Dec 28 2005
The Honeymoon
Welcome To Cancun!
Goce por favor de su estancia en para?so!
Leaving For Paradise
3:45 am on June 21st a white limo showed up at our house to take us to the airport. Of course, I didn’t sleep a wink that night. I spent the entire night packing, checking, re-checking and playing with my new laptop to pass the time.
I was wired!
When we checked in at Sky Harbor, we had to show our birth certificate and I.D’s in order to check in for the international flight. Mine is a little tattered and worn, and when I handed it over, I asked that she be careful with it due to it’s condition.
The bitch ended up tearing it in half!
She giggled and tossed her hair over her shoulder while saying “Oops”, and said nothing more. I knew I was going to face trouble down the line.
I don’t fly well. I am terrified of flying, so you can imagine my state of mind once we’d finally boarded our plane and began to taxi out to the runway. I went into a complete anxiety attack. Tears were streaming down my face as I tried to breathe. My husband held my hand for a moment, but I squeezed him so hard he had to let go. I began my death grip on the arms of the seat at that moment and never let go. I thought that I was going to end up with a paper bag over my head, but I didn’t get to that point, luckily.
In Atlanta, where we switched planes, they wouldn’t allow me to check in. Why? Ahhh, because that little bitch in Phoenix tore my birth certificate! We had five minutes before our flight was due to begin boarding and we had to run down the hall to a Delta desk in order to get a notarized affidavite of citizenship, otherwise I was never going to enter Mexico. Thanks Lady. We got it done in time by running our asses off through the airport and running all the way back just as they were calling for our zone to board the plane. Sheesh. I’d like to wring that little girl’s neck!
After the initial take off, I faired pretty well. The flight into Cancun brought about a great deal of turbulence, and it was then that I experienced another anxiety attack, but I was able to control this one a little more. By the time we landed at the Cancun airport, you’ve never seen a human happier to be on solid ground than I was. Whew!
It was cloudy and rainy when we landed, but in no way did it put a damper on our excitement! We managed to skate through customs, just missing the random bag checks, and made our way to the outter doors with the biggest grins on our faces.
We were finally here!
The first thing I noticed was how green everything was! It was the most vibrant green I’ve ever seen. Remember, I live in the damned desert, so this was beyond beautiful! The second thing we noticed was how humid it was there. Oh wow. Yes, maybe only 90 degree temps but the humidity had to be at 100%. This, we were not used to either!
It was pandamonium all around us. American tourists trying to figure out where they needed to go, running back and forth frantically. Fortunately, we didn’t need to worry about it. Almost as soon as we got through customs, this man came right up to us, grabbed our luggage, and took us to the transfer bus that would deliver us to the hotel. We were amazed at the service, and we’d only been on the ground for 30 minutes!
I have to say, however, driving in Cancun was terrifying! Here, I thought that L.A. drivers were bad! Oh my lord. These folks didn’t ever stay in a lane, criss crossed around going faster than they ever should have. We damn near ended up in four accidents by the time we reached the hotel. Wow.
A Palace In Paradise
As we pulled up in to the front gates of Cancun Palace, the driver had to show his I.D. and our reservation information in order for us to get in. The driveway was long and lined with beautiful green grass and fauna. Little white iron benches dotted the drive here and there. I was in total awe of how green and lush everything was! We were ooohing and aahhing all the way in like little kids. When we reached the entrance to the hotel, more ooohs and ahhs could be heard. Huge mexican tiled stairs led up to the elegant front doors.
A bellhop grabbed our luggage right off the bat, took our reservation information from the driver and instructed us to go check in, our luggage would be delivered to our room when we finished.
Um. Ok.
We marveled at the lobby while waiting to check in. Everything was marble and maple wood with brass accents. There was a huge bar just adjacent to a seating area filled with chaise lounge chairs with big, plush cushions. Huge pillars throughout and an amazing view of the pool and the ocean that spanned the entire lobby wall.
