Cancun - The Final Verdict

On Thursday, day six, we packed up our things, said goodbye to the Grand Oasis forever (we won't be going back there), and headed home. I was ready. While I knew Sullivan was perfectly fine in the care of his doting grandmas, I missed my little boy. I had certainly appreciated the simple pleasures his company doesn't often provide, like eating a full meal in peace, or laying on the beach without playing lifeguard, but I still missed his little face terribly. Going home to him made leaving paradise a lot easier.

So, the final verdict on our cruising vs. all-inclusive test-run? We unanimously agreed that we both prefer cruising 100% over all-inclusives, and below is a little list of the reasons why...

• The food. We are used to cruising with Carnival, which is the bottom of the barrel as far as cruise food is concerned (Royal Caribbean and Holland America have better food, in our opinion), but we would have taken Carnival food any day over what was offered at the Grand Oasis. And one of the reasons we chose to stay at Grand Oasis was because everyone raved about the food on tripadvisor.com, which I do not understand!?   
• The rooms. The rooms might be tiny on a ship, but they're all clean and they're all equally nice. I realize that our hotel's heirarchy system of issuing renovated rooms vs non-renovated rooms is probably not the norm, however, when you book a room on a cruise-ship, you know exactly what to expect. And if you have a problem with you room, you can be sure it will be remedied asap. 
• The customer service. On a cruise ship each employee is a customer service pro and will do anything at all to make you happy. Not so much in Mexico. 
• Ship days...aka mandatory rest days when you have no choice but to sleep in, eat food, and do nothing at all. At the all-inclusive we kept ourselves pretty busy, wanting to take advantage of everything Cancun had to offer in the little time we were there. We did allot one day to nothing-ness, but we should have allotted at least two. :)
• The price. We spent $2000 for 5 days at an all-inclusive with flights included. For that same price we could have spent 7 days on a ship with flights included.  

The only advantage I can think of to all-inclusives is the cultural experience. On cruises you merely dip your toe into a new culture each day, while actually staying put in one place for a few days gives you a chance for total immersion. A chance to ride the local bus system and miss your stop and get lost in the ghetto. A chance to go to the Sunday night fiesta and fill yourself full of churros and tacos. And stuff like that is pretty fun. But I still prefer a cruise ship.