Air New Zealand is trying a unique approach to get people to watch that safety video. In a video titled “Bare essentials of safety from Air New Zealand” they have Air New Zealand staff wearing only body paint and shot from strategic angles or behind props. The video thanks the crew for “going all out”. It will be interesting to see how other airlines will respond.
I shot this photo from the Royal Park resort on my recent travel blogger trip there. Cozumel has some very nice sunsets.
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I found myself making acquaintance again today with the Mexico City airport and availing myself of the opportunity to again consume tacos al pastor. I was through this airport on a trip this previous February. I could not help but notice at this tie the differences between the circumstances of the two trips. The Amateur Traveler show has enabled both trips but in a very different fashion. In February I took some of the proceeds from the show and spent them on a trip to Mexico (Mexico City and Oaxaca). This trip was being sponsored by Royal Holiday. They flew me down to Cozumel to show me the Park Royal resort in the hope that I would have a good time and write about it.
I enjoyed both my trip to Mexico City and Cozumel though to be sure two trips had little in common besides the passport stamp.
Crime
Mexico City can be an intimidating city with regard to safety and crime. The U.S. state department actually has language in their recommendations on Mexico City travel to avoid hailing a taxi on the street unless you want to die or some frightening words to that effect. On the plane into Cozumel I met an American who works as a security consultant who was flying down to close on a house. Before purchasing the house he has done a lot of research and said that Cozumel has almost no crime. Sandra, who works for Park Royal, told the story of a woman who was picking up a rental jeep. She was told it was a blue jeep, was on such and such a street downtown and the keys were in the car. As it turns out there were two blue jeeps on that street with the keys in them and she took the wrong one, but no one bothered to tell her until she checked in the wrong jeep. They assumed correctly that her mistake was accidental.
Infrastructure
Mexico City is a massive city that some predict will someday succumb to its own demand for resources and to its own pollution (underestimating the Mexico City inhabitants according to many). Cozumel also has limited resources as an isolated island. For this reason hotels when they were rebuilt, after the near total devastation caused by hurricane WIlma in 2005, were required to build:
Cultural Distance
While Mexico City can certainly be intimidating there is no doubt that it supports a vibrant culture. The distance between Mexico City and the US was heightened by avoiding the Zona Rosa district which has become somewhat of a tourist gheto.
Cozumel has an economy centered around tourism and thus often seems to have less distance between it and the United States which is one of its major customers. Cozumel seems to be a gateway to Mexico for those who are not ready to jump into Mexico with both feet. Cozumel is a place that will be very comfortable to Americans. It is a place where you do not need to speak Spanish and at times it seemed to me to be more like an extension of Florida rather than a foreign country. This will of course recommend it to some travelers and take it off the list for others.
Urban Jungle / Tropical Jungle
There is no mistaking from the moment that you fly over Mexico City the vastness of that city. Nor is there mistaking that you are on a tropical island as you fly in to Cozumel. The color of the water is strikingly beautiful in a way that I have only seen in the Caribbean. The landscape of the island seems only partly to be settled at all with much of the island still jungle. Almost all of the hotels are on the side of the island facing the other resort cities of the Mayan riviera. The far side of the island is more windswept, rugged and uninhabited. The Mayans believed that a woman should make a pilgrimage to Cozumel (to what we now know as San Gervasio) at least once as it was associated with fertility. I have no doubt that more than one honeymoon couple has found Cozumel to still have some claim on fertility.
So I find that I enjoyed both trips but in very different ways. Mexico City is a way to dive in deep into Mexico. It is challenging, exciting and bustling. Cozumel is welcoming, beautiful and relaxing. It is still Mexico, but not the one you have been seeing on the evening news. And speaking of the evening news, no so far as I have been able to learn there have not been cases of swine flu on Cozumel.
I am in Cozumel this weekend and I was flown down here by the Park Royal Resort to review the property (more about that soon). For the flight down they flew me in first class which I never purchase myself (and told them I did not think they needed to provide such for travel bloggers). The last time that I flew first class I was in elementary school so it was interesting for me to see what a first class ticket will buy.
The Comfy Chair
There is no question that a 1st class airline seat has more space for anyone who say… has legs. It is a treat to be able to cross my legs or to lean back and get some sleep after getting on a flight at 6AM. The seat is also wide with extra space between you and your seat mate. First class travelers, on American Airlines at least, still get blankets.
Power to the People
As someone who always travels with a laptop it is a joy to get a power outlet (you need a DC adapter) at the seat so that on a long flight I could catch up on email, edit an episode of the Amateur Traveler, etc. With most airports making it way too difficult to find a power outlet I am usually low on power by the time I even get on the plane.
Coffee, Tea or…
It is strangely civilized to be offered a juice or a glass of water while we wait for the riff-raff in the back to settle in. Getting a meal on a plane is a wonderful throwback. Having to choose between the red and white wine they were pouring was a terrific dilemma. Fresh baked cookies was a treat. The biggest difference seems to be that with a lot fewer people in first class the flight attendants seem a lot less rushed.
So… will I be purchasing first class tickets only from now on? Not likely. While I can certainly enjoy the experience of traveling with the mucky mucks, I can’t imagine deciding that those benefits are worth doubling the ticket price.
I have always liked this picture of Piazza San Marco taken looking down on it from the campanile on the square. I loved the black and white nature of the scene offset by the brightly color umbrella of a vendor selling food for the pigeons.
Except on the one occasion where I saw Piazza San Marco in the light of pre-dawn the piazza seems always filled with both pigeons and with tourists content to be pigeon perches. In the pre-dawn the square is so completely empty as to unrecognizable.
Copyright 2009 by Chris Christensen