We got our room keys and headed up. We were on the 10th floor, overlooking the ocean side, and stopped to take a deep breath before opening the door. The wonderment before us took our breath away as we stepped into our little home for the next 8 days.
What caught my eye first, was the amazing view of the ocean from our room. It was right there, unobstructed, stretched out before us as if we were the only two people around to enjoy it. The room was covered in white marble floors with wood furnature. There was our own private jacuzzi tub covered in grey marble and white porceline. The vanity and sink counter tops were grey marble. The bathroom and closet doors were maple and brass. The shower stall was even grey marble with glass doors. They never wanted you to be out of eye shot of that amazing ocean view.
Even in the jacuzzi tub, you still had a view of the ocean.
We were in heaven and we hadn’t even left the room yet!
I noticed that all of our towels were folded in fancy designs. I’d never seen such a thing before! In front of the jacuzzi tub was a swan. The hand towels by the sink were all folded back in pretty little layers, and they’d created a sea shell on the shower floor with the bathmat. There were live plants in the room as well! Live ones!
I’ve been in hotels that put fake plants in your room, trying to establish that “homey” feeling, but this room had live ones. They were so green and pretty!
About 10 minutes after arriving in our room, the bellhop showed up with our luggage. He directed us to the Guest Services booth as soon as we got settled to go over all of the things our package included and get our return home transportation all set up and schedualed.
I immediately set about unpacking us and making us at home. I hate living out of suitcases, and since we were there for 8 days, I unpacked everything. I put all of our importants in the safe deposit box, changed my clothes, freshened up, and we were ready to explore our gorgeous surroundings.
As soon as we hit the lobby, we went to Guest Services. There, we were given glasses of champagne as they explained to us all that was included in our packages. We received our wristbands at check in, and these would let all staff members know what package we were on and in turn, they knew what all we were entitled to. We schedualed our first tour, received our passport that would allow us to enjoy the ammenities at any Palace resort on the island, and we skipped merrily away, a little tipsy already.
Once finished there, we headed straight to the lobby bar for our first tropical drinks of the trip! Giddy with excitement, we headed outside to explore the grounds, schedual our massages, manicures and pedicures at the spa, and see what the resort had to offer.
The Power of the Grey Wristband and the Almighty American Dollar
We were counseled on the power of American money and tipping before we left and we heeded that advice from the beginning. What we couldn’t have realized is how powerful that little tip was going to end up being. Couple the art of tipping with the fact that we were strapped with grey wristbands and we were suddenly royalty.
We didn’t know it at the time of check in and they placed those treasured wristbands on our arms, but we quickly realized that there wasn’t anybody else wearing grey anywhere around us. After a few days, we saw two other couples out of the entire resort wearing grey, but they left on Wednesday, leaving us the only couple wearing this powerful color.
Most of the people there were wearing yellow. We figured out the yellow was for the 6 day package and didn’t include all of the things we got, but it was the most predominant color band you saw. There were a lot of white bands, which meant those people were paying for their food and drink throughout their trip. Purple bands were worn by those under 18 and not legal to drink. (We also noticed that most of those that were teenagers wearing purple would turn their wristbands inside out when approaching the bars to hide the purple color and make them look white.) There were a few pink wristbands and we later found out that those were for the honeymoon packages. Green was another color we saw around a lot, and we never did quite figure out what the green meant.
We sort of figured out that they grey was a powerful color, for we had people around us constantly catering to us, asking us if we needed anything, and generally treating us like gold. It wasn’t until the third day, when the hotel manager found us in our favorite restaurant that we had a better idea of the power of grey. He came to ask us how we were enjoying things, if the staff was treating us well and make general conversation. He asked us where we were from and if there was any special reason we were there. We told him how this was our honeymoon and we asked why we didn’t have pink wristbands since we’d been told those were for the honeymooners. He laughed and said that we didn’t get pink because we were “Palace Premier Members”, a higher standing than all of them. But, if we really wanted pink, he could arrange for that! Oh hell no!
