December 2017 (WARNING: HEAVY with images and video!)
Got to go to another all inclusive. We really wanted to go down to Tulum this time - white sandy beaches and turquoise waters. The resort we got a good deal on this time was Grand Bahia Principe Tulum. We went by ourselves this time. Jod and Sue had been to the sister resort just up the way (Coba) but they said this one was better.
We flew out on Friday December 22 on a red eye. Ugh I hate red eye flights. This one was no exception. The flight was packed and kels and I weren't even sitting together >< We were in the same row but opposite. He had the window and I had the aisle. I didn't sleep a wink but he did. I was ancy and couldn't sit still - not from excitement mind you. I watched a couple of movies and anxiously waited to get to Cancun.
We landed about 7:30am Cancun time (two hours ahead of Calgary). The sunrise from the plane was spectacular:
When we arrived our room wasn't ready so they wristbanded us up and we headed for the buffet and ate. There was a lovely open area in the middle of the dining room with a large fountain. Birds flitted in and out and drank from it. It was a beautiful and relaxing eating area.
After we went back to the lobby and hung out until our room was ready at noon. I dozed a bit.
Once our room was ready a cart took us to our villa which was VERY close to the ocean.
The beach was unbelievable long and stretched out over a lot of acreage. Nice white sandy beach a little bit of a rocky area then nice white sand again. We spent a lovely afternoon swimming, napping and snorkeling. The water was perfect and the white sandy under the hot sun barely registered a temperature. When we got back to the room and had a shower there were these really cute gecko/lizards in the bathroom. Almost translucent skin:
We had had a late lunch so we weren't that hungry. All in all it was a pretty nice first day. I crashed super early as I had been up so long. AC running in the room had a good sleep.
DAY 2 (Dec 24th)
Woke up early enough not to see the sunrise but def saw the dawn.
And the water was a perfect temperature:
Woke kels up and got dressed and went for breakfast. After breakfast we went to our orientation at 10am and found out some information about the resort (like we had to book all our al la carte dinners at once for the whole week and that our rep for excursions would be found in such and such area). We also got our airport transfer for the trip home. It was unpleasant - we had to be in the lobby to catch the shuttle to the airport at 3:30...AM! But we shuffled that into the corner of the brain that doesn't register things until it actually happens and immediately went to book our dinners. Dinners were only available for most days at 9pm. Which technically is 7pm our time so maybe not so bad? We also visited our travel rep and booked an excursion - on the following day. We decided to take a catamaran half day snorkeling trip.
After we booked those we decided to check out more of the resort so walked a bit around and down the beach areas seeing which parts where the best.
We stopped at this one rocky part. Kels found a hermit crab way up on the sand so we brought him down to the water but he kept trying to come out of his shell and grab our fingers so it was a slow process. LOL in retrospec I believe he was telling us he didn't like the ocean cause when we put him close to the water he started heading back up the beach towards the resort. Poor guy was probably thinking this stupid tourists just wasted all the time I spent trying to get away from the ocean ><
Once we got back from exploring a bit we were happy for the ac - it was so humid!!
On our travels they have smoking trays and they "brand" the sand like this after they clean them:
We lounged and cooled off in the room a bit then grabbed the gear and went snorkeling a bit. I ended up having a conversation with some other travelers from the UK and found out we had to make reservations for xmas eve dinner (that night!!) as all the restaurants were by reservations only for their special buffets. So back to the reservation place we went! We ended up getting into Tequila and had their buffet. It didn't look all that special to me but hey what do I know? They had this statue encased in glass that looked like it was completely made of chocolate (and hey it was in front of the chocolate fountain so who knows?) but upon closer inspection it was def not made of chocolate. It was a little creepy tho...
And after dinner we caught a cart back to our room and to bed.
