear to me if we still would have had to have paid had I brought my own computer.

<b>Conclusion</b>

My wife and I travel at least once a year, usually to Europe (we tend to alternate between France and Italy). I speak French, Spanish, and Italian, and my wife speaks some French. We don’t often take beach vacations, but those that we have taken have generally been at Clubs – still, only seven in the last 39 years.

Since I noted some suggestions for improvement above, I hope you don't conclude that we were unhappy with our experience. Nothing could be further from the truth. We loved our week at the club (and our break from the snows of Boston), and it reminded us that we’d like to spend time at the Club Méd more often. Our previous visit to a Club was a 25th anniversary trip to their “Turquoise” Club (Turks and Caicos) in 1995 – the 14-year interval since then has been too long. We hope to visit a Club Med again soon.

- Larry

justretired

<i>Zut, alors!</i> I see I managed to misspell both "<i>gentil</i>" and "<i>organisateur</i>" in "<i>gentil organisateur</i>" and "<i>gentil membre</i>". I wrote "<i>gentile</i>", which would be the feminine version, except both "<i>membre</i>" and "<i>organisateur</i>" are masculine (and "<i>organisateur</i>" has an s, not a z).

So much for my fabulous French.

- Larry

Shooie

Justretired,
Thanks for the report. We're old Club Med fans, too, from the days when there weren't locks on the doors. We really like the international atmosphere (and the French bread). It sounds like they lose some of that with the local GO's. It makes me want to go back to one. If you ever get the chance to go to the club at Bora Bora, it's wonderful.

justretired

Hi, Shooie,

Thanks for commenting. It still felt quite international to me. Although perhaps the majority of the GO's were Mexican, quite a few were not. One of the sailing GO's was from Egypt, and another from Morocco. We happened to be there during a two-week French February school vacation, and at least two large planeloads of French families showed up. The <i>Chef de Village</i> is French.

Thanks for the tip on Bora Bora. That's got to be a long flight from Boston, though.

[I've updated my web page on formatting in Fodor's posts - <b>bold</b>, <i>italics</i>, <font color="red">colors</font>, and special characters (é, â, &euro;, &pound;, etc.)

It's now at http://ljkrakauer.com/tags.htm.]

- Larry

justretired

I've finally put up some photos of the trip - nothing surprising for anyone who's been to the Club. You can find them at:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLan...localeid=en_US

There's a series of shots included showing a local artist doing an oil painting on tile, applying the oils mostly with his fingers, instead of by brush.

I also got some good pictures of the pelicans fishing right off the beach.

If you click on "Mosaic" at the top, as opposed to "Carousel", you can pick which photos you want to see from thumbnails at the right, instead of just going through the slide show in order.

Jaysfan

I enjoyuereading your report - Cancun is the only Club Med or all inclusive beach vacation I've taken. My best friend was a GO at Cancun the year I had my first full time job (articling/clerking before my call to the Bar). So, I went down to help her celebrate her birthday. I got my one and only scar from a sports injury there, got cut on some razor-fine coral while snorkling.
When I was there, most of the GOs were from the US, Canada, Europe and Mexico. I can see how more locals in the GO positions would help bring more local flavor to the village.

I haven't thought about that trip in a long while - thanks for reminding me.

justretired

Hi, Celine,

Thanks for the tip on the Club Med Insider. I'll see if I can find the time to post my Trip Report there, although it is now almost six months out of date.

By the way, the link you gave in your posting above fell victim to a quirk of Fodor's that I've encountered before: it's a bad idea to put a link inside parentheses. Or if you do, put spaces around it, like this:

&nbsp; &nbsp; ( http://cli.gs/Z8apNL )

The reason: look closely at the link in your entry, and you'll see that the final right-paren ")" is in color - Fodor's has assumed it is part of the link. This is because parentheses are in fact a legal character in URLs!

I wonder if you just found my Trip Report now because Fodor's, at my request, took away the accent marks in my original title. It used to be:

&nbsp; &nbsp; <b>Trip report, Club Méd, Cancún</b>

By experimentation, I discovered that Fodor's searches are sensitive to accented characters, so it's probably best to leave the accents off in titles. I also noticed that even the Club Med doesn't put an accent on their name, even on the French pages.

Anyway, thanks. I'll consider adding the report to the Insider site.