Fore!

This weekend Cancun is buzzing about the Celebrity Golf Invitational coming to Playa Mujeres and Tres Rios Resorts. The event takes place over four days, December 3-6, 2009, with a variety of activities for the celebrity guests and participants in the tournament to enjoy the Mexican Caribbean.  There will be two golf events, the Skins game just for celebrities on Friday December 4th and the main tournament on Saturday December 5th where each celebrity will play with three lucky amateurs.  With prizes worth over $1 million USD, this is not only a game for pride!  This is the first tournament of its kind in Mexico and we are sure it won’t be the last.

Participating celebrities include basketball greats Rick Barry and John Starks, speed skater Dan Jansen and actor, singer and composer Clifton Davis.  All invited guests will be staying at the stunning Tres Rios Resort in the Riviera Maya and playing their rounds of golf at the Playa Mujeres golf course.  In addition to the golf events, there will be a Texas Hold’em poker tournament and a silent auction, with proceeds going to a variety of charities including Teleton and Kanche in Mexico and Children International in the USA.  Celebs and guests will be shown the town by the host hotel Tres Rios, with tours to Xelha and Xcaret and explorations of some of the incredible features of the Riviera Maya.

Cancun Travel is excited to be able to participate in this event, stay tuned for full reports and photos of this world-class event.  Best of luck to all the participants and we hope that all the spectators have a wonderful time (don’t forget your sunscreen!) See you on the links!

Things are looking up, way up for the beaches of Cancun.  The beach restoration project is in full swing and the sand is flying!  There are two dredgers working, currently bringing sand from a deposit off of Isla Mujeres called “La Ollita”, but plans suggest they will be switching to the Cozumel source by next week.  Using the sand from Cozumel had been causing controversies and delays in the project but the authorities have ruled that they can move ahead as planned.  As of today, they have covered approximately 700 meters of beach, from the Sunset Hotel up to Punta Cancun.  The area that is complete includes the beach behind the condos Bay View Grand, Carisa, Palma and Girasol, the public beaches at Chac Mool and Gaviotas, the area behind Playa Cabanas (the beach club at The City) and they are currently working behind the Krystal and over towards Dreams.  They should finish at Dreams this week and start working their way south.  The Cancun part of the project should take about three months to complete before they move on to Isla Mujeres, Playa del Carmen and Cozumel.  When more specific scheduling details become available, we will be sure to share them with you.

I took a trip out to the beach this morning to check on the progress and my jaw literally dropped.  The only words coming out of my mouth were “WOW WOW WOW”.  I went to the same spots as exactly one week ago and the difference is spectacular.  Where once there were rocks, there is now a beautiful stretch of sand.  Behind the beach club at Playa Cabana, there was nothing last week, the water was crashing against the cement wall a few meters drop from the deck.  Now the sand stretches for about 80 meters and comes right to the top of the wall at the beach club.  It’s truly incredible what they have managed to accomplish in one week.  Here are a couple of before and after comparison shots for you……

Cancun Travel will continue to bring you updates on the progress of the beach recovery, with more photos and some videos to come.  Check out our Flickr Beach Recovery Cancun set for more pictures of this incredible project.  Don’t forget to join the Cancun Travel Facebook page, share your own photos and videos with us, we’d love to hear from you!

Mexican Bruno Echagaray
(photo courtesy Club Casablanca)

The ATP Challenger Tour continues at Club Casablanca in Cancun, with some of the top young talent in the world competing for ranking points and a cash prize of $35 000 USD.  Cancun Travel representatives were at the club yesterday to bring you a report of some exciting tennis in Cancun.

Ranked 116, Rui Machado from Portugal continued his success in the tournament, beating Guillermo Olaso from Spain 7-5 and 6-3 and gaining a spot in the quarter finals despite struggling in the opening set.  In one of the most exciting matches of the night, Austrian Haider Maurer defeated Germany’s Lars Poerschke 6-3, 3-6 and 6-3 in a hotly contested battle that lasted almost two hours .

Mexico was well represented in last night’s matches, though crowd favourite Bruno Rodriguez was ultimately defeated by Marcel Felder from Uruguay.  Despite the loss, the crowd enthusiastically applauded the efforts of the Mexican player.  The Mexican doubles team, Bruno Echagaray and Miguel Gallardo-Valles move forward in the tournament, defeating the team of Nicolás Lapentti from Ecuador and hometown hero Marco Antonio Pacheco, a coach at Club Casablanca Cancun.

The tournament continues this week, with the final games to be played on Sunday November 22nd.  Cancun Travel will be at Club Casablanca tonight for more world class tennis matches and the “Sport and Fashion” runway show featuring clothes and accessories from top designers.  We’ll have more photos up soon, check out our Facebook page for a peek at all the action from Cancun.  Stay tuned!

