A 5-star Resort In Mexico With flights Costs less than a Florida hotel
Think Mexico is expensive? We’ll show you that can get passports, fly round trip to Cancun, and stay at a five-star resort for less than what a Hilton Garden Inn in Florida costs.
This isn’t some trick to finding a deal like this. It’s simply how expensive Florida beach hotels are compared to resorts in Mexico.
Rising Prices in Florida
We’ve experienced sky-high prices when searching for beach hotels in Florida for the last several years. Data from Hopper predicts hotel prices to remain high in 2024.
For this article, we researched prices at the Hilton Garden Inn in Ft Walton Beach, a newer, mid-range hotel located right on the beach. But is it worth over $500 a night? We’ll compare it to some other options.
For a 7-night stay in July (we’ll use these dates for the whole article), the total rate comes to a shockingly expensive $4107 for a 7-night stay, with free cancellation up to two nights prior.
This price is for 2 adults and 2 kids and the lowest category room (not including a slightly cheaper ADA-accessible room). The room price goes down slightly if you book a non-refundable room.
This price excludes meals besides a Hilton Honors credit for gold/diamond members. Between hotel and food, it’d be easy enough for a family of four to spend over $6000 for a week here.
So what are the other options?
Five-Star Luxury in Mexico
So if a Garden Inn in Ft Walton Beach costs $4100 for a week, what do you think this five-star InterContinental resort in Cancun costs?
This stunning 5-star property boasts multiple pools, a swim-up bar, and beachfront access – all for just $1,667. That’s about a third of the price of the Garden Inn in Ft Walton Beach.
We’re big fans of resorts in Mexico, especially all-inclusives. They’re some of the best value you can find. One of our favorite resorts anywhere is the Hyatt Ziva Cancun, which we reviewed here.
InterContinental is a luxury, high end brand. We’ve stayed at several of them, and the quality is way higher than what you’ll find at a Garden Inn.
The beach in this section of Cancun is extremely nice. The water is warmer and clearer than what you’ll find in Florida. In this picture we took from the Hyatt Ziva, you can see the InterContinental in the far distance
Prefer an all-inclusive resort? We’ve got an option for that too, further in the article. This InterContinental isn’t an all-inclusive price, but keep in mind it’s $3500 cheaper than a mid-range hotel in Florida (which is also not an all-inclusive resort).
Getting To Mexico
You’re probably saying “Yeah, but getting to Mexico is way more expensive than getting to Florida”. Maybe not.
We checked Google Flights (the best flight search tool available) from Atlanta (other large cities were only slightly more) for the dates of this stay.
Roundtrip flights for a family of four from Atlanta to Cancun on Frontier Airlines during those same dates only cost $1,432, plus fees for bags or seat selection.
Here’s the tally so far:
- Florida Hotel (with no flights): $4,107
- Cancun Hotel + Flights: $3,099
That’s a difference of over $1000! So you can fly to Cancun, stay at a luxury resort, and have $1000 left over what you would pay to stay at a Florida hotel.
Passports?
“We’d love to goto Mexico, we just need our passports”. With the money we’ve already saved you, you can even cover the cost of getting passports for your entire family.
The current total cost for passports (see more on the State Department website):
- Adult: $165
- Child: $135
For a total of $600. An update on the running total:
- Florida Hotel (with no flights): $4,107
- Cancun Hotel + Flights + Passport: $3,699
So you’ve got a luxury resort, round-trip flights, and even a passport for less than just a hotel in Florida. And the passports are good for 10 years of future trips (5 years for kids).
All-Inclusive Vacation
We mentioned at the beginning that a week in Florida would take you over $6000 (easily) after you add on food for a family of four. Here’s an all-inclusive option in Cancun that includes all your food and drinks for a week.
A week at the Hilton Cancun Mar Caribe All-Inclusive Resort comes to $4,223 for a family of four (two adults and two children).
Conclusion
The price of resorts in Cancun (and Mexico in general) compared to Florida, makes it a great choice for your next vacation.
