Day 1
We stayed at a hotel near the airport, the Best Western, and awoke at 3am. All through the night every hour, Kelsey woke up and sat up in bed and said to Dad who was sleeping beside her “Is it time yet?!”. She was so excited!! We all got dressed and ready, and then I phoned to confirm the flight time only to find that it had been delayed an hour. Oh well, we’re up anyway and all are hungry, so off we go in a cab to the airport. After eating breakfast, we sat by the kid’s play area and the kids played until it was time to cross into the international area.
During the seven and a half hour plane ride, Kelsey (just turned 6) was terrific, though a little frightened at take-off. She even took a long nap and woke up to her lunch. Jorden (almost 5) loved take-off, wouldn’t sleep, and acted up until a kid’s movie came on for him to watch. Phew.
We landed in rain and clouds (yuck, that’s what we left!), and we walked into the terminal there were about 100 people in line. Fortunately for us, there is a separate line for traveler’s without passports (us) and we were first in line and whisked right through. Customs was a breeze and we were on our way on our bus to the hotel.
When we arrived at our hotel we were told that the only room available was in the old tower (I had booked for the new tower) and that it was not ready yet (at 5pm!). So we went to have dinner, still in our winter clothes from home, and wait for our room to be cleaned.
Our room was average sized, with a wonderful view of the sea
and the whole hotel strip.
We got changed, and went down to grab a drink and have a look around the grounds of the hotel. There are two pools on the Caribbean side, and an undercover one by the kids club and an adult one on the street side. There were two snack bars, one by the beach stairs serving burgers, dogs, fries, nachos, and great wings, and chicken nuggets occasionally. The other was between the two pools and served wonderful sub sandwiches made to order. The buffet restaurant was under a huge palapa, and served everything. It had a central area for the hot foods, often including fresh carved turkey, roast, and pork, fish, rice, veggies, pasta, fajitas, burgers, etc. Then they also served pizza, a variety of salads, fruits, cheeses and sliced meats. There was a wonderful desert table, sometimes having wonderful desserts, and sometimes just containing what we call “Mexican Water Cake”. The kids loved the soft ice cream stand. On the way back inside the hotel, Kelsey was very pleased to find a ripe coconut on the ground!
We went to admire the humongous Christmas tree in the lobby and sat there for a few drinks. Kids were happy to have their “mocktails”. Kelsey didn’t like Pina Coladas!
We went to bed early tonight as it was a long day for us. Everyone fell asleep right away.
Day 2
We woke up around 8am, which is late for us, and went down for breakfast. Breakfast included eggs cooked anyway, bacon, sausage, refried beans, pancakes and waffles made to order (but only that much-to-sweet syrup), fresh fruit smoothies made to order, toast with wonderful peanut butter, butter and jam, terrific sweet breads and buns, wonderful milk, chocolate milk, all sorts of juices, and of course: the world’s best orange juice, found only in Mexico.
After breakfast we caught the bus to el centro (town). Since it was very cloudy and bleak looking, we decided to go and get Kelsey’s hair braided right away so that I didn’t have to fight with her to brush her hair each day. We went to mercado veinte y ocho (market 28) and found the best deals we would find the whole trip (wish I would have bought more there). The woman did a terrific job on Kelsey’s hair, it looked so cute!
We caught a cab back to the hotel since we were all very hungry for lunch. After lunch we went up to the room and changed into our swimsuits and went down to the beach. Kelsey played away in the sand
while Jorden had a great time being knocked around by the big waves in the water.
Lucky thing his life jacket kept him safely above water. We stayed on the beach until past sundown, and then went up to shower and change for dinner at Wayne’s Boots.
Wayne’s Boots is a western-themed restaurant in its own wooden western-style ranch house and contains a mechanical bull. You can sign up to ride it, which was fun to watch. The food here was great, really great steaks and chicken strips for the kids.
After dinner we had a few drinks in the lobby, while the kids danced around the huge Christmas tree. We found the lobby bar staff to be not as efficient or friendly. We stood at the bar sometimes a good 10 minutes before even being looked at. And their drinks did not taste as good, either, as the pool bar’s drinks.
We took the kids up to the room and put them down for bed. We sat outside on the balcony overlooking the lights of Cancun and the waves of the Sea, having Pina Colada’s. We soon found out that it was going to be hard to put the kid’s to sleep in the same room! We put the TV onto the Cancun channel that just has music and shows the beaches, excursions, CPC hotel grounds, etc. and the kids quietly watched it until they fell asleep. This worked every night, they loved to watch it and see places they had been.
Tomorrow we try the Kid’s Club.