June 2021 El Dorado Royale and Secrets Riviera Cancun Filming Trip

 We headed back to Mexico to film more resort tours. El Dorado Royale was our first stay. We spent most of our days at the Fuentes swim up bar or at our new friends' swim up room. It was so much fun. We enjoyed the special dining event that had a mixologist face off against a sommelier. The mixologist should have won. The sommelier just picked a set of very popular French wines. We enjoyed evenings at the Beach Bar. 

Our next stop was Secrets Riviera Cancun. We had a great room here. 

We loved the dining. The Rosewater Grill on the Secrets side had terrific seaweed. I love all the appetizers with raw salmon and tuna. 

We spent a lot of time at the main pool on the Breathless side.  One day, I met up with an agent I met on my trip to Ireland and we set off on a day of resort tours. It was so much fun! 

9.1.18 Trip to Secrets Maroma

We headed back to Mexico for Labor Day. We stayed at Secrets Maroma. 

We were surprised at all the activities available. We painted in the garden.  

Glenn played beach volleyball.

We loved the casino night, though Angie had to scold the men giving the craps dealer a hard time for not knowing the complex bets. We were playing for monopoly money. 

Glenn's favorite restaurant was the seafood restaurant.  Angie's favorite was the Italian because the service was fantastic plus they brought over a huge wheel  of cheese. 

Can't beat that. The poolside grill had grill whole fish which is one of our favorites. 

Overall, it was a great trip and we really enjoyed the resort. 

1.31.18 Hyatt Zilara

We headed to Hyatt Zilara with a fun group of friends to celebrate Marisa's and my birthday. It was so much fun. Hyatt Zilara was the perfect resort: big enough that everyone could find their own space, but small enough to easily find each other. The food and service were great. We loved having the swim up bar connect to an infinity pool. 

Highlights: 

• Tamarind daiquiris with chili salt rim 
• Two random people crashed our private Hibachi dinner 
• Amazing braised octopus dish at the Mexican restaurant 
• Great tasting menu at the Catina complete with flaming Mexican coffee and a Mariachi band singing Happy Birthday
• Lots of laughs under the bridge with half of us in the cold pool and half of us in the warm pool  

5.12.16 - 5.15.16 Grand Palladium Vallarta Resort and Spa

For our 7th anniversary, we headed to Grand Palladium Vallarta just north of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.  I was so impressed with the Puerto Vallarta airport. We zipped through customs and immigration and were on our way to the resort.

Grand Palladium is a family resort. The staff was SO friendly. We really felt like they would do anything for us. Every staff person we passed said hello. It was a little weird being at the Swim Up Bar and having a kid swim right next to me.

We'd start the day at the buffet. It was amazing!! It had everything you possibly want for breakfast. We loved it! Then, we'd head to adults only infinity pool to watch  the surfers.

We spent the afternoons at the main pool because we really like the activities: trivia, the music, dance lessons, and live music.

We even won trivia!

This was quite a challenge since many of the questions were in Spanish. The demographics at the resort were mostly Mexican citizens, Canadians, and a couple Americans.

In the evenings, we would go to dinner. The restaurants were a la carte. The food was okay. Nothing was terrible, but nothing wowed us. We liked we didn't need reservations. The house wine was drinkable and the service was slow, but friendly. Then we would go to the adults only bar that had the top shelf cocktails before the evening show. The evening show was an A for effort. It was as full hour long production with acrobatics, multiple costume changes, and lots of dancing.  I think because we'd just come from a dance competition, we were a little more critical of the dancing than we would have normally been.

Overall, we really enjoyed the trip.

3.11.16 - 3.15.16 El Dorado Casitas

We headed to Cancun for a long weekend at El Dorado Casitas. I had visited El Dorado as part of a travel agent conference in October 2015. I recommended it to my parents and they visited in January 2016. I was excited to explore the resort myself for a few days.

Our room was amazing - an infinity pool swim up suite. I loved it. We could relax in our own pool or swim to the swim bar.

