The roll call happened at gate 42 at a quarter past four in the morning, and by 4:20 we were one passport short. Sixteen adults, two suitcases over the limit, and a woman in the group who had left her document in the car of the friend who had already gone through security. This is the first scene of every group trip I plan, and it is the only part I cannot book my way out of.
We made the flight. The passport went through on a sprint between security and the gate, handed to a supervisor who scanned it without a word, and at 5:02 the door closed with all sixteen of us on board. Somebody opened a bottle of orange juice in celebration before the seatbelt sign went off.
Sixteen rooms and the argument I lost
The transfer south from Cancun takes about forty-five minutes in March, less if you are not waiting on the second van. I had asked for all sixteen rooms on two floors, in writing, at deposit. The hotel gave me four floors and a message about availability. I got the two families with children next to each other and the night owls at the far end of the corridor from the early sleepers, which was the actual priority, and lost the rest.
The trade I made to get the block at all was a garden view for six of the rooms instead of oceanfront. Everybody complained about it on arrival and nobody mentioned it again after the first afternoon, because the pool is where the group lived. I would make the same call next spring break: the ocean room buys you a balcony you use twice, and the garden rate paid for the second van.
Check-in itself took fifty minutes for sixteen keys, because the hotel wanted a card for every room and every card wanted a passport. I had a printed list of names, room preferences and who was sharing with whom, which turned a queue into a signature exercise. The group stood behind me with the trolleys and did nothing at all, which is the correct role for travelers at that moment.
The island, twenty minutes across
The second excursion was a ferry rather than a coach, and it was the better decision of the week. The fast boats leave from the harbour on the north side every half hour and cross in about fifteen minutes; the drive up from our stretch of the coast is twenty-five minutes, so the whole move was an hour door to door. We took the 9:30, which landed us on the island before the day boats arrived, and walked to the far end of the beach while the town was still putting chairs out.
What sold it to the group was the arithmetic: about twenty-five dollars round trip, no guide, no schedule beyond the last boat at six. I gave them a meeting point and a time instead of an itinerary. The only mishap was a phone left in a locker, recovered by a member of staff who had been given the group's description of its owner by two strangers on the sand.
Two hours each way to the ruins
Chichen Itza is about two and a quarter hours from that stretch of coast, and the day only works if the coach leaves at 6:30. We were rolling before sunrise, in the vehicle with the coffee, and at the gates just after 8:45 while the light was still low across the plinth. By eleven the site was full and the heat had arrived, and by noon we were sitting under the shade at the edge with cold water, watching a group of eighty come in through the main gate.
The honest downside of this excursion is the drive: four and a half hours in a seat, round trip, for ninety minutes of walking around stones. I built the return for 3:00 p.m. on purpose, and at 4 p.m. the energy crash was visible across the whole group - three people in the pool, two asleep in loungers, one still arguing about the score of a football match from the night before.
What saved the day was the cenote stop on the way back: thirty minutes of cold fresh water in a limestone sinkhole, a bathroom that was clean, and a guide who had already paid the entry so nobody queued. On the bus afterward, somebody asked whether we could do it again on Thursday. We could not; the group had already voted for the island.
I had paid the entry and the guide in advance, because the ticket line at the ruins at nine in the morning is a crowd, and the rule for the week was that we would not queue for anything that could be bought the night before. It held everywhere except the airport, where you cannot pre-book a passport.
Lunch on the way back was a counter with shade and cold water, chosen because ten minutes of ordering beats an hour of a menu for sixteen people. The bill for the whole group came to less than one entrée each. It is not the meal anybody photographs. It is the one that stopped the afternoon starting with an argument.
The night nobody wanted a plan
The last evening I had booked a long table at a place that takes groups without flinching, at 8 p.m., with the menu sent ahead so the kitchen was not guessing. Sixteen people arrived between 8:05 and 8:40, which is the correct spread for a group of this size, and the first drinks were on the table before the last four sat down.
One of them stood up halfway through the main course and said a few words about the year they had all had. Nobody asked me for anything that night - no times, no vans, no receipts. The clipboard stayed in the room, which is the only scorecard I keep. At the airport two days later, at the same hour of the morning, they counted themselves in and one passport was where it should be.