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Reflections on my vacation
Jan. 22nd, 2008 07:23 pmSo, while lying by the pool, I was thinking up blog entries for when I got back to my PC. Here's the first of a couple such pre-written entries.
I flew out of Chicago's Midway airport to Denver on Wednesday morning. My flight left at 7:05 AM, and was (I think) the first Frontier flight out. The bad thing about that time of day is I need to be up and out of the house by 5 AM (a very uncivilized time) but the good is that there's no traffic, security checkpoint theater or other crowd issues.
Frontier Airlines was paranoid about my passport - I needed it to check in online, to show at Midway and, even though I had a boarding pass, to check in at Denver. Having said that, with Frontier's prices, seatback TVs and international service, I think they're fixing to eat Southwest's lunch in the discount airline business.
While in Mexico, I stayed at the Grand Mayan resort in Nueva Vallarta. Part of the Grupo Mayan company, the hotel is basically a cruise ship on land. Home of the $7 US hot dog lunch, it's a $15 US cab ride into town. There are three properties that consist of Grupo Mayan, the Mayan Palace (mid-priced) the Grand Mayan (higher) and the Sea Palaces (lower) all nestled together.
The hotel (heavily into time-share condos) was not all-inclusive, but was designed so that one didn't have to leave. There was a golf course, tennis, pools up the wazoo, and a full slate of activities and themed parties. Based on what I saw, I was expecting my fellow guests to be very naive, the type that want Mexico to be no more exotic then their local Taco Bell. I was pleasantly surprised to find that many of the guests were long-term visitors, who'd "paid their dues" and were looking for a quiet place. Mentioning that I'd bought 4 days on-line brought a few irritated looks from the folks who'd shelled out for the time-share. I didn't sit through a presentation, but it appeared to be a very hard sell.
I was struck by the number of folks from Canada (western provinces) and Alaska that were down there. I suppose somebody had to stay up north and actually run those areas, but one could be excused in thinking that the North Countries had just shut down for the winter.
Well, that's it for this post. My next trip-related update will be about my experiences with the Rotary Club of Puerto Vallarta South.
I flew out of Chicago's Midway airport to Denver on Wednesday morning. My flight left at 7:05 AM, and was (I think) the first Frontier flight out. The bad thing about that time of day is I need to be up and out of the house by 5 AM (a very uncivilized time) but the good is that there's no traffic, security checkpoint theater or other crowd issues.
Frontier Airlines was paranoid about my passport - I needed it to check in online, to show at Midway and, even though I had a boarding pass, to check in at Denver. Having said that, with Frontier's prices, seatback TVs and international service, I think they're fixing to eat Southwest's lunch in the discount airline business.
While in Mexico, I stayed at the Grand Mayan resort in Nueva Vallarta. Part of the Grupo Mayan company, the hotel is basically a cruise ship on land. Home of the $7 US hot dog lunch, it's a $15 US cab ride into town. There are three properties that consist of Grupo Mayan, the Mayan Palace (mid-priced) the Grand Mayan (higher) and the Sea Palaces (lower) all nestled together.
The hotel (heavily into time-share condos) was not all-inclusive, but was designed so that one didn't have to leave. There was a golf course, tennis, pools up the wazoo, and a full slate of activities and themed parties. Based on what I saw, I was expecting my fellow guests to be very naive, the type that want Mexico to be no more exotic then their local Taco Bell. I was pleasantly surprised to find that many of the guests were long-term visitors, who'd "paid their dues" and were looking for a quiet place. Mentioning that I'd bought 4 days on-line brought a few irritated looks from the folks who'd shelled out for the time-share. I didn't sit through a presentation, but it appeared to be a very hard sell.
I was struck by the number of folks from Canada (western provinces) and Alaska that were down there. I suppose somebody had to stay up north and actually run those areas, but one could be excused in thinking that the North Countries had just shut down for the winter.
Well, that's it for this post. My next trip-related update will be about my experiences with the Rotary Club of Puerto Vallarta South.
