After a nice flight we were getting very close to finally starting our vacation in Puerto Aventuras. We had to fill out two forms – a customs form and immigration form. Filling these out on the plane before you arrive will speed things up for you. Mental note – bring a pen on your flight – they will not provide you with one.

When you arrive, have your passport/birth certificate, customs and immigration forms ready. Actually, I should make a special note here. Before you leave for your trip, I highly recommend that you get some kind of small file folder to store all of your important papers. Organization is the key to success. You don’t want to spend half your time fumbling around looking for your boarding passes and other important documents. Find something to keep all of this stuff in and use it for your entire trip.

Once you have passed through immigration and collected your bags you will next go through customs. You have to push a button which will show either a red or green light. If you get the green light you can proceed without them searching your bags. If you get the red light, they will search your bags. When we went several people pushed the button and it was green every time….so maybe it is rigged?

Customs should take part of your immigration form and give you the bottom part. Keep this as you will need it when you return home.

And now…for the stressful part!

Ok, once you go through customs you can find yourself overwhelmed if you’re not careful. There are tons of timeshare sales people everywhere and people that will want to take your luggage. They can be quite aggressive, so stay focused. The main thing you will want to do is

IGNORE THE TIMESHARE SALES PEOPLE!!

When we arrived they seemed to all be wearing white shirts with red ties. I don’t know if that is the way it always is, but it probably is. The best thing you can do is look forward, don’t look at them or say a word and keep walking forward. If you waste time with these people you very well may miss your shuttle to your final destination. If your final destination is Cancun, it isn’t as big of a deal as it isn’t that far.

If you are going an hour or so away, then it is a bigger deal as you don’t want to pay a fortune for your cab fare. The luggage handler guys aren’t as big of a deal and in a way, it’s kind of nice to have someone haul your luggage off for you. But, don’t think they will do it for free. They will likely take you to an area where tons of other tourists are milling around – some about to lose their minds.

This is the point where you may or may not lose your mind yourself…and I really don’t have good advice here….unless you speak Spanish!

When we arrived there were at least a hundred people waiting to be taken to their hotel/resort. The guy who took our luggage left and we were pretty much in the dark as to what shuttle to take and who to ask for help. We would ask one person for help and they would leave and go do something else. We persisted pretty aggressively and finally got on a shuttle. I’m not sure how long it would have taken if we would have just stood there.

The best advice I can offer is to possibly “buddy up” with another couple who is going to the same resort as you. Try to find someone while waiting for your flight to board. Try calling your travel agent and specially ask for advice in this area as well.

Anyway, don’t worry too much about this…but be ready. If anyone has any advice in this area, please leave a comment below. UPDATE: I started a thread about this topic and there are some good answers here.

One other thing…if you have anything fragile in your luggage and you don’t want it broken, put it on your lap while riding the shuttle. I made the mistake of giving them my carry on luggage and they broke my underwater camera. Thanks, FunJet! There was a lot of luggage on the shuttle and mine ended up on the bottom.

Now…once you get on the road, you will finally be able to relax. I don’t want to scare anyone away – only prepare you – so when you do arrive you will be ready and not overwhelmed.

Coming up next… the vacation begins!