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Posted
17 hours ago, Baboontyme said:

We are really enjoying it here. I love it. Crazy how you can go from the ridiculousness and character of Hidalgo and stray dogs and cats to a beautiful quiet resort hotel on a world class beach within a few steps. I also love the vibrancy and character of the central and southern part of the island. Off to Puerto Aventuras tomorrow. 

Some food/restaurant thoughts and pics. 

First, agree with whoever said it that it isn't necessarily cheap here. Paid in pesos but my family of four I don't think had a meal for less than $130 or so. Now I'm not complaining but not all that different from anywhere else, be it home or on vacation. Yeah that usually included a marg or two for me and sometimes a frozen drink for the kids. 

Also it seems to be a thing here that they don't bring you your bill until you ask for it, even if you're clearly done, have declined dessert and your table is clean. Lesson learned. I don't want to be the pushy American so it made for some awkward moments. 

The best thing I tasted this week honestly was the house bread at Rolandi's. It was this giant puff of hot soft bread drizzled with olive oil and salt. It was gone in about 20 seconds. Pizza was ok. I ordered the pizza and my son ordered the grilled chicken and we agreed to share. I had two pieces of pizza and he had the rest of both dishes. Welcome to feeding a 15 year old.

We hit up Taco Tuesday at Xantolo. Taco lunch for 200 pesos with a free marg/virgin daiquiri. Wife and daughter had the Arrachera tacos, son had ribeye tacos and I had al pastor. Very good! 

Basto's was good but I like my Arrachera and my daughter liked her burger more than my son enjoyed his ribeye (very thin and a ton of non edible fat). My wife ordered sopa even though she's never had it before and it was meh. Loved our server even though he missed half of our drinks and didn't bring the bill for like 25 minutes after we were done. You guys were nails on that seasoning they put in the Arrachera. So damn good. 

Last night for dinner we hit the taco trucks and brought them back to order drinks and eat poolside at Ixchel. That was a lot of fun and cheap and delicious. Not a ton of taco trucks where I live unless you're in SW Detroit and I'm not often. 

Today we went golf carting again to the Southern part of the island to catch some things we missed on Tuesday when we went to Punta Sur. I was trying to please everyone and deciding between Mango's, Yayo and Oscar's and I...chose poorly. Oscar's had pizza, pasta and Mexican and my daughter isn't much for Mexican. We got there, sat down, ordered drinks, and the guy was like no pizza, no pasta, only grill. He was probably the only person we encountered all week who wasn't very friendly. Anyway the boy and I ordered Arrachera steaks and they were cooked to the texture of an old leather boot. Still not horrible but trying to cut that thing with a butter knife was a good forearm workout. Daughter got nachos that she liked and my wife tried to order a burger with fries but somehow they only understood the fries part. She's a Midwest people pleaser and refused to try to correct the issue and had fries for lunch. Margs were strong, though. 3/10 do not recommend. 

Tonight we had the best meal of the stay. I think I would definitely recommend this place to the surly Isla mafia. Maybe kind of new and slightly bougie as far as bougie can be on the Isla. Rusticco. 4.9* on Google and the pics looked too nice for us. A true foodie place and we aren't foodies. But they had something for everyone and it was on point.

Pregame I had the pineapple marg with charred rosemary. We ordered an app of shrimp tempura with bam bam sauce that was delicious. Wife and daughter split some pasta Bolognese with vodka sauce that they loved and a chicken Caesar. Son got an amazing looking Arrachera steak, medium rare. He said as good as it was the carrots were even better. I had lobster tacos and they were dynamite. Pics below. Slammed and went hard.

 


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Some other random pics and a video of Hidalgo at night for posterity. Thanks for turning me on to this awesome place surly. What an amazing four days and unlike anyplace we have ever been. We are running out of family trips before the boy graduates, but I will be back at some point. 

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Outstanding pics.  The little postcard op on Punta Sur is so good with that background / shades of blue. 

Glad you enjoyed. 

  • Like 1
Posted
On 6/17/2025 at 2:24 PM, SimonBolivar said:

CARM and USATransfers are both 100% solid. I'm sure Wood's guy is excellent since he/she/it goes all the time, iirc. Don't get a taxi at the airport to the ferry or the ferry to the rental car place. I'd take CARM/USATransfers to the ferry from the airport then use Uber for the other two trips if you don't want to pay the higher price for the convenience of CARM/USATransfers. You can't legally get an Uber from the airport but can take one to the airport.

