Taxi Fare Increase is now official :(

[Ron Lee]

2) The use of dollars in a country whose legal tender is not the dollar, is an issue of mine. I will ask for the readers understanding, and I will even apologize for offending, but I will not change. I will own several other obnoxious characteristics, and hundreds of other delightful ones.

Mike covers it better than I could although I have not heard of a term he used "dollarization." Regardless of my lack of knowledge of this, his point is 100% valid. They accept USD (not always at a good exchange rate) so using USD is OK. Personally, I use pesos predominantly (excluding hotel and diving expenses).

 

[Christi]

I too have to laugh at what a discussion this thread has generated. I simply wanted to give the heads up that the rates were going up. Yes, 20% seems excessive at one time, but the rates have not increased in 5 years, so this is a proportionate increase considering gas prices have increased by 100% in the last five years!

Those of you up in arms about a few extra pesos make me go hmmmm. Really? In the grand scheme of your expensive vacation, it's nothing! And if you don't like it - you have the choice to walk or rent a car - or you could always buy your own car to keep down here (that was sarcasm BTW)!

But the direction a handful of you have taken this tells me you must not have anything more important to worry about - or maybe you do if a few extra pesos over the course of your vacation are causing you this much grief. In that case, maybe you can't afford to be going on vacation at all, like most of us here on the island, including those "should be millionaire" taxi drivers Yeh, I know, we're "always on vacation."

Relax and enjoy your Cozumel vacation! The choice is yours or not to use the taxi service

By the way, the weather is gorgeous down here - you should book your tickets soon if you haven't already

 

[redacted]

Relax and enjoy your Cozumel vacation! The choice is yours or not to use the taxi service

By the way, the weather is gorgeous down here - you should book your tickets soon if you haven't already

I am going to have to schedule my next trip to the Occidental Grand before the fare increase so I won't have to walk from the airport to the hotel.

 

[Ray and Pam]

This thread is getting taxi ng, and its just not fare.

 

[DandyDon]

They do have a nice fleet of cars, vans, and more - all pretty dependable and safe as far as I can tell.

 

[Pelagicsal]

Hopped in a taxi in front of the Aldora pier about a half hour ago. The driver remembered me from the summer and kept up a pleasant conversation about diving, fish, lionfish, eating fish, fish prices..... Was very nice, and I certainly didn't begrudge him an extra bit of cash...

 

[mediumone]

I don't think the locals look at it the same as you do and nobody is upsetting anyone by using dollars in a country where the countries government actually actively pursued measures to move in this direction and put the policies in place to willingly accept US dollars because they wanted to. The US dollars has unofficial status as being the world's currency, and just to put everybody to sleep with economic theory, but the US dollars has 3 levels of acceptance as a world currency the first being what's called dollarization, where the country uses the US dollar as their only currency, there is semi-dollarization where the US dollar is totally interchangeable with the local currency and there is unofficial dollarization where the currency is accepted and used but is not official recognized by the local government, in the world over 30% of the countries on it actively pursue one of these forms of dollarization by their own free will because of the economic benefits of it. Mexico began the process of dollarization way back in 1976 and they were the ones who started the process, it wasn't forced on them, they saw the economic benefits and the Mexican government pursued it.

This term of dollarization also applies to other currencies such as the Euro, in Europe there are countries that willingly accept their local currency and the Euro, in Asia their are countries that accept dollarization of their currencies with other Asian countries. Dollarization is looked upon by nations as a better way to transact foreign commerce with their neighbors and is not a bad thing but a good thing, as the world moves quickly to a global economy dollarization is looked at as a beneficial tool in the process.

So it's fine to have personal reasons for not 'forcing' a foreign currency on someone, but when it comes to Mexico there is no forcing involved, Mexico wants this and initiated it and pursues it, nobody should be accused of being ethnocentric when using dollars in Mexico, you are actually fitting in quite well and honoring the local customs since this is the local economic system that is accepted and they want.

And what the hell does this diatribe have to do with my post?

Interesting use of the term dollarization, btw.

Dont' bother answering ----I'm gone.

 

[dmoore19]

I too have to laugh at what a discussion this thread has generated. I simply wanted to give the heads up that the rates were going up. Yes, 20% seems excessive at one time, but the rates have not increased in 5 years, so this is a proportionate increase considering gas prices have increased by 100% in the last five years!

Those of you up in arms about a few extra pesos make me go hmmmm. Really? In the grand scheme of your expensive vacation, it's nothing! And if you don't like it - you have the choice to walk or rent a car - or you could always buy your own car to keep down here (that was sarcasm BTW)!

But the direction a handful of you have taken this tells me you must not have anything more important to worry about - or maybe you do if a few extra pesos over the course of your vacation are causing you this much grief. In that case, maybe you can't afford to be going on vacation at all, like most of us here on the island, including those "should be millionaire" taxi drivers Yeh, I know, we're "always on vacation."

Relax and enjoy your Cozumel vacation! The choice is yours or not to use the taxi service

By the way, the weather is gorgeous down here - you should book your tickets soon if you haven't already

It is gorgeous here too. (sarcasm) Rain since about 4PM, is supposed to turn to snow tonight with 1-3 inches in Denver with up to a foot in the mountains.

 

[ggunn]

It is gorgeous here too. (sarcasm) Rain since about 4PM, is supposed to turn to snow tonight with 1-3 inches in Denver with up to a foot in the mountains.

Wow. This happens every year about this time, doesn't it? Here we are, going along with balmy days and mild nights, and then along about October it starts getting cold. Before you know it some places will actually have crystalline ice falling out of the sky. It seems like someone would do something about this.

 

[dmoore19]

Wow. This happens every year about this time, doesn't it? Here we are, going along with balmy days and mild nights, and then along about October it starts getting cold. Before you know it some places will actually have crystalline ice falling out of the sky. It seems like someone would do something about this.

Yes it seems to happen every year! Why with a snow event it even has an effect on taxi drivers around here.