Pave the way with dollar bills
If you are in an AI (All Inclusive) plan, even though all tips are included, do tip extra. You'll get better service if you tip. At the end of your stay, leave a tip and a little something for the housekeeper. Also tip the waiter at the beginning at your stay and again in the middle or toward the end. Leave a small tip on the table at each meal. Try to get the same waiter during your stay and he wouldn't seem to do enough for you at each meal.

It's up to the individual, of course. You will end up probably spending an additional $50-75 in tips for a 4-5 night stay. Doesn't seem like much to me compared to what you receive in return.

So get yourself a stack of one dollar bills (one dollar is aprox. a little over 10 pesos) to hand over to the proper person at the right moment.

This very same thing applies to bartenders in the open-bar promotions that many youngsters like to take. Unless you enjoy drinking beer as Braveheart used to (warm,watered and skimmed), you better put a couple of bucks in the cup for the man with the apron.

Don't Let Them Play you Like a Violin

Do not book -I repeat- do not book your tours with the hotel you are staying at. It is the easiest way to spoil your vacation and your budget. Choose freely, instead, from the many options that you have once you are cruise around in the Hotel Zone. And don't be embarrased to ask for discounts if you are in a tight budget. Remember, your money is as good as anyone else's.

But be careful with the time-shares vendors that disguise themselves as representatives of the main Cancun attractions. Sometimes the trick is to convince you to assist to their sales presentation as a prerequisite prior to grant you a "discount", which as you can easily deduct, comes after they inflated first the real price. In other words, if the attraction has a normal price of 35 dollars, they will tell you that the price is 70 dollars and then, their offer you a promotion coupon with the cost of 35 bucks, arguing that it is a bargain at 50% discount of the face value. But you must accept first to go to the presentation where they will push, in every imaginable way, the hard selling of their time-share deal.

If they happen to get too pushy, you can always walk away and it is illegal if they try to force you or harass you in order to make you go to their presentations. Just tell them that you will call the police and they will desist immediately.

And go for the local WalMart -it's in Avenida Xcaret, downtown, next to the Sam's Club- where you can get anything you need (cokes, chips, salsa, cheese, wine, liquor, suntan lotion, etc.) for less than half the price of the stores or malls near your hotel. Take a cab from and to your hotel (8-14 bucks each way depending on how near from downtown is your hotel)... and stash your stash.

Although it is fine for locals, stay away from the flea markets... remember, "gringos" are meant to be big spenders.. or big suckers. if you really want to experience the flea market shopping experience, bargain, bargain, bargain, don't get tired of asking a cut in the price tag... Have you seen the scene in Casablanca where the rug salesman asks Ingrid Bergman 400 pounds for a piece of shag, and ends asking 20 pounds five minutes after?... You get the picture, don'tcha?

Phone Home? Not a Good Idea

If you go to a Internet cafe to email home -a nice idea, it will save you a lot of bucks in phone calls-, you can do it for nickels and with no risk involved. I mean, the cost of long-distance calls from Mexico are preposterous, so emailing instead of calling makes a lot of sense.

But if you have to do some transactions thru your on-line banking, be careful.... Encrypting e-mail does nothing to combat keystroke loggers, which capture data before scrambling occurs.

When typing in sensitive date like passwords, go to Notepad or Word -you won't find Macs in cybercafes-, type in a bunch of gibberish and then cut and paste each letter of your username and password into where you need it to go.

No keys depressed, no characters logged!

Also make sure you delete cookies, *.tmp and *.chk files, etc, when signing off so the next user has no way to access your information.

Make sure you log off whatever session you are in as well.

Barbarians at the Gate

When you arrive at the hotel, many times you'll find that the phone light is flashing with messages. What? Messages in your vacation? Oh, yeah... but coming from those time-shared vendors (they are organized in three groups or herds as I like to call them) that virtually will flood you with all sort of tricks to make you attend their demonstrations. One of them, is to portray themselves as employees of your airline, asking you to come by a certain address because you need to clinch your space for your trip back home.