LOL. Dang. I thought it woulda been obvious by now!

Posted (edited)
On 6/19/2025 at 1:49 PM, Baboontyme said:

Ok making progress on the transfer and car rental front.

Carm is setting me up with airport to ferry (plus bottle water for the family and a dos x for me), ferry tickets, pick up from ferry and transport to American car rental at the airport. There is a shuttle from the car rental to take us back to the airport. 

I booked the car online, I booked the full size with a manual. To my surprise they didn't take a credit card for the reservation. If I pay in advance through the site, am I going to get beaten up with the exchange rate? 

Speaking of, I recall reading in this thread about not using your cc to pay for stuff on the island. I hate carrying cash. That really my only option? Also not thrilled with the idea of having to stop at a grocery store or bank to pull out a bunch of cash once we land. I don't mind a lazy tax of a few bucks if I can exchange at a bank before I leave, but a couple hundred bucks lazy tax is a bridge too far. What is my best bet? 

I don't mind the service charge for the convenience of pulling out cash on the island, but Mrs. Wood (no pics, assholes) likes to go to Frost Bank downtown in Austin and get cash ahead of time. Don't have to have an account and iirc it's no charge. Anyone can walk in & exchange money. I have no idea which ways get the best/worst exchange rate etc, & I stopped having the energy to gaf. I know we're gonna spend a shit ton of money down there and I'm just better off not worrying too much about it. When I'm on the island I just use my card for everything I can use it for, but we still end up needing quite a bit of cash. YMMV.

OBTW, when we were there in May, finding operation and/or stocked ATMs was hit & miss, even at Chedraui. The only one I found that worked every time I tried it was the CI Banco ATM next to the OXXO on Medina at Madero (heh. they named a street after me).

Edited by wood
Posted (edited)

Rando thoughts about last our last trip, etc ...

- June used to be our go-to month for Isla, but the sargassum is really putting a kink in that. None in May when we were there. Not too bad in June most days afaik, and seems ok now.

- Re: Isla not being all that cheap, yeah that ship has sailed. The bang for the buck used to be incredible, but prices steadily crept up and then after the covid restrictions lifted, the prices started skyrocketing & haven't really stopped. Hidalgo used to have lots of lower end places with incredible food for low prices, but now everyone is angling for the 'high end' customer. It also used to be a lot more chill than it is now, but oh well.

- Re: Punta Sur, I ccould stand there for hoursing just watch the waves crash on the rocks at the tip of the point. The power of the water is something to see. We also saw more turtles from up there this year than we've ever seen before. Side note: sucks that the turtle hatchery got closed down/bought. IIRC it's gonna be a hotel or some such. 

- hire a boat captain to take you around the island. We always do it. Always worth it. We snorkel a bit, fish some, swim off Punta Sur with the turtles sometimes, etc. Even just riding alone is worth it to me. The last 2 times we've hired the same guy. We met him just walking on PN, trying to find some business. Good guy. I'll try to find his info if anyone needs a captain.

- Re: trusting the locals more than Murcans, absolutely this. 100%. We've been taking our boys to IM since they were babies, and we feel safer with them there than most places in the US, even in Austin. Of course you always wanna be careful, and I tend to be pretty wary with my cash & belongings, esp at the beach ... BUT, in at least 20+ stays  of 4 to 10 nights on IM, we've never had a single thing stolen. We leave the hotel (sliding glass doors next to the pool) unlocked all day when we're on PN and really only lock it when we all leave at night. Never had a single thing go missing, even with maintenance, maids, etc coming and going while we're out, etc. We leave money, speakers, water bottles, backpacks etc on our beach chairs with no problems. Leave stuff in the cart when we're out, etc. All good. (yeah we've definitely gotten a lot more relaxed there over the years. )

- Re: the whalesharks. Yep. It's awesome, awesome, awesome. But we haven't been since 3 or 4 years ago when, for the first time for us, it was super crowded with boats. Too crowded imho, for the fish and for the people. I've heard rumblings that they may start trying to regulate it more to keep the crowds sizes down and the people and sharks safe. I can't really argue with that.

- @Wally Pryor, thanks for the rec on the Doc! I'll have to keep that in mind. Getting old sucks.

