Are there Beach Clubs in the hotel zone that locals can join in Cancun? Not a condo, but somewhere that you can go anytime of the year with the family to spend the day at a pool or beach.
The City beach club - 100 pesos. Or go for breakfast at the Fiesta Americana and stay for the day (breakfast 250 pesos)
You can buy a timeshare at the Casa Maya for about $50 USD...I've seen them for less even (I think on eBay). Then you can use their pool all year long, even when it's not your week (or at least that used to be the case). Yes you have to pay the yearly maintenance fee too, but then you also have a week there that you can rent out or give to your mother in law or whatever. JohnDish told me about this, I think he did it. I never did it, but maybe I should.
We have friends who live at Casa Maya full time and other friends who spend 5 months a year there. Believe me, it is not a cost effective deal. Maintenance exceeds a thousand dollars a month. After 45 days you pay an additional thirty-five dollars a day for the right to stay in your own apartment, because they want to shuffle your apartment into the time share pool. Full-time residents, or part-time residents who don't want to have Casa Maya to put their properties into the pool have to negtiate a deal to lower the 35 dollar daily fee. Apartment prices are hovering around 90 thousand dollars. There are no "passes" as such, although you can get courtesy cards at the request of an owner that gives you access to the facility, but only if the owner is in residence. You can only use the lounges, palapas and the pools. The gym is off limits and the bar is cash only. You need to get towel vouchers from the front desk, but you can keep them as long as your pass is valid. We have such a pass, courtesy of our friends. It is inspected closely each time we go there. You surrender the pass in order to get the official blue towels, and if you're on a chair or lounge with a non-official towel you will have to explain to their security staff what you're doing there. It's a very pleasant place if your in the system, not so much if you're not, as many locals find when they try to use a vacant lounge. The beach itself is so big that there is plenty of "public" room and it seems to be quite popular.
Playa Cabana is nice (the City beach club) or you can go to Coco's Grill on the north side (also called Chac Chi Marina).
Could that be because they own 52 weeks? I'm talking about buying one week. Anyway, I didn't actually investigate this thoroughly myself, so I don't know that it does make sense, or that it works. But a timeshare expert is the person who told me about it, so I think it, at least, may have made sense at some point in the past. And it's a neat idea if it works. From looking at a few Casa Maya timeshares that are for sale I see that the maintenance is around $300 to $350 a year, for one week. Of course it is certainly overkill if you only want to go to the beach once in a while.
Excuse me. Brain fog. I lost a good friend yesterday and I'm kind of distracted. Of course you were talking about weekly ownership of a share and I was thinking of owning the propert outright. Sorry for the misconstrual.
