We've been to Isla several times over the years and have never had a problem. Spent 10 days there last summer. You may not like Playa Norte as much, which was the best beach on the island for many years (the storm hit it hard... hopefully, it's renewed itself, but you should double-check that), but we felt perfectly safe.
i went to cancun 2 months ago and it was fine. the hotel zone should be 110% safe. outside of the hotel zone, where the locals reside, is not as sheltered and sterile. it wasn't dangerous but i probably wouldn't be walking around that area at night. the only problem i had was i got scammed by the policia near the airport for barely speeding. the guy tried to get $250 off my family but we bargained it down to $60. *word of advice: if you get pulled over, do NOT hand over your license or passport to the police unless they specifically demand it.* and if you are driving to chichen itza, you will encounter 2 military checkpoints each way so don't freak out when you see the soldiers with M16's and the hummer manned with a 50 cal on the roof.
Yikes, what happened? I'd be scared ****less, especially with my family in the car. Seen too many movies, I guess.
We were actually driving from Akumal to Cancun to take the ferry to Isla Mujeres, Just after Playa del Carmen (between Playa and Cancun) we were pulled over for speeding. I know that I was not speeding because the speed limit was high, but we were in an area with speed bumps. The speed bumps in Mexico are serious: you will destroy the car if you do not slow down to low single digits. The cops said I could pay 2500 pesos to him and he would not issue a ticket or he could issue a ticket and I would have to pay 3000 pesos at the station. He never threatened to arrest us. Luckily, we only had 500 pesos on us at the time. We showed him both of our wallets and that it was all of our cash. He was satisfied and left us alone. We just went to an ATM in Cancun. We felt like we did our good deed for the day as those 2 cops probably spent the rest of the day at a topless party and were not harassing any more tourists.
Have tourist destinations in Mexico taken a hit over everything negative that's going on in the country right now? You would think you might be able to snag a cheap vacation that way.
LOL, that sounds more like an annoyance than anything else. When you said “shakedown” I had this vision of the cops pulling your wife out, threatening her, slapping you around, etc. Like I said, I guess I’ve seen too many movies. I’d still be nervous getting pulled over in a foreign country though. Especially Mexico.
Puerto Vallarta is very pretty, and I dont think its dangerous, like they have said a lot, the only very dangerous cities are like: Ciudad Juarez, tijuana, and some boarders cities too. And with Cancun, is safe from all that dangerous stuff.
I don't have anything to add on whether it's safe or not, but if I were you I would be asking myself if the safety issue was such a distraction to me that it was going to take away from the vacation. If the answer to that is yes, I would find someplace in the Carribean to go to instead. The point of vacation is to get away from stress.
I'm pretty sure he was making a joke, being that Cancun is so Americanized and always full of tourists.
No, I typed it yesterday morning. I also corrected myself in the following post after I realized parts of Hawai'i were probably actually further south. Cancun is more like the United States of America than any place in Mexico. It's silly to even ask the question (in the thread title).
Well it depends on where you go...go up the coast a little near Punta Mita and there are several spots...cant give specifics are you staying in PV?