We thanked Ryan’s dad under our breath. He had made all of the arrangements for this trip, and he is the reason we were wearing grey bands. He made us Palace Premier Members and therefore, we were royalty on that island!
Wow.
Spectacular Food & Drink, Fit For The Gods
We tipped everyone. We noticed right off the bat that 90% of the guests didn’t tip at all, and those that did would throw a couple of pesos down on their table, or the trays of their servers. The bartenders never got tipped and the waitresses/waiters at the beach and around the pools rarely got tipped either.
We tipped them all, and we tipped them all well.
We never had a dry drink. We never even had to serve ourselves at the buffets at dinner time.
The executive chef made us special platters of food every night for dinner.
At breakfast, we ate the buffets, but I never carried my own plate back to the table. I never placed my own napkin in my lap, and I never had to light my own cigarette!
There were plenty of times while dining, the folks seated around us could be heard either under hushed voice, or straight out vocal, complaining and wondering why it was we were getting this kind of treatment and they were not. Before our drinks were even finished, we had fresh drinks brought to us, where other guests would have to flag down their server to receive a fresh drink.
When our waiter, Isreal, would bring out appetizers or these huge, specially prepared platters for dinner, the folks around us would make noise about why we weren’t eating at the buffet like everyone else.
We did. The first night we were there. That is when we met Isreal. He took such amazing care of us that first night and we tipped him well. When we were preparing to leave the restaurant that first night, we told him we’d definately be back the following night and ask for him. That was when he told us he would have the chef prepare us a special meal for the following night. He asked if we enjoyed the seafood, to which we answered with an “Oh My God, Yes!” and he nodded with a grin.
From that night on, we had our very own dinners specially prepared for us.
It was during our second night there, and sharing our first specially prepared meal, that we met Mike and Pam from Tenn. They had noticed our seafood feast and commented on it. From that moment on, we talked and laughed and laughed some more. We ended up sitting in that restaurant for 3 hours just having a blast with this couple we’d just met.
Mike was a comedian. He had us laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe half of the time.
Pam was just a beautiful woman. Both of them were so nice and so much fun to be aorund. We enjoyed each other’s company so much that we made plans to have dinner together just about every night thereafter!
Every morning for breakfast we ate at the same restaurant we ate at for dinner. This was for two reasons. One, we liked the food a lot there, and two, it was the only restaurant on the property that we could have an ocean view while we ate our food. Breakfast or dinner, we were always seated at the best tables with our requested server.
For breakfast, Filipe was our favorite, and again for dinner, Isreal was who we sought out.
Isreal had told us that his day off was going to land on our last night there. We wouldn’t get to have him as our server for dinner, and we pouted a tad. He told us not to worry, though, he would make sure that were well taken care of.
Before we left that evening, he came to us and said on our last night we were to go to one of the other restaurants, The Mercado, and ask for a gentleman by the name of Vijilio. Tell him who we are and that Isreal sent us and he would take care of us.
It rained all day on Monday, so the inside restaurants were packed. Los Redes, the one we ate at constantly, was an open air restaurant down by the water, and was obviously shut down due to the weather. The wait outside of The Mercado inside the lobby was long. We were told by others waiting it was at least a 45 minute wait.
We sauntered up to the hostess, told her our names and that Isreal sent us here to see Vijilio. She told us it would be one minute and she disappeared. The manager of that restaurant came to us then and seated us immediately at the best table in the place. Again, people waiting for seats where heard pissed off and bitching as we entered the restaurant. We just giggled to ourselves.
We had our new friends with us, and Vijilio brought us a bottle of champagne immediately. Once that first cork was popped, we didn’t go without a full glass of champagne the entire time we were there. I believe we ended up going through 2 and half bottles between the four of us during dinner! Oh boy, we were just a tad drunk by the time we left to hit the lobby bar! Isreal was right, Vijilio took great care of us! Not as good as Isreal, but great nonetheless!
