A Little Gift from Tony and Cheri & the Luna Blue Hotel

We hate spending too much on vacation, and we don’t think our guests should have to, either. That’s why we were so excited when we learned about the VIP Smart Card. This is a discount card for Playa del Carmen which offers discounts of up to 50% on restaurants, bars, clubs, shopping and tours. To our knowledge, it’s the only discount card available in this area.

The card offers discounts at popular Playa del Carmen restaurants (including some of our favorites) like La Parilla, Chicago Don Jose, La Palapa Hemingway, Babe’s, Manne’s Biergarten, Madre Tierra, Sur and many more, including one of Playa’s newest and most upscale restaurants, Grotto World Seafood. (We’ll post a review of this terrific new restaurant in the very near future.)

Participating bars & clubs include the Tequila Barrel, Bali, Mambo Cafe, Carlos & Charlie’s, Senor Frog’s, Coco Maya, The Jam Session and others. And you can get discounts on activities like dives at Phantom Divers, Dive Mike and Go Cenotes. There are also discounts offered for shopping, spas and excursions.

You can even get a permanent souvenir of your vacation in Playa del Carmen with the 15% discount at Scream Ink Tattoo shop.

We have been using one of these cards ourselves for awhile and really love it. In fact, we love it so much we’ve decided to make it part of the Luna Blue Experience! Starting tomorrow, anyone booking three or more nights directly with the Luna Blue Hotel & Garden through our website will receive a FREE VIP Smart Card specifically created for the guests of the Luna Blue. It’s just another way for us to say thank you for joining us here in paradise.

And don’t worry, if you already booked directly with us, you will receive a card upon your arrival, even if that’s tomorrow. Consider it our holiday gift.

And even if you’re not staying at the Luna Blue, you can still get the benefits of a VIP Smart Card. Cards cost $20.00 and are good for two people for the duration of your visit to this area, regardless of how long that is. You can find out more about the VIP Smart Card at www.vipsmartcard.com. The cards will also be available for purchase at the Luna Blue.

Paradise and pesos left in your pocket. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Moving On

We live in Playa del Carmen and enjoy sharing that experience with other people. We talk to the guests at our hotel, the Luna Blue Hotel & Garden; post on this blog and participate on other website forums. Those include the world’s largest travel information forum, TripAdvisor.com, where we have been designated “Destination Experts” for Playa del Carmen; frommers.com; fodors.com and others. Until recently, we also participated on a forum known as playa.info with which we also had a business relationship. The website placed us in their list of recommended hotels in exchange for the payment of a commission on bookings initiated through that site.

In the last few days, we became involved in a financial dispute with the owners of that site, who now live in Sweden. In a nutshell, the owners made a demand for a commision on a tour booking we did at the request of one of our guests. We felt they weren’t owed the money and were unable to resolve the dispute. The owners then without warning removed the Luna Blue Hotel from their “recommended” hotel list. That’s their right; they own the site. However, they then got personal, making derogatory comments about us on that forum with a promise to post more today. We were unable to respond or defend ourselves as we had been locked out of their site. We haven’t been back since and don’t plan to do so.

Our interest in Playa del Carmen vastly exceeds one website controlled by people who don’t even live in Mexico anymore, and our reputation will withstand these petty attacks. However, we have many friends who knew us from that forum who may wonder why we are no longer there, as they are not getting the full story on that website. We hate the fact that we have been put in the situation where we have to defend ourselves from public attacks, but that’s the case here. So, we decided we would make available the correspondence between ourselves and the owners of that site which resulted in this unfortunate situation. We have no secrets. If you’re one of those people, feel free to take a look here. Otherwise, let’s get back to our real focus: life in Mexico and in the paradise of Playa del Carmen.

And if you did know us from that “other” place, you can still get in touch with us by email or by leaving comments here on the blog. We’ll respond promptly. And who knows, in the future maybe there will be some other, easier way for us all to chat directly.

Since this all started, we have been swamped with emails, telephone calls and personal greetings from members of that forum offering support and well wishes. To all of you we offer many, many thanks.