I have started to get some pictures of the trip back from the girls, so I think it’s time to tell you about Mexico. This first picture is us in the pool. Wow, so much for pictures being worth a thousand words, huh?
Since I know Jay loves details, I’ll start with the plane. When I first got off the plane and felt the air, my first thought was that I was breathing water. The air was so humid. Up until that point, I hadn’t really been all that excited about the travel part of the trip. It felt like another business trip until I stood in line at Customs and saw 2 of my girls on the other side waiting for me. We worked it out so the 4 of us arrived fairly close to each other. Mimi had a direct flight and arrived a few hours earlier. We just planned on meeting her at the hotel.
So the 3 of us piled into a taxi after running through the “Can I Help You?” gauntlet at the airport where people did everything but snatch the bags from your hands. It was such a weird experience but nowhere near what we went through in the Caribbean several years earlier. ThreeL, straight outta Compton, er… I mean New Jersey, had her “don’t even think about talking to me” face on as she is used to this sort of behavior from the gypsy cabbies, I guess. Whatever. I know when to shut up and let her do her thing. It all worked out fine and we were soon on our way to Playa.
A short 50 minutes later we were pulling in to the hotel. The entire lobby was an outdoor, open area. Mimi was there to greet us and once again the 4 of us were ready to do absolutely nothing, as long as we were together. The perfect vacation. First we had to sort out the room reservations. I won’t go through it, since it isn’t remotely interesting, but if you think about Abbott and Costello and the “Who’s on First” bit, you get an idea of us trying to explain which people belonged in which room and so on. They snapped a plastic yellow bracelet on us and we were officially there. (We ended up calling them our "Live Strong" bracelets.) Naturally, we headed outside to take a look around and to find the bar.
Now this was my first experience with an all-inclusive resort. I must say I heartily approve of this entire concept. It was so nice to not have to worry about carrying any sort of cash or ID or anything at all. And the bar in the swimming pool is freakin’ brilliant. The only bad bar experience was in one of the lounges and frankly, this remains a mystery for all of us. The place was basically empty the entire time we were there except for Karaoke night. One night we were there and playing one of the games we brought with us. We were prepared to basically camp out there for the evening except for the fact the no one seemed particularly interested in serving us. The rest of the hotel staff practically came to blows over who got to serve us, but not this place. So we left and went to another lounge.
There were 3 restaurants on the property. One was the buffet and then there was an Italian and Japanese restaurant. If you think it might be tough to speak Spanish, try throwing in some Italian and Japanese with that. Then try it with cocktails. The staff for each place was again, very accommodating and nice. We practiced our Spanish and they told us how pretty we were. It was a good system. Mimi was practically fluent, although she didn’t think so. Baby (yeah, she gets a new nickname now) and I were picking up about every other word like we were on some sort of 5 second time delay. I think we each have about 6 years of Spanish, but if you don’t practice it? Forget it. Things got better for us as the week progressed and we forced ourselves to speak it. ThreeL was pretty much out of luck, but she made a valiant effort to learn things along the way. I think her repertoire consisted of profanity, so she didn’t really get to use it.
I think the only complaint with the hotel would be housekeeping. It was always a mystery as to when they would appear and what items would receive attention. For the room Mimi and I shared, it was all about the breakfast menu. We had all decided that a good way to start each day was to lounge around in pj’s and bathrobe while enjoying breakfast in our rooms on the balcony. For the most part this worked out fine. Like I said, there were some discrepancies as to whether we would receive a menu and what food would appear, but it was all easily resolved. The other room had issues with shampoo, I think. They never received any the entire week. The funniest thing as far as I’m concerned is when all of our bathrobes disappeared the day before we were to leave the hotel. What was that about? Most hotels hope you’ll take something so they can charge you for it. Not this place.
I think that now that I have laid the groundwork for what the hotel was like, the next installment will be geared more toward what we actually did do while we were there, aside from eat, drink, and lay in the sun.
Hasta luego.