- Man, the 'indoor' soccer seems to be getting even better there, or maybe we were just lucky and went on the right nights this time. It was like what I would imagine 18U boys club soccer level would be. One of the teams also had a big, fast American kid who was pretty damned good.  They were killin it. We missed baseball again, got dammit. Normally they play on Sundays, but this year we were there during the big fishing tournament, and pretty much nothing else happens that day (Sunday).

On 7/13/2025 at 10:37 PM, Baboontyme said:

Super helpful posts, thank you both. @Wally Pryor 4 nights on the island on PN at Ixchel. I was thinking we wouldn't need a golf cart. You disagree? Those golf cart adventures sound like fun and I know my son would love to see that church, he thinks shit like that is super cool. 

Also, family of 4, boy 15, girl 12. Is a beach club something I should be looking at? It seems kind of young adultish but maybe I just don't fully grasp the concept. I thought we would have our fair share of pool and beach at Ixchel. 

We always get a cart  & go exploring, esp at night. We always find new stuff we've never seen before, which is crazy on an island that size that we've been to so many times. Re: Beach clubs, we always do at least one day at Kin Ha or Castillo de Garrafon. Usually Kin Ha, these days. There's a lot for the kids to do there. We always stay at Ixchel, and everything there is great, but the beach clubs just a offer a little bit different setting and vibe, with some different activities.

Edited by wood
  • Like 1
Posted (edited)

Just fyi we heard about a little, uh, altercation while we were there. First I can remember hearing about on Isla. Dude from Texas got his ass kicked pretty bad by two 'locals' & woke up in the hospital. His friends said that he said he just went for a walk and these two dudes jumped him. It was out on the east  side waterfront area adjacent to the square, up the hill from the hoops court (the old, pretty much abandoned boardwalk-ish area). He said it was unprovoked, but according to other witnesses, he was talking a lot of shit to some guys on Hidalgo not long before it happened. I also wonder why he was walking in that dark area that nobody really goes to at night. We were told by some actual locals that the guys who did it were new to the island and were bad guys, heavy drug users, etc. They said covid brought a lot of people to the island from the mainland, looking for work, and that some of them aren't the best people to have around. They are not impressed.

As for myself, during that May trip I had probably the only negative interaction I've ever had with a 'local' (who's probably also not actually from IM). I'd never seen him before, but some of y'all may have seen him - short guy on Hidalgo, kinda jacked, with jailhouse tats all over. On his face, everywhere. Always aggressively selling shit, if you know what I mean. I saw him every single time we went down Hidalgo on this trip, day or night. Offered me pot. I said no. Then he doubled down, "What, I bet you want cocaine? I got it." Me: Nope. Gracias. "You want crack? I got fentanyl, too". Me: 'No. Thanks'. I'm tryna move on but he kinda had me backed into a corner by the store I was coming out of, and really close-talking me, not in a friendly way. Finally, getting more and more in my face, he says "Oh you want a girl? Or a boy? I got little boys". By this point I'm starting to show my irritation, but not wanting to give the obvious ex-con who seemed pretty fucked up atm a reason to lose his shit. Me: "I said no", and I gtfo. This was right in the middle of the strip on Hidalgo at like pm, with people all around us. Pretty crazy. I love Isla and Mx, and I love the people, and they seem to love me back, but that dude is literally scary af. He has the kind of ojos locos you rarely see. I just stayed away from him the rest of the trip.

Edited by wood
Posted

Interesting wood. I did not see anyone matching that profile or description. Everyone we encountered on Hidalgo was doing the friendly hard sell and taking the rejections in good spirits. It was hilarious watching some of them go up to my 15 yo and ask "Hey you want weed bro? You look like Yawn Cena! Hey bro! Yawn Cena! Rambo!" 😂

Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Baboontyme said:

Interesting wood. I did not see anyone matching that profile or description. Everyone we encountered on Hidalgo was doing the friendly hard sell and taking the rejections in good spirits. It was hilarious watching some of them go up to my 15 yo and ask "Hey you want weed bro? You look like Yawn Cena! Hey bro! Yawn Cena! Rambo!" 😂

Yeah it's always been like that for me, too, even going back to our early PdC days. When I said 'No, gracias', that's always been enough. This was definitely a first for me. 

Edited by wood

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