Day 7
We woke up early, as is our unruly custom….can’t sleep in even if we wanted to. See what kids’ll do to ya’?
I forgot to mention the small hiccup that happened when we returned from the Bar Crawl. When we arrived home at the Luna Blue, Donny came over to me asking for my assistance. Apparently McKinzie was passed out in his room still. And Cheri had told Donny that if Kinz was still there when he returned from the bar crawl, to get the key to another room from the front desk, and him and Randa could stay there. Donny had tried this, but poor Mario the front desk clerk didn’t know anything about this arrangement. Donny was having some trouble conversing with Mario (language barrier), and asked if I could help. My Spanish isn’t terrific, but I tried. I was able to explain to Mario what was happening and what Cheri had said. But Mario said that Cheri ALWAYS leaves a note with him, and she didn’t leave one and he just couldn’t do it without a note. We all understood, he was just doing his job (and doing it well!) and so Donny was just trying to explain that he would pay for the room, he just wanted to go to bed! So I explained to Mario that he would pay for the room and straighten it out with Cheri in the morning, and he said sure no problem. Donny ended up having not enough pesos, so he just left his credit card with Mario, and it was all solved. Mario is a dear, and it was all just a misunderstanding, and I was glad to help. (actually, it’s all Cheri’s fault…haha! Just kidding, Cheri!)
Back to today, John was not feeling so well (had a lot to drink last night) so decided to stay in bed for a bit. I wanted to go down and take some early morning photos of the beach before it was slammed full of people. I took the towels and went down to Mamitas. I scouted out four lounge chairs and a palapa in the front row. I then took some photos.
I sat in my lounger and just chilled, listening to my MP3 player. It was very relaxing. These two little buddies happened by:
The sky was a little cloudy, but looked to be clearing up:
I think I fell asleep, and in awhile John joined me. Shortly after, I decided to return and leave the key for the rental car with the front desk at Luna Blue, since they’d be picking it up soon. On the way up I ran into BIL and SIL. I told them where our chairs were, and asked them to tell John to meet me at La Vegabundo for breakfast, as I was hungry. I then took some more pics of …guess what? Bougainvillea! I just love this stuff.
And I just loved the architecture in this area of town.
I left the key and 50 pesos with the front desk clerk, and asked him to get my credit card slip from the guy who drops off the car. Then I met John for some breakfast. We shared some pancakes and eggs, and left quickly as the guy beside me was smoking and it was blowing right at me. Yech.
We went back down to the beach, and lounged for a while. At about noon we all decided to go for a walk. We left our towels and books on the chairs, and off we went. It started to rain like CRAZY, and we raced back to our loungers for our stuff before it all got ruined. The rain didn’t seem to want to let up, so we all headed back to the hotel for some lunch.
When it ended, we decided to go back to the beach. John and I decided to hit a couple lawn chairs for a little bit since the sun was back out. It was getting late, and there was hardly anyone here at Mamitas now. Twice waiters came up and asked us for our pass for the chairs…like there was a line-up of people waiting for them at 4pm…yeesh. We just told them we had given them the pass in the morning, and they left us alone. We stayed a little while, and then returned to the hotel.
When we got back to the hotel we noticed the car was still parked there. We asked at the front desk, and no one had come to get it yet. Cheri, being the helpful dear that she is, took the number from us and asked Jaime to phone them for us. We chatted with a few other Lunites while he did this. Then Cheri came to tell us that they had some trouble finding the hotel, and were on their way to get the car.
Now this story is long, and weird. The day we went to pick up the in-laws, we stopped in at the Buster Car Rental shop in Cancun just to be sure that they were picking the car up from us at the Luna Blue. We had said this when we got the car, but…well, you know Mexico sometimes! The guy there showed me the paperwork, showed me that they would be picking up on the 2nd. I told him that we had only paid up to the 1st. There was a definite language barrier going on, but I was trying! I finally got it straight with him after another guy came that spoke better English. He said they would come on the 2nd, but I made sure we wouldn’t be paying for an extra day, because we had already paid. He said no, we wouldn’t. I then told him to make sure about the Luna Blue and he showed me that they had my email request printed out as well that said pickup at the Luna Blue (formerly Zanzibar) in Playa Del Carmen. (another thing: they try to charge a $25 fee for pickup in Playa, but when I argued about it they removed the charge and didn’t charge it at all…keep in mind for next time!).
So back to the present, the guys arrives to pick up the car and tries to charge us an extra day. We tried to argue about what we were told in Cancun, but his paperwork now said the 1st (not sure how that all happened, that’s weird). So regardless, we asked him why then he didn’t pick the car up YESTERDAY like he is saying he was supposed to. He said they couldn’t find the hotel. ??? WTF? That’s not our fault. He showed us where on the form it said “Luna Blue Playacar” and that because of that they couldn’t find it. We argued that THEY wrote that down, NOT us, and told him about the email they had from me. Basically, it’s not our fault they wrote it down wrong and couldn’t find it. And really, could they not have asked a few people and found out where it was??!!
Well, I have to give major props here to Tony & Cheri who argued incessantly for us with this car guy. They tried all they could to help us out and not have this charge. We are very grateful to them for this, it is good to know that you have someone on your side who is capable, speaks Spanish, and willing to go that extra mile for their clientele. Major kudos to them!!!
So we ended up in the end paying for an extra day, it was only 50 bucks so we weren’t going to sweat it. We’d decide when we got home whether or not to dispute it.
We showered and got ready for dinner. We asked about a good Italian place, and someone recommended Pasta Luego, on the road to Mamitas. So we went there. Shortly after we sat down, along came another group of peeps that included Shammy, Tammy and David, and Donny & Randa.
We ordered drinks, and then along comes some more peeps: tommy and Donna. Huh, isn’t that funny? All of us at this one little restaurant, a ways off fifth.
We ordered appys, some bruschetta which was excellent. Then in walks another peep: Carole. It’s getting real weird now, all of us here. We chatted a lot between tables, I think we took up the whole restaurant!
Our main courses were varied…mine was EXCELLENT, if I could only remember the name. It was penne arabiatta or something like that, and I asked for it extra spicey. It was divine. John and SIL had ravioli, which they both said was just okay, but kinda’ flavourless. BIL ordered lobster alfredo pasta, which stunk so badly of fish as soon as they brought it to the table, and he didn’t like it at all, said it tasted way to fishy.
SIL ordered some Tiramisu for dessert, and then two more peeps show up: Jimmy and Jan!! Okay, gettin’ freaky now!!
The tiramisu was excellent…to die for. As we were paying, the monsoon started. The torrential rain was unbelievable! But the sky was beautiful as it lit up with lightening. The owners quickly moved everyone inside, and they took 10% off of our bills for the rain. That was very nice, but it wasn’t their fault it rained! We didn’t blame them! They then offered everyone free coffee, deserts, cookies, etc. It was very nice of them to do all that. It was appreciated.
When there was a break in the rain finally, we made a break for it and ran for the hotel. The rain started again shortly after. We decided to call it an early night.