Day 3 (Dec 25th)
We had to be in the lobby for 7:30am pickup so we got up at about 6:30am. We packed up our snorkel gear and towels and headed to breakfast before we loaded up on the shuttle. We loaded into the ac'd van and headed off the reserve so to speak. We hit two more resorts to pick up others for the trip. Then ironically we pulled into the same area we stayed last year!! No joke it was the Catalonia area and the catamarans were docked up the road from that resort! We all piled off the shuttle and walked into the staging area of the excursion company. We had done one with Cancun Adventures last year and it was well organized so we went with them again this year. We loaded up on the sunscreen, signed the waiver and once that was done we exited out the back and onto the dock were our catamaran was waiting - there were 8 cruises going out this morning so we had to remember we were boat #9 (since we would be leaving the boat for snorkeling).
It was a gorgeous boat ride out - the sun was sparkling off the water and kels even spotted a turtle coming up for air on the trip out! We got the spiel on the boat of crew intros and what to expect. We were heading to the snorkeling place first. There was only one female crew member and she would be taking pics the whole time which we would have the option to purchase after the cruise.
Soon we were all off and snorkeling exploring the spectacular world of fishies under the sea. (All pics until the next paragraph are from the cruise lady taking shots. Most snorkelers you see below are us)
Once we did the circuit of reefs we loaded back up onto the boat and headed back to sea. The crew brought us a lovely box lunch of curried pasta salad, turkey sandwiches, fruit and chips & guacamole. Everything tastes better not only outdoors but out at sea too! They brought us drinks and cranked the music. They played Selena! I love her music and know most of her Spanish songs as well. The crew was pleasantly surprised when I started dancing to it on deck and singing along.
We pulled into a beautiful lagoon about an hour later for a little fun in the water. We were invited to try out paddle boarding and jump off the boat. They even took a bottle of booze off the boat and played a game of round circle volleyball in a shallow part of the lagoon loser taking a drink. We didn't participate but they looked like they were having fun. Both Kels and I tried paddle boarding. I struggled to stand up but I did once but quickly kneeled down again and paddled back to the boat. Kels picked it up no prob!
I chatted with the girl a bit while she took pics of all the goings on. She was a wealth of information and since we hadn't seen any turtles that day (which surprised even her) she told us about a place where we would 100% get to see them kels and I talked about it on the boat ride back to port and we decided to do it ourselves not booking anything.
Once back in port we purchased the trip pics and gave our email information so it could be sent and headed back to our waiting shuttle to the resort. We got back and headed down to our room. We were pretty hot by then and maybe got a little too much sun on the boat so we decided a siesta was in order.
We showered and got ready sometime later and headed out for dinner. We went to the buffet for dinner this night and then walked all the way back to our room on the beach. The moon was out and the stars along with it. It was a great ending to another day.
Day 4 (Dec 26)
Got up early to see dawn again (not the sun rising) and I discovered some friends of the feathered variety. Sandpipers. I shared some crumbs from my breakfast muffins with them.
After I went back to the room we headed for breakfast, exchanged our towels, headed back to the room and then out to the beach. Snorkeled, snoozed, read and swam. We decided to rent boogie boards this day as the waves seemed pretty good for it. We checked them out at the beach dive shop and they told us we had them for an hour. They also told us where to go. I was a little apprehensive as it was out beyond the sheltered beach area and the only waves were crashing against the breaker rocks but we went swam out on the boards and tried to catch a few waves. We discovered that it was kinda tough to ride a wave and that the best ones were indeed closer to the breaker rocks. And the water just before the breaker rocks was only chest high lol. There was a life guard standing on the breaker rocks as well as there were quite a few kayakers out there. We played around for awhile and thought it was almost time to get the boards back. So in we swam. It was a super tough swim in as it felt like we were going against the current. No matter how much I paddled I felt like I was getting nowhere. Finally I just headed straight for the breaker rocks and the lifeguard came and pulled me into the safe zone. We got the boards back with 15mins to spare. It was a nice day at the beach.
Discovered that the room we were staying in was really close to the Dophinarium that was on the resort. That afternoon we walked by on the way back to the room and I got a pic. But I also sat out on our balcony and got to see them jumping a few times. It was pretty neat.
