We have some IHG (Holiday Inn) credit cards that offered yearly free night certificates. Like many people during the pandemic had not used some of them and they expired at the end of the year. While many other hotel chains were extending the expiration of the unused certificates, IHG decided to issue a new certificate for every expiring certificate but they left the expiring certificates active. While we were at the mall in Tapachula I had noticed that there was a Holiday Inn Express right next to the mall that had parking for Rover. Since we had limited water supplies and sewage storage and Mision Surf did not have a sewage dump we were concerned that our sewage storage would fill up. We had mostly been using the bathrooms at Mision Surf but still it was a concern since we had to make sure that we had enough storage capacity for the return trip to Oaxaca. The expiring room certificates would allow us to get a few days out of Rover in a nice air-conditioned room, conserve our sewage storage and get some free breakfasts as well.
So we packed up and drove to the Holiday Inn and checked in for three nights the free night certificates that were going to expire and become worthless in a few days anyway. The hotel and room were pretty much any standard Holiday Inn Express that can be found anywhere in the world. The hotel had a few extra Covid precautions such as an inflatable entry that sprayed disinfectant, shoe cleaning station, the doorman took people’s temperature and all the staff wore masks. We brought our stuff in and spent the next three days hanging out either at the hotel pool or next door at the mall.
The next morning we went to the free breakfast expecting the traditional pancake machine but instead we found that they had moved the breakfast to a large conference room so they could spread out the tables more and they were serving Mexican breakfasts instead of the standard pancakes, sausage and eggs. Also instead of being a serve yourself buffet you lined up to tell the staff what you wanted and they plated it up for you. Over the three days they had different options but generally they had a couple of egg options such as Huevos Rancheros, some sort of starch such as black beans, fried plantains, tortilla chips or rice and some sort of meat such as carnitas. There was also Mexican pastries in individually saran wrapped plates, sliced bread, also individually wrapped, cereal, coffee, tea, three kinds of juice and milk. It was not what you would find in a Holiday Inn Express in the US but it wasn’t bad and a nice sample of local culture that we don’t normally experience since we rarely go out for breakfast.
For dinner we usually went to the mall food court but once we went back to Rover to for bowls of instant noodles. It was cool being in a hotel and then just walking to your house in the parking lot where we were back in our own kitchen, sofa and bed. Overall it was a nice mall vacation.