An interesting report from Cancun featured at the Sun Sentinel which reaffirms what I am hearing from other places. Cancun Hotels are doing everything they can to reopen their properties after Wilma for the peak travel season, but the properties are not quite ready. The benefit for the brave traveler is that you can stay at a top rate property for a very reasonable rate. As long as you are willing to overlook issues that normally would not be there.

My Cancun hotel, the five-star Gran Costa Real, was listed as “open” by the Cancun tourism people, and it was. But the elevator wasn’t working (my room was on the fifth floor), the restaurants weren’t fully operational and the hammering was still going strong at 4 a.m.

The pool at Casa Mexicana, my Cozumel hotel listed as “open,” was empty. The escalator leading from the street to the lobby wasn’t working; the noise from ongoing midday repairs was ear-shattering. Only a marvelous staff, and an $80 price on a very nice room, saved it.

It will be months before everything in Wilma-tized Cancun and Cozumel (and the few hard-hit bits of the Riviera Maya) approaches normalcy. Airlines resumed flights quickly (service to Cozumel began three days after the storm, with planes landing visually while the control tower was out of commission), but schedules to both Cancun and Cozumel are reduced now and are likely to remain less than they were through the winter season.

If You Go: Cancun: South Florida Sun-Sentinel.