Cancun, 1/24/2009-Woke up at 4 am to get ready to go to LAX to catch 9:40 Mexicana flight to Cancun - Freeway drive was as expected- muddled through Covina - used car pool lane mostly -arrived at 7:30_turned in rental car-our experience has shown to us anyway that driving a rental car to LAX and dropping it off and taking the rental car shuttle to the correct terminal at LAX works best for price and convenience when the first option of having family or friends take us. We live nearer Ontario CA airport which is nice and all except all the best flights go though LAX and you have tp pay more and carry luggage more (a lot more if you use Ontario) We used to also use Tijuana airport for trips to Mexico when that option was actually much cheaper-now it is more expensive.
But anyway, all went smooth through baggage checks and security checks(we both wore slippers, no shoes and shorts, no change, andmy wife a fanny pack) Loading was easy and we had good seats. Food and drinks on Mexicana is good and no extra fees for anything. headphones were free, but programming was borring with mixture of Spanish and English shows- The music was great on the six or eight music channels, very eclectic -something for everyone. My wife slept most of the way - i can't. So she missed the one exciting part of the trip. The last two hours of so of the more than four hour flight had periodic turbulance which seemed to cause a bunch of white knuckles. I have been on worse. My wife woke up at the end and wondered why a lot of passengers were applauding when we landed. I had to explain to her the tension from the passengers while riding through the turbulent skys.
Exciting the airport was the usual amount of fits and starts through the bureaucacy which in Mexico is actually pretty pleasant compared to US Immigration and Customs-Mexico seems to use young students to help get through the maze easily while US is notorious for having retired combat vets making you feel like the first day of boot camp to process paperwork and baggage.