It didn’t matter if we were down by the pool, out on the beach, or just hanging out in the lobby, we were catered to. Soon everyone knew us by name. The hotel manager, the executive chef, all of the servers and bartenders would pass by us wherever we were and make a point to acknowledge us.
“Melia and Ryan, so good to see you today! Is everything ok? Do you need a drink/food/anything? We look forward to seeing you at dinner! If you need anything, please just let us know!”
It was such an amazing feeling to be treated like that. I wanted so badly to wear that grey wristband home!
Constant Entertainment
There was never a dull moment at the resort. The major events happened at night, in the resort ballroom just off the lobby. Each night they had a different event going on in there and we attended the “International Dance Show” or “Demostraci?n Internacional De la Danza”, on Thursday night. Honestly, I would have attended them all, but I had a hard time convincing Ryan to go. I think he only agreed to this one to shut me up, but to his amazement, he really enjoyed it as well! The costumes were just out of this world amazing and the dancers themselves were wonderful and a joy to watch! He even developed a crush on one of them. A little blond with fake boobies. She was beautiful! You will see her in most all of the photos. I tried to get her as much as possible. He wasn’t the only one checkin’ out a hottie though! One of the male dancers, whom I managed to capture a couple of times when his girl was out of view, was so hot! I am sure he was gay or something, that is the way it always goes, but he sure was fun to watch!
Mini Golf at the Palace
This was the most beautiful mini golf course I have ever laid eyes on. It was right outside of the front doors to the resort, and was free to us to use as much as we wanted while we were there. We actually played twice. We would go for breakfast and then head down to the golf course for a round before we began our other activities of the day. Ryan beat me both times we played, however the second time he only beat my by two strokes at the very end there. Pssht! It’s only because I let him win, but shhhhhhhh! Don’t let that leak out!
Fun In The Sun
Of course, we cannot forget about the beautiful surroundings of the ocean and the pools. We spent a great deal of time lazing on the white sands and swimming in turquoise waters. I liked to call it “bobbin’ in da waves”. You could see straight through the water to the ocean floor below. It was so clear and so clean. The sand was like silk. Fine, white, silk below your feet. You could touch bottom for a long ways out in the water and we would spend hours jumping waves, riding the big ones as far in as we could, and just playing in the beautiful ocean. The water was never cold. It was absolutely perfect temperature wise. It was cool enough that it felt so refreshing after basking in the sun for a while, but not so cool that you got cold when you got out or stayed in for a good amount of time.
We took a couple of long walks along the shoreline before breakfast, collecting shells to bring home to the kids, kissing, dancing, holding hands. We were completely absorbed in the carefree beauty that surrounded us.
The pools were beautiful as well. They held the same color water as the ocean had and were just as cool and refreshing. Pools weren’t as big of a deal to us, being from Arizona and all, but we felt obligated to spend a day down at the pools and take in the sights and actions of that area as well. Every day there were many activities going on down at the pools.
In the mornings they had land and water aerobics classes going on. In the afternoons there were “Name that Tune” contests. They had pool volleyball and basketball games and dance contests on the cool decking.
We could be found lounging near the swim up bar. That was the place to be. Of course, we would get served by a poolside waitress while lounging in our chairs. When we would get too hot, we would jump in the water and sit at the swim up bar for a little while, sipping on fancy, frozen tropical drinks.
Of course, the people watching at the pool was a little better than down at the beach. That was our favorite activity while we were lounging in the sun. People watching. Americans really are an ugly people. I don’t mean looks either. They were so rude and nasty. At the pool there was a group of 8 there together and one of them broke a champagne glass on the cool decking. Every single one of them in the group saw it happen, commented on it, then ignored it! They just left the broken glass there and never made an attempt to pick it up or even flag down an employee to point it out. Rude.
La Isla Mall & Interactive Aquarium
On Sunday, June 24th we trecked our happy asses into downtown Cancun to La Isla Mall and the Interactive Aquarium. We were a little nervous about riding the city bus after our experience with drivers in Cancun after we left the airport, but that was cheaper than a taxi, so we braved the evils.