That night we had our first reservation over at the Coba resort. We were thoroughly unimpressed with everything at the Coba resort (can see why you didn't want to go back Sue!) but the waiter was entertaining so it made an interesting dinner night. He desperately wanted to take our picture and went to a lot of effort to setup the picture below.
Kels ordered the chicken supreme and I had the lamb.
For dessert I had apple something but kels got the baked Alaska and it came with a show:
We caught the tramp back and pretty much went to sleep.
Day 5 (Dec 27)
We decided the night before to check the weather conditions and if it was conducive to snorkeling to head out and see the turtles. So I got up early again, saw the dawn and looked ok so went and got kels up.
We packed up our snorkle masks and towels and headed for breakfast. Once we were done breakfast we walked from the lobby to the highway dodging pushy taxi drivers and found a collectivo (basically Mexican public transportation). For 20 pesos each we caught a right down to Akumel beach road. We exited the van and walked down to the beach. Along the way we were accosted by what the locals call sharks - they try and sell you excursions or guides. And they hawk the sales hard. We kept walking. We got to the beach, but just before we got there there was a family from the UK also walking carrying their snorkel gear but they had fins. I had read online the previous night that fins were def not allowed and there were guys there totally enforcing that rule. We continued on and found a shack renting life jackets which were also mandatory. The guy in the shack insisted that we couldn't snorkel in "his" area where the turtles were but we had to go down the beach where there were no turtles he said. We knew the whole beach was public so we ignored him and rented the life jackets for 120 pesos each then headed up to the dive shop to rent a locked to store our valuables. Then down to the beach!
Once in the water kels realized he still had his phone so I gave him the key and he went back to lock it up. And when he got back we went face down and started looking for our prey. And it didn't take long to spot one. It was one of the most amazing experiences I've had. Spotting that first turtle just chilling munching on some seaweed at the bottom of the ocean floor swirling with the swells was just breathtaking. Kels video'd him but actually being there experiencing it was something else. Floating on top of the water, looking down watching him was just so...cool.
Well once we had seen on it was just all uphill from there - we saw rays, schools of fish, more turtles and cuddlefish. It was such a great snorkeling trip. Below are some videos we took on the gopro.
We finished up and headed back to the beach completely satisfied and extremely happy and in awe of what we saw. We grabbed our gear, returned the locker key and life jackets and headed back up to the highway to catch another collectivio further up the road. We decided to do a little shopping at none other than the same shopping store we had gone to with Jod & Sue the previous year since we were so close. Super Chedraui.
For 35 pesos he got us there. We got out and walked over the overpass and headed into ac'd bliss. The store hadn't changed in a year and we went up and down the aisle looking for snacks for the plane home, booze for our allotment to take home and souvenirs. I found the coolest pearl necklace of a turtle and it was the perfect thing to get as a memento of what we had just experienced. Once again for everything it was a steal of a deal. We walked out with our bags of goodies and headed to the bus stop. There was a uniformed guy there who asked us where we were going. He radio'd to a collectivo who was coming next. Once it stopped there was two workers in uniforms who were already waiting that we let get on. We had time to wait for the next one. The next one came in about 5 mins and it was packed! There was only one seat so kels squatted on the floor between seats which they seemed perfectly ok with. The van stopped at a cenote along the highway and a bunch of tourists got off. We reshuffled and moved to the back of the van. About another 25 mins up the road he pulled over and we all transferred into another collectivo van and kept going again. We were the next stop and we pulled over by our resort. We waited for a break in traffic and hopped the highway back onto the reserve again. We caught a shuttle back to our villa and after all that work we showered and had a siesta and chilled until dinner that night.
Once again we had a late reservation at 9pm but it was SUPER close to our villa so once dressed for dinner we took a 5min walk past the Dolphinarium to the Tortuga Restaurant (how fitting we ate here this night as Tortuga is Spanish for turtle!). The Tortuga Restaurant was Brazilian all you can eat meat. We have done these in Calgary and are HUGE fans so we were looking forward to it. The salad bar was pretty good and they brought two different dipping sauces - one red and spicy and the other a kind of oil flavored with all kinds of herbs and garlic. Then the meat came and it was pretty good (Calgary's was better - sorry but it is). And here they certainly don't skimp on the portions cut from the stick! They were HUGE cuts.
