Cancun’s economy survives almost exclusively off tourism so at the airport expect to find a sea of…you guessed it.. tourists. The line at immigration is something to behold and in order to get through it as painlessly as possible I have some tips to offer.
The first thing is that there is a form you must fill out. Sometimes they hand them out on the plane. They ran out by the time the flight attendant reached our row. Fill it out in the comfort of the plane if you can…trying to find a pen and hard surface in the chaos of the immigration hall is a bad idea.
You’ll be directed to one of two lines…
1. with form and 2. no form
Take the “no form” line even though you have the form filled out… and keep the form out of sight or else the helpful clerks will send you back to the mile-long “with form” line. In the much shorter “no form” line you will find some electronic kiosks that will take your picture and fingerprint you (if you are uncomfortable with that feel free to join the long line). The kiosks will print out a pass which you take with you to another quick line to the immigration officer. Now the form you filled out on the plane is a backup because the kiosks are very temperamental and about 20% of the visitors had trouble obtaining the pass.
Follow this advice and you should be out of there in half the time!