La Isla Mall was only 5 minutes from our hotel, so the ride wasn’t too terribly bad. Only a couple of breath holding experiences, but before we knew it we had arrived. And what a mall it was!
It was all an outdoor mall, except the stores were inside and air conditioned. The walkways were surrounded by a lagoon fed moat that surrounded the mall and gondola boats that you could rent to cruise around in if you wanted to.
Once there, we headed straight for the Aquarium since we had a date with the dolphins! We spent an hour walking through the aquarium, marveling at the amazing sea life on display. Once we exited the building, we found ourselves in the midst of the interactive portion of the aquarium. There were wade pools full of starfish, sea urchins, and other shallow water sea life that you could hold and touch. There was a larger pool of sharks, manta rays, and adult sea turtles as well. Each pool had a guide to teach you about the creatures you were touching and handling. Ryan was completely fascinated with the sharks and never really left the shark pool. He pet the nurse shark and listened so intently to the guide as he talked about the sharks.
Soon it was our turn to swim with the dolphins. I was so excited I couldn’t see straight. This was something I have always wanted to do, and wow! Here I was! They herded us all up into some grandstands and talked about what we could and could not do while in the water and then suited us up with life jackets.
I was giddy. Ryan was giddy. We just couldn’t believe we were actually going to be able to do this amazing thing!
The water the dolphins swam in was the coldest water that I’ve ever been in. Wow, was it friggin cold!
The adrenaline that was coursing through our veins counter acted the feelings of the frigid water rather quickly, however. As soon as the dolphins began swimming around us all, I forgot about the cold.
There was one female dolphin in particular who wouldn’t leave Ryan’s side. She would wrap her body around him and swim between us constantly. The trainer would call her over, give her a fish, and direct her away from Ryan. She would go, but soon she would be right back at his side.
We learned hand motions the trainers use to communicate with the dolphins. We learned the anatomy of the dolphins.
There were three different photo ops and a photographer there to get the images.
One was the kiss. Each of us floated out in the center of the pool and the dolphins came up from under you and pressed their noses on your cheek.
One was the hand shake. Same concept, only they swam up in front of you and put their fins out toward you to “shake” your hands.
The last was the foot push.
We were to lay in the water, face down with our feet slightly apart. Two dolphins then came up from underneath your body, placing a nose on each foot, then pushed you across the water with such force and speed it was breath taking!
That was the most fun!
There was a DVD made of the entire hour long swim and was made available for purchase once you were finished changing clothes. Of course, we bought it all.
I had planned on putting the video of us swimming with the dolphins, however, those little mexican vendors are smart ones! The DVD is protected, and I can’t get it to even play on the computer, let alone upload it to show ya’ll!
I am so bummed!
After our swim with the dolphins (nuestra nadada con los delfines) we spent a few hours wandering around the mall and doing our souvenir shopping.
It made for a wonderful day!
Surviving A Tropical Storm in Paradise
As we were enjoying a fabulous dinner Sunday night and still marveling at our swim with the dolphins, we saw it coming. Literally. It began with extremely dark clouds on the horizon. Soon you could see places where the rain was coming down heavily over the ocean. Soon, all those places of rain merged and for as far as the eye could see, it was raining. It only took about five minutes after that for it to roll up on shore.
And the rain and thunder came. With it there were strong winds. We finished our dinner and headed up to the lobby for our after dinner drink and watched the rain from the safety of the lobby bar.
That night we fell asleep to the sounds of the wind and rain beating on the windows of our room.
By Monday morning, the storm had not let up at all. It was pouring in sheets of rain so heavy you could see it moving across the island. There was no break in sight. It was sadening to us, for we had planned on spending all day Monday soaking up the sun and the surf for our last day on the island.
That was not going to happen now.