After dinner we headed back to the room and went to bed.
Day 6 (Dec 28)
For once I slept in. Since we had been out the day before we didn't go far from the room and beach this day. We headed for the buffet breakfast. I should mention 2 things at this point - one is that the hostess at the buffet always remembered us. And she was always there with hand sanitize for us too. The second thing is this buffet area was HUGE. The first time we went I was almost overwhelmed with so many food choices. Didn't matter that it was breakfast lunch or dinner, they had Mexican american and Italian and much more. Well we discovered something about breakfasts too - crepes. But not just crepes cause let's face it most of us have had crepes at one time or another. They had crepes with multiple toppings that you could add yourself. And the real revelation was condensed milk. Crepes with condensed milk. It was just unbelievably delicious. And by this point we were hooked. So pretty much every morning we had this. And they also had this really good herbed cream cheese spread for bagels. It was a lot softer than our cream cheese but man I couldn't get enough of the flavor. Oh and I should also mention that their guacamole was just perfect and I had it at EVERY meal.
After breakfast we headed to the hacienda for a little more shopping. Since it was on the resort it was super close to the lobby. I ended up picking up a lovely blue Mexican blanket for the spare room. And we discovered that the Mexicans are very liberal people. They had shot glasses and various other paraphernalia of well people doing dirty things lol. After we headed back to the room and gathered our gear and headed to the beach. We snorkeled a bit then I got out of the water and read a bit and laid in the sun a bit and slept a bit and swam a bit more and then we eventually headed back to the room for a siesta in the ac goodness.
For our mains kels got the salmon and I got the surf and turf with steak and shrimp. And let me tell you it was the best meal I had had all week!
For dessert kels got blackberry puff pastry and I got the creme brulee. The brulee was meh.
The sommelier came and asked if we would be interested in a lobster dinner on the beach one night. We told him we only had one more evening and he gave us a special price of $20 per person for steak and lobster on the beach. How could we pass it up? So we said yes and he signed us up.
It was a nice night and we headed back and went to bed.
Our last full day and I wanted to truly see the sunrise not just the dawn. So because I had been waking up early anyway when I awoke at 6:00am I got up and dressed and headed to the beach. Only that it was pitch black, the stars were still out and the sun was set to come up until 7:24am. Wow I misjudged that completely. There was a dive type shop that had big wooden swing so I watched the shore and stars there until 7am then headed down to the beach. And then I started taking pics in regular intervals:
To pass the time while the sun was making it's way in the sky, I noticed that I had a fellow human on a lounger down the way. But the really odd thing was they were under a pile of towels, strategically placed like a blanket warding off the night chill. At about 7:30am he got up and headed to my right down the beach with a towel over his shoulders. He was a middle aged man def caucasian but had a deep suntan. About 10 mins later he came back, said good morning as he passed, ruffled around under his palapa then headed down the beach to the left sans towel. He came back about 15 mins later with a coffee. I wondered if his significant other had possibly kicked him out? Or maybe he had drunk too much and never went back to his villa. Or maybe he was some sort of expat and just slept on the beach and hopped from resort to resort. Whatever the case it passed the time thinking about it. My sandpiper buddies were back again and I also passed the time feeding them.
After the sun came up I went back to our villa and kels and I went for breakfast. Our last breakfast and they were out of crepes AND condensed milk! I was sad. But I still had bagels and their lovely herb cream cheese. After breakfast we decided to gather our gear and head to the far end of the resort for snorkeling and beach time. So to the villa we went then caught a shuttle back to the lobby and walked to the farthest part of the resort. We found a couple loungers in the shade up closer to the pool down there so set up shop. Kels was tired so he napped in the shade and I went and played in the waves for a bit. It was so much fun hopping up and trying to get over the wave without it going over my head. I talked with two early teen sisters jumping waves too and they told my the day before they had seen a turtle snorkeling in this very area. I excused myself and went and got kels. He headed out snorkeling while I read a bit in the sun. About 20mins later he was back. Sure enough he had found a turtle and he was content with his snorkeling time. Turns out he followed the little dude around for awhile until he headed back out to sea.