Why do tourists visit Cancun?  Some like the nightlife, some like the world class spas, some like to relax with a book and others prefer to explore and be adventurous.  The one thing that all visitors to Cancun have in common is a love for the beach.  The soft white sands of the Mexican Caribbean lure millions of visitors each year.  So what is Cancun to do when erosion starts to wash away it’s powdery shores?  They bring in the experts to restore the beaches to their former glory.

In October 2005, Hurricane Wilma devastated the resort towns in the state of Quintana Roo, not only destroying buildings, but washing away the beaches with her powerful force.  The government of Mexico spent millions of dollars to recover the beaches, but found that they quickly eroded when they did not follow through on a maintenance plan  After several years of planning and discussion, the new beach recovery project is underway in Cancun, this time with a ten year plan to maintain the beaches they are working so hard to rebuild.  The plan has faced controversy as environmental groups protest the dredging of sand from the delicate eco-system while the government insists that they are doing all they can to minimize the impact.

The beach recovery project officially began October 31st, 2009, with the first sands being pumped onto the shore behind the Sunset Hotel.  There are two large dredging ships, bringing 5000 cubic meters of sand from a deposit near Isla Mujeres to the shores of Cancun.  Smaller boats manipulate the large pipes that carry the sand from the ship to the shore and a small “panga” style boat controls a “fence” in the water to prevent the freshly blown sand from returning to sea.  On shore, construction equipment and a large crew move the sand into position, creating a new beach of about 80 meters (with the expectation that there will indeed be a small amount of erosion during the process, the goal is to have at least 50 meters of new beach).

The project will cover the length of the east side of the hotel zone of Cancun, with an estimated three months for completion.  Once the work in Cancun is complete, the crews will move to Isla Mujeres, then to Playa del Carmen and finally to Cozumel.

This morning I took a little trip to the hotel zone to see how things were progressing, have a peek at our Cancun beach recovery Flickr set and enjoy the views, the beaches are going to be spectacular!  Cancun Travel will continue to provide updated photos of the project over the next few months.  While we would love to be able to tell you when each hotel will be affected by the work, it’s just impossible, nobody knows for sure, but we’ll do our best to keep you posted with the information available to us.  Viva Cancun, Viva la Playa!

Tennis anyone?

Club Casablanca is THE place to be November 16-22, 2009 as some of the top men’s tennis players in the world come to Cancun for the ATP Challenger Tour. With a top prize of $35 000 USD and a chance to earn ATP ranking points, the tournament will bring world class talent to the Mexican Caribbean to compete.

The ATP Challenger Tour is a vital step for up and coming tennis stars. The tournaments provide great opportunities for players to gain ATP ranking points, as well as bringing first class entertainment to the fans of the game. The world’s top tennis talents started with the Challenger Tour, including Pete Sampras, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. The tournament at Club Casablanca is a chance to see the future greats of tennis at work.

Top players from around the world will be fighting for victory, including Peru’s Rui Machado and former Olympic champion from Chile, Nicolas Massu. Santiago González from Veracruz, Mexico has had some impressive performances this year, he’s one to watch and will have the Mexican fans cheering from the sidelines.

Club Casablanca is proud to present this world class event, bringing top level talent to the community of Cancun. The tournament is open to the public, contact the club for more information regarding tickets.

If you can’t make the tournament, we’ll bring it to you! Cancun Travel will be reporting live from the events on Twitter and Facebook and we couldn’t be more excited.  Follow us on or join our fan page to keep up with all the action.

After days of watching weather sites and waiting for the arrival of Hurricane Ida, the people of Cancun have breathed a sigh of relief as the Yucatan Peninsula was left virtually untouched by the storm. Hurricane Ida passed through the Yucatan channel on Sunday November 8, 2009, coming closest to Cancun around midday. While Friday and Saturday the city was drenched with rain and the streets were flooded, Sunday was a very quiet day. Very little rain and no wind to speak of. With a category 2 hurricane passing by, this was quite an odd phenomenon, one that meteorologists claim was the result of a very tightly wrapped weather system. Local authorities were prepared for the worst, refugee centers were ready for any evacuees and the civil protection agency was out in force, blocking access to the beach because of the high waves and encouraging people to stay home. If Hurricane Ida had been worse, the city was prepared to protect both the citizens of Cancun and the tourists in the area. Whatever the reason for the peace we are grateful that Ida did not exert her full force upon us.

Carlos n Charlies Sunday Afternoon- Adios Ida!

Monday has dawned fresh and sunny, the heat is back and life returns to normal. Reports from the hotel zone indicate that the waves created by Ida have had a limited impact on the beach recovery project that started last week, taking some sand but not destroying the work completely. Tourists are relaxing on loungers and entertainment teams are rounding people up for tequila volleyball. Tour operations are running, bartenders are mixing and sun burns are in the making, all is well in our little corner of paradise. Hopefully this will be the end of the 2009 hurricane season and we won’t have to do a storm report until next year. Or the year after, that would be even better.