Ama - Ask Me Anything

Wow that's a lot of questions. I'll try and get through them later today.

 

There are a few stories that stand out. I'll add I've never seen any 'slimy surprises' not from the guys anyway.

The funniest I recall was a naked guy wearing a horse head mask. I forget how the situation arose, but he started getting a blow job. Due to the limited visibility through the mask he couldn't see who it was. He had his hands behind his head and was clearly enjoying the experience. Everyone was laughing.

A minute or so later he took the mask off, to find that the person giving the blowjob was a gay guy from Montreal. He just shrugged and said "a blowjob is a blowjob".

 

The main factor was when website income exceeded that of my regular day job.

I bought the domain name cancuncare.com in August 2002 for $7. I had already met Jannet 4 years previously, and she had been living in the UK with me for several years. I've always been the kind of person who rather than veg out on the sofa watching TV after work, I'd try to learn new things.

I learned to make a website and used it to show some photos of tours we had taken in Cancun with a description about how to get there what to do etc. Places like Xcaret, Chichen Itza etc and some general Cancun info like weather, transportation, nightclubs and restaurants.

In those days there was no YouTube or online tutorials, so I had to learn from the book 'HTML for Dummies'. I think Amazon existed back then, but it was fledgling and no one really used online shopping in the same way they do now, so I bought the book from a real bookstore in town.

Websites about Cancun were much less competitive back then and there were only a handful, but much to my surprise the site started getting good traffic. I was already friends with Brant the owner of USA Transfers, and he set up a system whereby he'd pay me a commission for any tour or transport sales I could generate for him. I added some of his links to my website pages and was making sales daily, just $3-$10 per sale but it grew to 10 or so every day.

At that time I was a member of a Cancun forum, which has long since disappeared. The Moderator was a complete jerk, he'd edit people's posts to make them appear they had said things they had not. He'd allow death threats to run and relished a good argument himself. I thought to myself a forum could be run much better than that. So I set out to start my own.

I had a 'friend' from the other forum set up the technical side of things because it was way beyond me in those days. Anyhow, the forum got busier and I wanted to begin monetizing it with my links to tours and transfers etc. The person who helped set up the forum disagreed and said it should be free of monetization. They had set it up, they didn't want paying for it, and that I shouldn't expect to make money from something they had done.

We kind of had a fall out about it. One morning I woke up and the whole forum and database had been deleted. I called my boss and asked for a days annual leave and spent the next 20 hrs or so learning everything I didn't know before and had a functional, but empty forum, the following day.

Also had a second experience not long after where the hosting company I was using went bust and again I lost the forum. I had my main website files backed up, but the database was too large to download (128K Internet days). I had to find a new hosting company and set it up from scratch again, this time it was easier since I had already done it before.

That's why my join date is Feb 2003, and not Oct 2002 which was the first forum system.

We'd already been to Temptation (Blue Bay Getaway) a couple of times and had some friends who visited there much the same as we all do today. We started a BBG section which became popular and with another (more trustworthy) partner we bought up 5,ooo Premier nights. We would sell them in blocks of 3, 5 or 7 nights and put 20% on top.

We found that we could undercut online providers by some margin and provide the 'gold band benefits'. In those days there were only about 50 Premier rooms and at busy times we would sell the entire allocation. Several years later Premier pulled out of the deal because we were selling too many and their non-cancuncare clients couldn't get a room. I believe this was where the referral system was born, although the hotel didn't introduce that until several years later.

Anyway the above is the first two years in a nutshell. We began to make a higher income from the website than my day job. I wondered how much more successful we could be running the site full time from Cancun, rather than part-time from the UK.

The double income was nice, but my employer had a one-year sabbatical system, and I was losing interest in my day job in any case. I could take an absence for one year without pay and have the option to return with the same salary and position.

I was approved for that, we sold the house and everything in it. During that process, we discovered Jannet was pregnant with our first child. We almost cancelled the whole thing, or at least delay it. But after careful consideration, we realised it was likely now or never.

In September 2004 we moved to Cancun with three suitcases, one of which was full of computer parts and around $30,000 from our house sale which would be enough to get us through the year even if things went wrong.

We had nowhere to live so the plan was to stay at Blue Bay while we searched for a place. 4 weeks later we thought we really should start looking for a place soon and after 6 weeks at BBG we moved into our new rented place. Our daughter was born in December that same year and will be 16 later this year.

I'll answer the second part later. I'm a bit typed out for now.

 

Not really. I guess now is not the time for making big investments in infrastructure. I'm aware they have emptied the pools and repaired tile etc, replaced the floors at the Pool Bar and made some improvements at the Premier Bar. They've been thoroughly cleaning, repainting, re-varnishing etc etc but no major changes I'm aware of.

 

I'm a Brit not Canadian

I'll take it you mean interference from cartels?

In my case never.

My business is online. I work from home, there's no physical location. I keep my personal details such as address and phone number private. We live in a place with heavy security. I don't associate with any dodgy people or get involved in anything that could bring me into contact with them. I have had some threats over the years, but they have been from people banned from the forum or FB group and nothing transpired.

The Boobs Cruise has a slightly higher risk, but I don't own the boats nor employ the crew (other than the Ents staff and DJ). The rest is owned by Albatros, who are the same family as the hotel owners. If anyone wanted to mess with the Boobs Cruise they'd have to mess with the family. They are pretty powerful and I like to consider them somewhat of a shield, although they probably wouldn't consider themselves that way.

Anywhere where there is a physical location, especially where it could be used for drug sales like a bar is risky. These days even businesses like barber shops and street food vendors may be targeted for extortion money.

If you meant something else, let me know and I'll try to answer.

 

Answered some of that above. But in general I regard Mexico as safe for the average citizen. There was probably more chance of random assaults and robbery in my home town in the UK than there is here. When we fist moved here I would think nothing of walking back 2 miles home from a bar by myself at 2am in the morning. I wouldn't (nor couldn't) do it now.

In 16 years we have had one incident where our house was broken into and things stolen while we were out (not our current place) and one incident where someone attempted to rob Jannet of her bag in a car park. She fought them off and got away.

I also witnessed a person shot dead a couple of months ago in a mall parking lot about 100 feet away - he had robbed someone at gunpoint. The victim's family caught up with him and either shot him with his own gun or theirs. That was the first and only time I have heard gun shots.

We currently live in a gated community, which doesn't really feel like it as there are around 500 houses. Security is very strict. There are probably about 20 guys at any one time. No one gets in without a resident pass. Visitors must have been pre-notified to security and have to leave an id with them. We have constant patrols with guys on mopeds and small cars, they even follow the trash collection around. Contractors, delivery drivers, taxis and construction workers also have a strict check in/ check out procedure and must leave id.

The residents have recently expressed some concern with the virus situation increasing security risks, since this is probably the best and most expensive area of Cancun to live. The administration have installed new security gates and will hire armed security if the situation warrants it.

Benefits:
The weather
The people
Beautiful places to visit
Most people would say the food -I'm not a fan myself
Always on vacation feel

Drawbacks
Bureaucracy
Driving standards
Corrupt Police
A long way from home
Utility prices

New gates:

 

I don't think any other hotel ever did, in the same way Temptation / Desire has.

There have been some attempts over the years - Oasis Viva, Golden Parnassus, Oasis Sens, Breathless are the only four that have ever positively endorsed topless. All of them either changed ownership and with it their theme, or tightened up their policy. In my opinion, they were all 'half assed' attempts.

I do think there is a larger and increasing market for the concept, but I really don't know why other places have not tried to capture their share of it.