He laid down to snooze in the shade and I went to shower and cool off after being in the sun. I read a bit more when I came back and flipped over. After about half an hour and another shower the older lady next to me struck up a conversation that lasted quite awhile. Turns out they are from Colorado and we accompanied them to lunch. We had a real nice chat with them and then they left for a sunset cruise. We headed back to our room for some nice ac before our own beach dinner.
We left the room at about 7pm as the restaurant was on the other end of the resort. When we got to the little shuttle shelter a private shuttle came by and the driver asked where we were going. He gave us a ride all the way to the restaurant! The restaurant was the same one that we went to for our xmas buffet - tequila. We had gotten there so early we chilled in the area outside. Just befroe 7:30 we headed in and gave them the receipt we had. They weren't ready for us. So they seated us basically where we were chilling previously and we watched them set up a table. Once it was setup they seated us and dinner commenced.
They brought us a really nice Mexican trio appetizer.
I don't think they gave us the same meal that was originally sold as we were told to order off the menu for the main so I ordered the duck which was meh. Kels got to have the steak which looked far better than my main.
Then the lobser came. It was huge and had been cooked in it's shell in garlic butter. I have to say that after the appetizer, soup and main I was pretty stuffed already so couldn't really do the lobster justice but it was tasty. Also by this point we had been there 2 hrs. I was kind of done. It was a lovely experience dining in the sand and watching the waves crash on the beach.
Just after the lobster the mexican band came out and serenaded us with a traditionaly mexican song. There was 6 of them and they circled our table. They sang beautifully however.
After desert we just wanted to leave. We had to get up early and it was already 10:30pm and we had a long walk back to our villa.
We got back and packed up. We asked for a wake up call and set our own alarms and tried to get some shut eye for the short amount of time we had.
Day 8 (Dec 30)
That wake up call at 3am was a rude awaking and it wouldn't be the last we had this day. Up we got and stuffed our toiletries in our already packed luggage. The shuttle we ordered the night before pulled up at 3:30am and we loaded up the luggage to be taken to the lobby. We got there and for the first time in 8 days the lobby was completely empty. Couldn't believe it.
We checked out while our luggage was loaded into the van for airport transport. There was one other couple already in the van with booze. Turns out you can't get coffee at 3:30am but you can get a drink. Go figure.
On the way to the airport we picked up yet another couple at another resort and it started to rain. Briefly. I snoozed a bit in the van and we got to the airport. We were at the airport so early there was no one at the Westjet baggage check-in! So we waited about half an hour and got our checked luggage taken care of and then headed to security. Then like every airport in the world now it seems we had to walk through the duty free. Kels compared booze prices and I bought some mexican chocolate. We looked in a couple of shops but other than a keychain with turtles we didn't get anything else. We headed to our gate and took an hour and a half nap. They were supposed to start preboarding at 7:30am however they didn't until closer to 8am oddly. Once loaded I was in the middle with kels at the window and an elderly very immobile lady on the aisle. Before we pulled out of the airport she decided to pay the upgraded fee for premium seating ($100!) and moved so kels and I ended up having the whole aisle to ourselves. The flight was pretty uneventful. Watch 3 movies. We landed in Calgary at about 12:30 however the Calgary airport was in mass chaos for some reason so we were left sitting on the tarmac for just over an hour. Once in the terminal we grabbed our luggage and headed out to the taxis. And -30. Ouch. For the second time this day we had a rude awaking. That 60 degree difference was harsh. We eventually got a cab but the roads were terrible. I got sick in the cab and had to rush home and kels caught a cold or flu on the plane we think. Well back to work on Tuesday and the real life.
Vacation was great all around though and super relaxing. Glad we went and looking forward to the next one.
Stay tuned for next years excursion!
Viva Mexico 2018!
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