We didn’t do much shopping during our stay in Cancun, but I want to mention a couple places that we liked. One of them is La Isla Shopping Village. It is a beautiful outdoor mall set in the middle of the Hotel Zone, complete with charming canals, luxury boutiques, inexpensive brands, high-end department stores, fast food, fun restaurants and upscale dining.
The mall is accessible from Kukulcan boulevard.
La Isla mall consists of lots of high end stores like Louis Vuitton, Coach, Gucci, Bulgari and others. Also regular mall shops like Zara, Lacoste, Tommy Hilfiger, Nike, and Victoria’s Secret. There is the Cinemark Theater and restaurants like Hooters, Johnny Rockets, Chili’s and Starbucks to complete your US Mall experience in Mexico. It looked like we were in the US rather than Mexico, but Zona Hotelera is like that.
I like the fountains in Plaza La Isla, which always manage to draw in a crowd. This one is along the shopping strip.
The fountains at the Marina are especially pretty at night, although I don’t have a night picture of them.
There is an interactive aquarium and dolphin swim facility.
La Isla Shopping Village borders the lagoon. Walkways lined with quality shops and restaurants cross little canals (boat rides are even offered along the canals), and there’s a boardwalk along the lagoon itself.
This is a live person, who is available for a photo with anyone who’s interested.
This is not a live person, that Dave is trying to tamper with. 🙂
There are numerous restaurants and bars in the mall. Besides the US chain restaurants mentioned above, there is the fun-filled Mexican restaurant, La Casa de las Margaritas, and a romantic Thai restaurant. We also noticed a movie theater, video arcade, and several bars, including La Madonna.
I like the Hooters’ owl with a surfing board.
Cancun Mart was our favorite store for purchasing souvenirs. It’s located right beside Margaritaville. Cancun Mart offers a huge selection of the local crafts and a variety of tequila products among other alcoholic beverages.
Just a little about our favorite dining places. Since we didn’t purchase the all-inclusive option in the hotel, we had to eat outside of the hotel. We didn’t want to eat at the well known US chain restaurants; we were looking for to authentic Mexican food. One of our favorite restaurants is Fish Fritanga. It looks like a very small take out stand but when we took the alley to the back and down the stairs we arrived at the restaurant on the “beach” of the lagoon.
Besides the relaxed atmosphere and lagoon view, the food and drinks were delicious and reasonably priced. We ordered 2 different shrimp meals and were very pleased with them. It is a perfect place to watch a sunset, but it was cloudy at the time.
We got to watch the sunset another time while walking on the Kukulcan boulevard.
The Surfing Burrito is a very casual outdoor hole-in-the-wall place, across from Senor Frogs and open 24 hours.
This place is small and only has a few tables but it may have the best burritos and a very welcoming staff. One of the bartenders was from the US, so we had a nice chat with him.
Besides, we met a couple of the locals at the table there and had a great time.
By far, our favorite place in Cancun is Tacun, a little street side restaurant with outside seating. It is located across the street from the Flamingo mall on the ocean side.
Tacun shares the place with another local restaurant, Habaneros, but it has white plastic chairs and yellow tablecloths.
We came here and fell in love with this place, the service was great and the food was really authentic.
We visited Tacun several times and were very impressed with the quality of the food each time. Especially good was the twin lobster dinner. I was advised by my coworker to try the lobster while in Cancun, because local lobster there differs from the lobsters we have in the US. The local lobster is sweeter and it is cooked slightly differently. It was absolutely delicious. Tacun is not a fancy place, but it has fresh good food and welcoming atmosphere.
If you’re in Cancun and want some great local food at a great price Tacun is the place to go!