Our private pool

Glenn on the patio

The food at the resort was really good. We had room service for breakfast. Lunch was a little different every day. We had dinners at Santa Fe, the Wine Kitchen, the Culinary Theater, and the Italian restaurant. The highlights were the Wine Kitchen and the Culinary Theater. The food at the Culinary Theater was fantastic. The event dragged on a bit. The Wine Kitchen was over at Generations - the family resort next door. We ended up buying bottles of wine at dinner because the hosue wine was not our taste.

Glenn enjoying the mussels at Santa Fe

We decided to take a tour the first full day in Mexico. Glenn had really wanted to see the Mayan ruins. We arranged for a private driver and guide and headed down to Tulum. It was fantastic. We got there just as Tulum was opening so we had the place to ourselves. Our guide was so passionate about the history and the culture. It started pouring down rain - which was nice because it cooled things off a bit. Then we headed to Coba. This is a smaller set of ruins that you can climb. After all the history, we headed back toward the resort and had lunch at a great spot in Playa del Carmen.

Tulum

Tulum

Coba

The red dot at the top is Glenn

Our stop in Playa del Carmen

The rest of the weekend passed quickly. We spent most of our time at the Swim Up Bar. It was a wonderful relaxing weekend.

10.24.15 - 10.29.15 Mark Travel Summit

In October, I headed to the Mark Travel Summit in Cancun, Mexico with my fellow travel agent Sue Ann. We had a blast and got to visit a lot of great resorts and attend helpful workshops.

January 2014: Carnival Paradise Cruise

For MLK Day weekend, we took off on a 4 night Cruise on the Carnival Paradise. This cruise was complimentary since I am travel agent.  This cruise is tough to review. The big memory we will have from this cruise is that Glenn got food poisoning on the first night and we spent all the first day at Sea in the cabin. Luckily, he was feeling better by dinner, but we ended up heading to bed early every night since he wasn't 100%. I also felt a little crappy due to the food so it definitely wasn't one of our best cruises. It's a shame because we loved the ship and spent the first several hours talking about how great the ship was and we should take this cruise more often. There were a couple highlights: 

Cozumel 12.12.12

On December 8th, we took off for Cozumel, Mexico to join up with 8 friends for a week of fun in a rental house. Here is the link to the house. Our first stop was Pancho's Backyard to wait for everyone's  flights to come in - a margarita and guacamole is a great way to start vacation. Here was our view! 

After everyone was assembled, we headed to the house. We were not disappointed. The house was perfect: five bedrooms each with their own bathroom plus a great pool and rooftop deck. 

We settled in and then Edgar and his wife arrived to make dinner. We had elected to have a chef prepare breakfast and dinner each day except Sunday. The food was amazing! We ate so well! 

Sunday, Glenn had arranged a tour with Cozumel Bar Hop. A van picked us up and we headed to the "other" side of the island. This side is barely developed - no electricity or running water. A few bars have popped up over the years. We visited five of them and had a terrific time. Some of the highlights: 

Seaside tables 

Swings instead of bar stools

We headed back home to catch sunset from the rooftop deck. 

Monday was a lazy day around the pool. We walked down the Carlos and Charlie's beach club for lunch. Then we had a great night hanging in the living room playing games. Tuesday, Tom, Margaret, Glenn and I went to a cooking class. It was so much fun! We went to the market to buy the ingredients and then Josefina taught us how to make her family favorites. 

Wednesday was my birthday and it just so happened that Glenn's sister was in port from her cruise ship so we all met up at the Town Square for lunch.  I even got a special birthday corsage from a tiny clown. 

Then a monsoon hit and we took cover in a dive bar until it was dinner time. Glenn had arranged for a birthday cake. It was a terrific birthday. Thursday was a rainy, rainy day so we all hibernated in the house - reading and playing card games. Friday, we headed to the Playa Palancar.   It was awesome. It was like we were staring in our own Corona commercial. 

Then we enjoyed our last sunset on the rooftop. 

It was so hard to say goodbye to one of the greatest vacations I have ever had. Some tips for next time: invest in having the house stocked with food, beer and tequila before we arrive. It will be worth it. Don't forget to include the $2 per person day tip for Edgar and his wife in the equation. Pesos are not necessary, but helpful because the exchange rate can change widely. Consider securing a taxi for a the week. We spent $35 one way to town every day so getting a taxi to agree to be on call for $100 per day may be worth it. I can't wait to go back!