I have never in my life been to a country that it’s so easy to get exploited as a foreigner but you do learn as you go along how to save your money from going down a black pit of being being ripped off by scams and false information.
I am going to try and list a few of the things I learnt during my visit to hopefully save you if you visit. Sometimes it takes a few days to adjust to a place and in Mexico if you don’t read up and adjust before you go you will be quite a bit of unnecessary money lighter!
Mexico was a wonderful place with lots of good qualities and stunning nature, as well as friendly genuine people , but you will have a better time all round if you just take these things into consideration before travelling and make sure you choose wisely!
DO NOT GET A TAXI FROM THE AIPROT
I REPEAT DO NOT GET A TAXI FROM THE AIRPORT.
They all stick together and try and charge you 59 dollars to go anywhere, even a short drive. A lot of people don’t have wifi when they first get into Mexico and are tired and exhausted and these people are just waiting to take advantage. They will even lie to you and say there is no bus. There is an ADO that runs into the early hours of the morning and costs about 6 dollars. My advice is use it! I am still crying about paying these con artists so much to go 7 minutes down the road!
They then got my bf when he had to go back from the airport and return in the morning by telling him the bus had stopped running when it hadn't!
This is what it is like arriving at the aiport:
HAGGLE YOUR TAXIS
Taxis in general love to rip you off, at least some do. What you need to do is research the actual amount it should cost in advance and then go only with that price, be willing to walk away if they don’t drop. I would rather pay the actual rate and tip a bit.
There are also buses and a service called the collectivo running. It can be a little complicated to find where they go from and the timetables but with a bit of learning you can save a TON of money by using them. The collectivo took us all the way from downtown Cancun to Isla Blanca for 50 pesos, thats £1.76! A bargain. The ADDO also runs between airports and major towns. You can go all the way from Playa to Tulum in around two hours for around 12 dollars. The buses are air conditioned, on time and very easy to use. Do allow some extra time as many run over, but they offer a great affordable service. If I go back to Mexico I will be using a lot more buses and a lot less taxis. Try and get your head around them as early as possible.
SHOPPING FOR GIFTS
To get you into their shops I saw all kind of tactics from pretending to recognise you, and you do start to wonder if you met them in a hotel, taxi or something, when they say this is their second job, to begging. Most of the stall prices are about 60 percent above what they should be. This shop owner was trying to get my bf to buy a gold chain and within about 10 minutes he went from around 2000 $ to 150$ lol if it was really worth the original price no way would they drop this much . Be careful cause there is a lot of fake items here from fake gold and stones to fake tequila ( they sometimes sample expensive brands then have cheaper versions in the bottles but charge £150 for them). I don’t even know how you can be sure without a lot of experience, I think the best thing is not to buy expensive things here, it’s not really cheaper anyways.
There is an additional bit to this if you go to the Mayan ruins they will say everything is a dollar, to get you to come over, what they really mean is it’s a Mayan dollar, which is something they use to make things sound cheaper, when you go over you will find out it’s a lot more expensive.
Honestly it is WAY too much for me but you can learn some sales tips from these guys, they really do know how to drive a sale once they got you chatting lol!
HOTELS NOT HAVING WHAT THEY SAY THEY DO
This is a huge thing in Mexico I experienced. I have never experienced this in any other part of the world but I lost count of the times a hotel would say they had something or offered something then when you arrive they just say ‘oh we don’t have that’ or ‘we don’t do that anymore’!!! Not even an apology or anything. I noticed it a lot with airport shuttles, where it was listed as having airport shuttles but then just didn’t offer them. I also had it more than once with yoga where I was told that there was yoga included and one of the hotels even featured about 3-4 pictures of the yoga on their gallery and then when I arrived they just said ‘oh yeah we don’t have it anymore’. I mainly chose that hotel for the yoga! Lol
Lesson from this is message them and check in advance if they actually do it, even if they say they do on the website it seems to mean nothing and it is much better to have the conversation before booking if it is important to you, take NOTHING for granted.
SHEETS AND TOWELS
I’ve never been charged for a sheet or towel in my life, don’t get me wrong I think it’s fair to charge someone a nominal amount if you heavily stain a sheet but in Mexico I am pretty sure they just use these excuses as a way to make some extra money from guests. I ran into this issue twice during my stay once for myself and a second time my friend ran into it.
One of the hotels I stayed in did not declare this information on their website but made us sign we would pay for any damaged sheets or towels late at night, tired and you already paid for the hotel and can’t get a refund! Something about it rang alarm bells for me, I just felt they were going to find something even if we were super careful. Sure enough they didn’t say anything at all during our stay and continued to change the hotel bedding 3 nights without word then when we were checking out pulled up a bag onto the counter, there were another bunch of bags next to it! She showed us the stains and one was a tiny black mark it took her ages to find and you could barely see, one was another black mark and then one was this huge dark brown makeup stain all over the towel, it was unmissable and yet neither me or my bf had noticed it, I am fair and do not use fake tan. Even my fair foundation is made with natural fruit pigments. I don’t personally believe they wash the towels as they didn’t look washed and I think something else was going on here. If it was genuine they should also have told us after the first one so we could have stuck with it for the rest of the stay!
I did ask the receptionist if this happened to nearly everyone and she said yes it did! Funny that I thought.
After confronting them she did agree not to charge us. Thats something I have found here is you have to stand up for yourself. If you do not you will just be taken for a ride. They actually seem to respect you more when you do and they were super nice with us after, nicer in fact lol.
Then later it happened to my friend where they said the whole sheet went pink after being washed, she does wonder if it was her sunscreen but then it’s surprising you wouldn’t recognise this on your own bed. I do really wonder what they do to the laundry out there.
RENTAL CARS
I didn’t rent one, we didn’t dare lol but I have heard horror stories, if you get one be sure to inspect the car FULLY before and take photos to show any damage already on the car. There are also reports of people paying online before they arrive then just getting there to find no one drops the car off…. Just be careful with this one!
DAY TRIPS
We booked our day trip online and it was amazing, everything was exactly as expected but I have heard more than one account of people who booked trips and then turned up to find no bus ever collected them! I think the main thing is to read and check for reviews before booking.
Let me know if you experienced anything similar in Mexico or have anything add to the list!