YYZ
✈
CUN

CANCÚN
2027

Nine of us, five nights of sun, fun, food and family. Here's where the planning stands.

— days out, give or take
Planning progress4 of 10 locked in

Live status

The board

Everything that has to happen before we're standing in the lobby with a drink. Green is settled, amber is in progress, orange needs a human.

Moon Palace The Grand · updated 27 Jul 2026
Resort
Moon Palace The Grand — three rooms, all-inclusive
Locked
The crew
Nine travellers, two households — everyone's in
Locked
Rooms
Who's in which room is sorted
Locked
Length
Five nights — the extra night pays for itself in resort perks
Locked
Dates
Flying out between 2 and 7 Feb — six options left, picking on price
Choosing
Flights
Toronto to Cancún nonstop, out early, back late afternoon
Pricing
Room rate
Quote coming — booking straight after the flights, not waiting for a sale
Pricing
Passports
Kyren's first one has arrived — everyone else needs to check their expiry
Your move
Insurance
Kam, Gowsh and Kyren need their own travel medical
Your move
Booked
Nothing paid yet — nobody owes anything today
Not yet

Timing

When we're going

The exact dates aren't picked yet, but the window has narrowed to six possible start days — we fly out somewhere between the 2nd and the 7th of February. We're taking whichever comes out cheapest across flights and rooms together, and booking as soon as we know.

Earliest out
Tue 2 Feb
Exams run to 1 February and Ruben has to be there for all of them. The 2nd is a PA day for him, so he leaves on a day off.
Latest back
Fri 12 Feb
A PA day for the school kids, and it rolls straight into the Family Day long weekend to recover.
How long
Five nights
Locked in. The fifth night doubles the resort credit and throws in free spa treatments, which more than covers the extra room night.

Manifest · 9 travellers

Who's coming

Eight seats and one lap. Kyren flies free and gets the best seat on the plane, which is somebody's arms.

Naren
Seat
Gaya
Seat
Leela
Seat
Ruben
Seat
Priya
Seat
Logan
Seat
Kam
Seat
Gowsh
Seat
Kyren
Lap

Three rooms

Where everyone sleeps

Three standard rooms rather than a suite — it worked out cheaper and gives everyone a door to close.

Room one
Naren
Gaya
We've asked for the three rooms to be near each other. Not guaranteed, but it costs nothing to ask.
Room two
Leela
Ruben
Priya
Logan
Two beds, four kids, one door. Good luck to everyone involved.
Room three
Kam
Gowsh
Kyren
Crib and whatever else a 10-month-old needs will be arranged ahead of time.
One thing that'll look odd on the confirmation. A parent is registered on paper to each of rooms one and two — it's just how the booking works. Nobody's actually being split up. We're together all day and only sort out beds at night.

Open books

What it costs

No firm quote yet for the two biggest items, so here's an honest range you can actually budget against. It'll tighten every time a real number lands — check back.

Whole trip · everyone · five nights
$17,200 – $22,900CAD
Wide, because flights and the February room rate are both still estimates. Expect it to narrow rather than grow — every real quote replaces a guess. Canadian dollars, assuming about $1.37 to the US dollar.
Naren & Gaya's six
$11,800 – $15,700
Two rooms, six flights
Kam, Gowsh & Kyren
$5,400 – $7,100
One room, two flights plus a lap infant
Firm — won't move Estimate — based on real data, not a quote Assumption — a working guess
Firm — these numbers won't move
Booking fee, three rooms Firm We book through a resort member, which gets us member rates plus perks the public can't get. The fee is $300 a room.
$900
Mexico tourist tax, nine people Firm About $15 each. No exemption for babies. Paid online before we fly, on the official state site only.
~$135
Airport lounge on the way home Firm Six passes come free with the card, so we buy two extras. Worth it for a long afternoon in Cancún airport with a baby.
~$64
Estimated — the two big ones
Three rooms, five nights Estimate We have a real quote for the same room type in October: $438 a night. February is peak season, so we're working on $525–700 a night across three rooms. A sale would land us near the bottom of that.
$7,900 – $10,500
Flights — eight fares plus a lap infant Estimate Typical peak-season nonstop Toronto–Cancún runs $600–850 return per person. Airlines charge full adult fare from age two, so only Kyren flies cheap — about $100–150 for him. Being priced properly right now.
C$4,900 – C$7,000
Cancellable rate instead of locked-in (optional, not counted above) Adds exactly 11%. Buys the ability to change our minds, which matters because the resort is paid in full the day we book.
+ ~$870
Bring cash for
Tips Assumption Everything's all-inclusive, but roughly $20 a day per family is the going recommendation. Not in the totals above.
~$100 each
Coming back to us
Resort credit Estimate Credit is allocated per room — up to $1,500 each at five nights, so up to $4,500 across the three. Roughly a third of it can go toward spa treatments. It scales with how many people are in each room, so treat this as a ceiling. Credit spending carries a 16% fee and can't go toward the room itself.
up to $4,500
Free spa treatments Firm Two manicures, two pedicures and two 25-minute back massages, included at five nights. Adults only.
Included

Included

What we get

Booking through a member rather than a travel site adds a handful of things on top of the room.

Black VIP wristband
Everyone gets one. Opens up the VIP stretches of beach.
Airport transfers
Included both ways. No taxi haggling at 11pm with nine people.
Resort credit
Each room gets its own — so Kam & Gowsh's is theirs to spend, not a shared pot. Spa first, then tours.
Free spa treatments
Two manicures, two pedicures and two back massages, included at five nights.
All-inclusive
Food and drink covered. Bring a bit of cash for tips, roughly $20 a day.
No sales pitch
Nobody has to sit through a timeshare presentation. Confirmed in writing.

Action required

Your move

Short list, and none of it is urgent yet — but the sooner these are done, the fewer surprises in January.

Everyone — do this one now
  • Find your passport and check the expiry date Mexico needs it valid for the whole trip. Kids' passports only run five years and expire quietly, so check theirs too. Kyren's first passport has arrived — everyone else's is unchecked.
  • Tell Naren if any of them expire before summer 2027 Renewals take weeks. Finding out in January is the one thing that could genuinely cost someone the trip.
Kam & Gowsh
  • Sort travel medical for the three of you Naren's card covers his household only, so you're not on it. Check your work benefits and your own credit cards first — you may already be covered. If not, a policy for a few nights costs very little.
Ruben
  • Send your exam timetable when it's posted Around December. Your last exam is what decides the earliest day we can leave, so it's the one schedule that shapes everyone's.
Naren — nothing needed from you
  • Price the flights and lock the dates
  • Get the room quote and watch for a sale
  • Book everything and send confirmations round

Naren's handling all of this

What's happening next

Nothing here needs anything from you — it's just so you can see what's moving and roughly when. Flights come first, because cheap seats for a group of nine disappear and don't come back. The room can wait for a better price.

01
Pricing every date
Comparing flights right across the window to find the cheap days. Happening now.
02
Then pricing rooms on those days
Room rates move daily too, so the cheapest flight day isn't automatically the cheapest trip.
03
Dates get locked and flights booked
Seats go first. Once the dates are set this moves quickly — you'll hear the dates as soon as they're real.
04
Resort booked
Straight after the flights. We're not holding out for a sale — peak-season rates tend to creep up, not down. The only thing needed from anyone is full names exactly as they appear on passports, and that ask will come with a short deadline.
05
The small stuff
Tourist tax, transfers, and working out who's brave enough for the tallest waterslide.