However, it was in part, a blessing in disguise. No, I couldn’t sit on the beach all day long, but it afforded me time to get all of our belongings packed up so that I didn’t have to rise too early Tuesday morning to get it done. We were to be down in the lobby by 10 am Tuesday. I wanted to enjoy the morning, not pack. So, I spent most of Monday morning packing and got it all finished. Once I was done, Ryan decided he wanted to go down and swim in the ocean in the rain. There were several crazies down there in the water, and Ryan was determined to join them, but didn’t want to just leave me in the room.
I grabbed my laptop and decided I’d spend the afternoon in the lobby by the bar with the computer. No big deal. Go swim baby. I was so scared he wouldn’t come back, but he was dying to go.
I set myself up at a corner table and played with the computer while I put away a whole bunch of tequila sunrises. My waitress kept them coming as the rain kept pouring.
Soon, Ryan was back at my side having braved the strong currents and wild waves of the storm for as long as his body would hold up. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw my husband walk up to my table, unharmed. ?l est? tan loco.
It wasn’t long after Ryan came back into the lobby that we ran into Mike and Pam. They joined us at our table where we all spent the rest of the afternoon drinking and laughing. There wasn’t anything else to do during the rainstorm, so we just decided to make our last night there the only night we got really drunk. And boy, did we ever!
They had a lot of entertainment going on in the lobby to keep the drowned tourists happy and busy during the rain. They had men dressed in drag putting on fashion shows and beauty contests. They did games and karaoke.
The even set up a huge buffet to feed us all as we all sat there drinking, laughing, clapping and having a great time during the storm.
Soon it was time to get ready for our dinner down at The Mercado with Vijilio. We all went up to our rooms to change and met back down in the lobby for dinner a few hours later. We were all pretty drunk at that point.
Then you add in all the bottles of champagne at dinner and, WOWZA! Every single one of us was pretty darn faded.
We spent the rest of the evening together, drinking and laughing until we all could barely stand any longer.
Our last night was magical and great, just the way I envisioned it to be. At the same time, when we went to sleep that night, I had tears in my eyes knowing that I had to go home the next day.
Snap, Back To Reality
Tuesday morning came bright and early. Except for a champagne headache, we really didn’t wake up hung over at all. That was a good thing since we had a lot of traveling in front of us for the day.
We walked down and had a long, languorous breakfast trying to savor every last moment we had left there in our little paradise.
We loaded up our bags and called for the bellboy. We sad solemly in the lobby until it was time to leave for the airport. I almost cried the whole way there. We were both very quiet.
We had to sit in the Cancun airport for two hours before we could board the plane. The flight was bumpy and made it very hard to sleep during. I took some great photos of the island out the window of the plane as we departed the air space, waving goodbye to heaven.
The layover in Cinncinati ended up being four hours. We sat in the terminal watching it rain outside, wishing so badly we were still in Cancun. Finally, we boarded the plane and were on our way home. We slept most all of the way into Phoenix.
We were excited to see the kids, and I am sure the kids were just as excited to see us. Mostly because they knew we were coming to fetch them in a limo! Our last “hoorah” of our amazing trip to Cancun.
We both came home suntanned, I more than Ryan due to his nature to sunburn. We kept him pretty well lathered in sun block the whole time.
We came home bearing gifts for those whom made this trip possible. His father, His step mother, his mother, his sister (who house sat) and my Desiree who took care of the children while we were gone and made it possible to not worry one single time about the children during the entire trip.
I still haven’t fully unpacked. Our first full day home was spent at the bank, paying off some important bills, lunching with family. Our second day home I was on the computer all day long uploading and fixing up all of the photos from the trip and doing loads and loads of laundry!
With more unpacking to do, and more family members still to visit this afternoon I suppose I’ll be visiting everyone’s blogs tomorrow. I know I’ve got a great deal to catch up on with ya’ll and I am excited to get back into it! I’ve missed every one so much. The only thing that would have made things more perfect in Cancun would have been an internet connection that I could blog with in the early morning hours while I was waiting for Ryan to wake.
I will be catching up tomorrow, so look for me to be making myself at home at your blogs again!
But,
I want to go back……
Now.
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