We're booked at Valentin Imperial just north of Playa Del Carmen April 21st.
I had planned on taking the ferry over to Cozumel but with all the turmoil I think that excursion is out.
Has anyone been to the area within the last few months and have any recommendations?
Needless to say with the alcohol and bombing problems I have some trepidations!!!
Thanks
We are here now and have been here, in Playa, since November. My opinion is that your fears are unfounded.
We live here half the year. We own a condo, drive our car around town and travel near and far in the three states that comprise the Yucatan. Can't begin to tell you how many of our wonderful NOTB friends have contacted us about this. One friend actually claimed she heard that "bombs were going off in our neighborhood." Others are asking about the Narco Terrorism attacks on the Ferries. While we appreciate their concern and are very sorry for the injured people, we are completely flabbergasted at the concept. Except for the (one) ferry explosion we all are completely unaffected by any of this.
A friend of a friend has written a sort of response to the Super Sensational News Reports. it covers your concerns about the explosion and devices attached to idle ferries kilometers away from people and allegations of tainted alcohol. Hopefully you will read it and understand from a different, local, viewpoint which is, after all, exactly what you asked for.
SHARING IT HERE:
cancunmap.com
March 9 at 11:50am ยท
I'm not putting this out for debate. I am sharing a well written statement prepared by someone who lives in Playa del Carmen Mexico. I did not write this. Copy and share all you like!
I copy this here with the respect and ok of a fellow Playense
I have LIVED here (not just visited) for 15 years (celebrated this week) and feel as safe today as I did when I first moved here. Actually, with the new government in charge and its anti-corruption/crime campaign, I actually feel safer. And, I have a wife and two kids. I have choices. I could easily move to somewhere else in Mexico or back to the States but I know that this area is much safer than the vast majority of places that people visiting here come from. My interaction with organized crime is nil. The amount of times I have been a victim of a crime is nil. My house was broken into when I lived in Cancun some 18 years ago. The experiences of the people I work with and the over 500 students (mostly adult) who study here will mirror mine.
The sensationalism and panic come from outside this area. The people looking in from outside believe a few incidents make for an environment. Gangsters getting shot by other gangsters because they didn't pay their gangster dues would not even make the news in many parts of the world but let it happen here once and it is an international incident covered by a complicit media with vested interests in other travel destinations. Some kids drink too much, too fast and dive into a three foot pool, one on top of the other and the problem is not their bad judgement but the silly notion that a company with the reputation of Iberostar would give its guest tainted alcohol that might lead to someone's death. Parents can't accept their loss and need to blame. Media all over it because, well, it is Mexico and you know how it is. The ferry bomb, who knows. An explosive device with no shrapnel built into it was not meant to maim and kill. It was either a political message or an insurance scam. But, whatever, we are not talking Baltimore or Beirut or Miami here.
People walk the streets, eat in the restaurants, work, play in the park and go about their business like they did 5, 10, 15 and 20 years ago. Sure, things change. What hasn't? We have had a cannibal murderer, a mobbed-up Canadian businessman shot in his AI room, swine flu, Wilma (where we were actually under 10 feet of water according to the news) and gotten through it all. What sucks is that people lose jobs over panic created by people who have no clue.
I ain't in the mood to hear the "20 years and my how things have changed" pitch today. The US government just ****ed our economy over something they don't even have the courtesy to explain.