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The Best of Costa Maya


smiling1

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April 4 was my first visit to this wonderful port, and like many of you, I turned to this site for ideas on where to go. We had a wonderful day in Majahual, and though we spend the majority of it at one establishment, we made a point to walk the strip and try out some others we had heard about from this site to make the most of our experience. I just wanted to share my findings with you so you can experience and decide for yourself depending on what is important to you.

 

Best Beach: Pez Quadro. They have more beachfront that many others.

Best Food: Cat's Meow. The fajitas and coconut shrimp were out of this world.

Best Chips and Salsa: El Faro. Fresh vegetables and perfect flavor. Spicy without being too hot. And, it was free!

Biggest Margaritas for the price: Cat's Meow. A large "real" margarita glass as restaurants in the states would serve it in was $4. Many other places charged $4 or $5 for a small plastic cup. Pretty tasty too.

Best Tasting Margaritas: Pez Quadro. So what if it was $5 for a small plastic glass. It was clear they used fresh lime juice, not a concentrated mix (the bartender confirmed this). It was the quintessential margarita.

Best Massage for the price: White canopy next to El Faro. $20 will buy you a full hour, full body massage just like your favorite spa would charge you at 4 times the price. I read where most others got 45 min. for $20 elsewhere.

Best Beer Value: Almost all the restaurants will sell buckets of 6 beers for $10. Don't pay more for beer than this.

Free use of chairs & tables: El Faro. Others may do this, but none of the restaurants with vacancy at the time we arrived would.

Most lively waitstaff: Tapas. These guys wore green t-shirts that said "Kiss Me I'm Irish". They were all comics who knew how to entertain and get a crowd pumped.

Best Music: Tapas and Pez Quadro. The both played a mixture of dance, latin, and calypso to enhance the flavor of the atmosphere.

Best Service: El Faro. Our waitress, Adrianna took care of us like we were guests in her home. And, she would not accept a dime in payment until we were ready to leave for the day--even when we walked to get massages or to visit other places. We are firm believers in tipping, and she earned our respect as well as the cash we gladly left for her.

 

Hope you find this helpful. Enjoy Costa Maya!!!!!:)

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Thank you, thank you, your information is quite helpful!!! I have read that Pez Quadro has a nice beach, when your arrive at Majahaul, how do you find it exactly, I just remember little bars all down the beach, is this the name of one of the bars? B

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biebz,

Pez Quadro is close to the end of the strip on the waterfront side.

 

Thanks for the kind comments everyone. I hope this is truly helpful. We just tried to soak up all we could from our 6 hour day. I'm looking forward to the day when this little port has its own airport and resorts so we can go there directly for a longer stay. But then again, I wouldn't want it to lose its charm & become to commercialized. Guess we should enjoy it while it's still new!

 

Have a great time!:)

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We really enjoyed our time in Mayahual. My DH had gone on a horse-riding excursion so I walked around the village taking photos while he was away. At the end of the horse-riding trip (which he said was great), my DH walked from the Tequila Beach Resort over to Mayahual and enjoyed a cold beer and a great massage.

The link in my signature has photos of Costa Maya.

Great place.

Kathy

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smiling1 - thanks for all the info - we plan to be beach bums in Costa Maya, and you have made where, what and why so easy. I will try those margaritas for sure and looking forward to that massage.

 

tomko2 - that beach pic is calling my name - I can't wait to claim one of those chairs (with margarita in hand) and listen to the waves.

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We really enjoyed our time in Mayahual. My DH had gone on a horse-riding excursion so I walked around the village taking photos while he was away. At the end of the horse-riding trip (which he said was great), my DH walked from the Tequila Beach Resort over to Mayahual and enjoyed a cold beer and a great massage.

The link in my signature has photos of Costa Maya.

Great place.

Kathy

 

Kathy, I loved all your pics, we'll be going to Belize, Costa Maya, Cozumel and Grand Cayman in July/early August. I cant wait!!

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Kallel, awesome photos; what type of camera do you use?

 

IslandDreaming, the islands are great and except for Belize (we didn't go to a beach there) all the places you are going to visit have terrific beaches --- enjoy your cruise.

 

Kathy

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Kalle100

 

Your picture of Majahual is gorgeous! We will be going to Costa Maya in October and I've been a little bit apprehensive about it because I've been told it's very primitive. Your photo has shown me that it is also very beautiful there, and now I am getting excited about going.

 

Thanks for posting the photo, and I'd also love to know what camera you used.

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That's on Majahual. It's super easy to get there, you walk out of Costa Maya, and ask for a taxi to the beach. They drive you there in a small mini-bus of like 6 people, and it's something like 3$ per person to get there. My photos (for those who asked) were taken with a Nikon D70 & a cheap (but sharp!!) 50mm F/1.8 lens ... I didn't dare bring my better stuff on the beach :D Don't worry about going back to the Port area there's always real taxis waiting to bring you back there (all you ask is a ride back to port) for like 5$. I must say when we GOT to Costa Maya itself, we really felt pity for the HUGE crowd that seemed to hang there and didn't know there was a georgous beach waiting for them 10 minutes away heh.

 

 

The beach is beautifull, but dis-organized, very Mexican'ish. There's some buildings that are , humm unfinished or wrecked like this:

 

 

77168259.Qz2KksHP.ExplorerSeas_1598.jpg

 

and there's boats parked everywhere on the beach like this:

 

 

77168256.S0MPO9Se.ExplorerSeas_1595.jpg

 

 

But there's more than enough areas where you can sit & relax, have a beautifull beach in front of you.

 

Here's me playing run & dive in the water (there's like some Sand Dunes in the water where it's very shallow, so I was running on those and diving int he water, maybe 3 feet deep):

 

 

77418189.vpXemqd0.ExplorerSeas_1681.jpg

 

 

77418190.lrr7mRrP.ExplorerSeas_1682.jpg

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. My photos (for those who asked) were taken with a Nikon D70 & a cheap (but sharp!!) 50mm F/1.8 lens ...

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks, now I know what to shop for when we buy a new camera -- your photos are terrific.

Kathy

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For those thinking about better cameras.... Look into the D40, D50 and D80 Nikons as all are newer then the D70s... higher the number better the camera but you can get amazing results (way better then a point and shoot with any of them)

 

I shoot with the D200 and D70s as back up.

 

Happy shooting!

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Here's a direct link to the photo (for some reason it won't appear on my previous post!) of me running & diving into the water. I was about 10-15 feet away from the beach border. You can see the dark blue parts where the water is very shallow (and people are standing there), and the pale blue parts where the water is about 3-4 feet deep. VERY VERY cool to swim there.

 

http://www.pbase.com/martinef/image/77418190

 

 

77418190.lrr7mRrP.ExplorerSeas_1682.jpg

 

 

 

P.S. d-SRLs are fun to use but they`re a serious pita to carry around. I'm pretty sure my beach pics would've been just as good with a normal digicam.

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