Playa del Carmen, day 1: we made it
08 Jun 2026 | travel family mexicoThe alarm went off at 2:15am–which is a time that is not normally associated with happiness. But we were excited to be going to Mexico, and we had a lot of bags to pack into the car. We got everyone up, dressed, and out the door by 2:45am. The drive to the Boise airport was uneventful, and we got there with plenty of time to spare. Too much, actually.
We had bags by the door the night before, so getting out was mostly just movement. Becca corralled the kids while I loaded the car.
We pulled into the Boise Airport Southwest line at 3:30, then discovered that security doesn’t open until 4. So I held our place in line while Becca and the kids burned energy on the escalators. Watching small children ride escalators in the dark at 3:45am is its own kind of travel experience.
Once the doors opened, we checked the big bags and the “gate check” bags right at the counter. We got through security, I grabbed coffee for Than and me, and we found our gate.
The Arizona layover was uneventful. We found a Chick-fil-A and called it second breakfast. The sensory playground was closed, which was a disappointment — we’d heard good things and had been looking forward to it.
We landed in Cancun exhausted. Then we waited. Apparently the last cart from our plane ran about 30 minutes behind the others, and nobody told us that until most of the bags were already out. Every rotation of the baggage carousel was a small exercise in managing expectations.
We made it through immigration without incident. Then customs. Becca and some of the kids had moved ahead while my sister Carolyn, her husband Phil and I walked with the luggage. The customs dog came straight for our wagon of backpacks. We got pulled aside, sorted through everything, and threw away every snack the kids had packed. Becca and the others were already past the no-reentry checkpoint. There’s a specific flavor of helpless that only international travel with divided family members can produce. But we made it through.
On the other side, we pushed through multiple layers of people with signs and offers — resort shuttles, tour packages, taxi services — until we found our guy holding a sign with our names.
A few bathroom breaks later, we loaded into a large van just as a wall of rain rolled across the parking lot.
Becca sat up front and talked with the driver in Spanish the whole way to Playacar. I understood none of it, but it covered the full drive.
We arrived during a light drizzle, skirted a small temporary lake, and found our AirBnB — a beautiful house a couple blocks from the beach. We picked rooms — debated a few arrangements, landed on one for the night, and agreed to try something different for the kids on night two.
By that point it was evening and we had no food. Becca and I walked 20 minutes into Playacar proper, found an ATM, wandered through an indoor/outdoor mall, and hit a 7-Eleven and an Oxxo for eggs, bread and instant coffee (we couldn’t find coffee filters anywhere). We grabbed tacos and quesadillas for the pickier eaters in the group.
The prices were tourist-zone prices. We knew going in that a few blocks inland would have been cheaper, but we were exhausted — it still stung to pay it.
One more thing before bed: the plumbing situation. The host’s note was explicit, and so were the signs — toilet paper goes in the trash bin, not the bowl, or you’re paying for the plumber (ominous foreshadowing).
Everyone was asleep by 8pm.