Living in Cancun

Arrival at the Cancun airport is typically slightly hectic with a mass of sales people trying to sell you on things. While optional, we would highly recommend to rent a car for at least a portion of your time in Cancun. We pre-booked with “Yes!” car rental and would definitely use them again. They are extremely upfront about their costs and there were no crazy additional coverages to be sold on (also it is likely you can use your existing car insurance coverage for a rental – ask your insurance carrier)! The rental company picked us up from the airport and drove us to the rental business location, just a few minutes away. We had a car rental for the majority of our time in Cancun and found it extremely useful (if not borderline required for some of the parts of the process). Driving didn’t necessarily feel safe at all times per say (police went around standing on their vehicles holding their guns), but we didn’t encounter any issues in terms of getting pulled over. Still, we made sure to have an extra ID with us (in our case, an old driver’s license that wasn’t yet expired) in case we were pulled over and they wanted to take our IDs. Also if we were carrying any significant amount of cash, it was kept in a hidden location and not in our wallets. 

We had booked our rental unit in early December, almost four months in advance. We prioritized (1) safety, (2) closeness to facilities, (3) beach/scenery access, (4) price, and ended up with a lovely beachside condo called Amara. With multiple security gates to get through (as well as being on the ninth floor), we felt extremely safe and secure here. We would highly recommend a location with a security gate. Don't forget you can send your rental choice to Miracle Surrogacy to get feedback prior to booking! 

In the apartment, we had two bedrooms, a balcony, a kitchen (with a microwave, large fridge, stove/oven), a in-unit washer and dryer, nice air conditioning, and good wifi. Water was clean, but not purified enough to drink, so there was a water jug station in the unit that was refilled twice during our stay. Some brief apartment/ living tips – 

• Be sure that you have a microwave because the only bottle sanitizer they sell at Walmart in Cancun is the microwave variety. 

• We brough an Amazon Firestick to plug into the main TV so we could watch our regular shows. Be sure to install a VPN on your Firestick in the US so when you plug it in its all the same as at home! 

• Our rental had strict limitations on guest that may parts of the surrogacy difficult. For example, we could not bring any guests if we hadn’t put their name on our guest list prior to arrival. At times, we needed to have surrogate and agency staff stop by but ended up using a café instead If this is your case, ask the agency for a list of names you may need to add to the list prior to arrival.  

• We usually use downloaded Google Maps when travelling, but for some reason it was not working while we were in Mexico. We ended up downloaded the “MAPS.ME” app and it worked wonderfully (as downloaded maps). Our T-Mobile service outside of wifi was spotty at best.

• At times, addresses are very difficult to understand (i.e., when inputting delivery location in an app). Most delivery people there will contact you on WhatsApp directly. 

• Based on our experience, we would recommend to book a stay for at least three weeks, arriving at least two days ahead of the scheduled C-section. You may want to book longer if it is a busier season and things are filling up. 

One of the best things that made us feel at home was the Walmart in Cancun (although they did not have some of my great value favorites like diet sam). Located at “Av. Nichupte 51, Sin Nombre, 77533 Cancun, Q.R., Mexico,” we stopped here immediately after arriving in Cancun. We made two cart full of purchases – one initial trip to purchase a car seat / stroller set, a bottle purifier, stocks of formula, diapers, baby water, dipes, and other baby items. Baby items in the store look to be the same as the US stores. We used the purple Gentlease brand formula in Cancun (and transitioned to the US version when we got home – same product). The second cart full was for our regular grocery items to eat, and most importantly, water.

After our first purchase, we primarily got groceries from Walmart delivered. On an iPhone, you can download the Mexican version of the app if you speak Spanish (there is no English translation on it). If not, what we did was opened the Mexican Walmart website in our phone browser and used the browser’s translate feature. If we had to search for a specific item, we had to translate it first and then search for it in Spanish. Delivery people came all the way up to our apartment door (we were thinking we would have to meet them outside) and were all very friendly! We would recommend that while in the US, get a VPN on your phone, switch it to Mexico, and get familiar with the Mexican Walmart website (also to see if you apartment gets delivery). We premade some lists of our regular items this way – you can also see the full listing of deliverable and in stock items to get familiarized with what you will have access to if you have any dietary restrictions. Final Walmart note – a US Walmart Plus delivery subscription does not work in Mexico. 

We successfully used Doordash as well without a problem. We went out to dinner one time to a restaurant in the Centro Comercial Marina Puerto Cancún (a nice place to visit and do some shopping or just get out of the house), and one of us got food poisoning. Only stick to heavily cooked and / or fried foods if going out- no salad or vegetables that aren’t cooked. Also be sure to bring lots of Pepto-Bismol. 

We found our own pediatrician in Cancun (the agency had one set up but we needed an earlier appointment for a rash situation) and absolutely loved him. He was very open to our surrogacy situation and said he even served his first case of gay parents all the way back in the 90’s. He speaks English and even texted us to check in and reply to our crazy new-parent questions. His name is Dr. Juan Pedro Sánchez Campodónico located at Av. Nader Mz. 3 Lote 25 Local 2A, 77500 Cancún, Q.R., Mexico. 

Our son did develop a somewhat bad diaper fungal rash while in Cancun, likely due to the humidity levels outside (we did occasionally have the windows open too). He was prescribed a fungal cream, but no pharmacies had it. We ended up going to around eight or so before finding a location that could deliver it to us. If you need something special while in Cancun, never hesitate to ask if the store can deliver it for an extra cost- many gladly did this for us. I would recommend to bring as many oddity medical supplies for newborns as possible from the US – rash creams and ointments, Vaseline, etc… as it may be difficult to find in Cancun. 

I want to make a note of this but it is obvious – your newborn baby should not drink or be in contact with tap water in Mexico. Use baby water from Walmart or purified water from a jug (even if where you’re staying may sanitize on location) for bottles, purifying bottles, and baths (if you do any while in Mexico).