Since I know Jay loves details, I’ll start with the plane. When I first got off the plane and felt the air, my first thought was that I was breathing water. The air was so humid. Up until that point, I hadn’t really been all that excited about the travel part of the trip. It felt like another business trip until I stood in line at Customs and saw 2 of my girls on the other side waiting for me. We worked it out so the 4 of us arrived fairly close to each other. Mimi had a direct flight and arrived a few hours earlier. We just planned on meeting her at the hotel.
So the 3 of us piled into a taxi after running through the “Can I Help You?” gauntlet at the airport where people did everything but snatch the bags from your hands. It was such a weird experience but nowhere near what we went through in the Caribbean several years earlier. ThreeL, straight outta Compton, er… I mean New Jersey, had her “don’t even think about talking to me” face on as she is used to this sort of behavior from the gypsy cabbies, I guess. Whatever. I know when to shut up and let her do her thing. It all worked out fine and we were soon on our way to Playa.
A short 50 minutes later we were pulling in to the hotel. The entire lobby was an outdoor, open area. Mimi was there to greet us and once again the 4 of us were ready to do absolutely nothing, as long as we were together. The perfect vacation. First we had to sort out the room reservations. I won’t go through it, since it isn’t remotely interesting, but if you think about Abbott and Costello and the “Who’s on First” bit, you get an idea of us trying to explain which people belonged in which room and so on. They snapped a plastic yellow bracelet on us and we were officially there. (We ended up calling them our "Live Strong" bracelets.) Naturally, we headed outside to take a look around and to find the bar.
Now this was my first experience with an all-inclusive resort. I must say I heartily approve of this entire concept. It was so nice to not have to worry about carrying any sort of cash or ID or anything at all. And the bar in the swimming pool is freakin’ brilliant. The only bad bar experience was in one of the lounges and frankly, this remains a mystery for all of us. The place was basically empty the entire time we were there except for Karaoke night. One night we were there and playing one of the games we brought with us. We were prepared to basically camp out there for the evening except for the fact the no one seemed particularly interested in serving us. The rest of the hotel staff practically came to blows over who got to serve us, but not this place. So we left and went to another lounge.
There were 3 restaurants on the property. One was the buffet and then there was an Italian and Japanese restaurant. If you think it might be tough to speak Spanish, try throwing in some Italian and Japanese with that. Then try it with cocktails. The staff for each place was again, very accommodating and nice. We practiced our Spanish and they told us how pretty we were. It was a good system. Mimi was practically fluent, although she didn’t think so. Baby (yeah, she gets a new nickname now) and I were picking up about every other word like we were on some sort of 5 second time delay. I think we each have about 6 years of Spanish, but if you don’t practice it? Forget it. Things got better for us as the week progressed and we forced ourselves to speak it. ThreeL was pretty much out of luck, but she made a valiant effort to learn things along the way. I think her repertoire consisted of profanity, so she didn’t really get to use it.
I think the only complaint with the hotel would be housekeeping. It was always a mystery as to when they would appear and what items would receive attention. For the room Mimi and I shared, it was all about the breakfast menu. We had all decided that a good way to start each day was to lounge around in pj’s and bathrobe while enjoying breakfast in our rooms on the balcony. For the most part this worked out fine. Like I said, there were some discrepancies as to whether we would receive a menu and what food would appear, but it was all easily resolved. The other room had issues with shampoo, I think. They never received any the entire week. The funniest thing as far as I’m concerned is when all of our bathrobes disappeared the day before we were to leave the hotel. What was that about? Most hotels hope you’ll take something so they can charge you for it. Not this place.
I think that now that I have laid the groundwork for what the hotel was like, the next installment will be geared more toward what we actually did do while we were there, aside from eat, drink, and lay in the sun.
Hasta luego.
3 comments:
Hah! I love that they collect the bathrobes! That's hilarious. No Axel Foley souvenir shopping for you, my dear!
Chicas bonitas! The only other weird housekeeping thing for me was my disappearing contact case...I still have no explanation for that. "Baby needs a new contact case!"
What? You're pregnant? Yeah, I forgot about the disappearing case. That and holding Mimi's camera hostage ALL weekend...
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