Vacation Recap: Playa del Carmen

The plan was for me to drop off my dogs at the parental's house at 6:30am. Penelope was staying for the entire length of my trip and my mom was to drop off Delilah at "the doggy hotel" once they opened. My mom wanted to work with little miss blindy and Delilah is kind of a handful, so whatever worked for them was cool with me.

Amy was meeting me at my house at 7am and my dad was going to pick us both up and take us to the airport. We really didn't have to wait too long to board the flight and people-watched our way onto the plane. We took special note of a couple where the girl had obvious implants. Amy mentioned that the girl should have spent a little less money on her boobs so that she could have had enough money for a cheeseburger. I saw her cheeseburger and raised her some french fries. Let's just say the chick's outfit left little to the imagination.

Interestingly enough, the travel agent booked Amy and I across the aisle from each other. There was a guy who had the middle seat next to me who mentioned to me that his girlfriend was in the back row and that he hoped to join her if the plane wasn't full. Since Amy had intentions of sleeping the whole time, I offered to switch places with the girlfriend. They were quite thankful and I felt like I did my good deed for the day.

The flight was pretty smooth sailing until the last 15 minutes. I had befriended the people in the aisle across from me. It was a husband and wife traveling with the wife's mother. It was going to be their 19th trip to Mexico and they were telling me how they had gotten trapped in Playa del Carmen over September 11th - a pretty crazy story, actually. Anyway, about 15 minutes before we landed, we hit some pretty terrible turbulance and I was sure we were going to die. The wife of the dude across the aisle from me zoned out - she went to her happy place apparently. This meant that the husband and I talked a mile a minute to each other trying to pacify each other from thinking about other things so that we would not worry about our impending doom. The plane literally came down to the ground completely wobbly and it was very uncomfortable. Everyone gave a huge sigh of relief when we landed safely and the wife thanked me for keeping her husband company. Once we got off the plane, we had to go through Immigration, then get our bags, and then wait in the longest line ever to go through Customs. We *finally* were able to go outside and find our shuttle.

Imagine our surprise to have to wait in line next to the couple with the chick who needed the cheeseburger. Imagine our *pleasant* surprise that the boyfriend liked to hear himself talk and didn't shut up for the 20 minutes we had to stand there next to him. We also found out they were going to be on our return flight. Oh joy. We then started referring to them as our "besties".

Eventually we got on our shuttle bus and we were taken to our ridiculously huge resort, the Iberostar Paraiso Beach. It turns out that the Iberostar is a 3 resort in 1 complex. It is the Paraiso del Mar, the Paraiso Beach, and the Paraiso Lindo. Basically, there are three different reception areas and they share restaurants, the beach, the pool, and everything else you can imagine. It's so big that they offer a trolly service to get you around the properties, but honestly it's just quicker (and less lazy) to just walk the place, not to mention it's so beautiful and you never knew what kind of creature you would come across along your path.

We saw peacocks, flamingos, swans, parrots, some other kind of bird we never did identify, some kind of large lizard that we initially thought were iguanas or komodo dragons (or people who got way too tan), and even fake aardvarks. It was kinda like a petting zoo, only with creatures you would really have no desire to actually pet. We were hoping to find a llama, but no such luck.

By day, we relaxed pool side or at the beach. The beach seemed to be infinitely cooler because of the nice ocean breeze. We would often fill up our big cups (brought from home) with water and then have the bartenders make us something fruity/tropical on the side. One time, one of the bartenders misunderstood Amy's request and filled her 24 oz cup with a strawberry colada. He was quite proud of himself, too, for blending *just* the right amount to fill her cup. All poor Amy could think of was how badly she was going to dehydrate in that unforgiving sun.

Every night there was entertainment. Our first night was either Hollywood night or movie night - not sure because two of the nights were quite similar. Regardless, it was quite entertaining and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The second night we had the other one...Hollywood or movie night. It was a little less enjoyable, but not terrible. The third night was musical night and it was very well put together. In fact, of all the resorts I've been to, this was by far the best entertainment. We skipped out on the fourth night.

We decided we owed it to ourselves to partake in a spa day since our vacation was so cheap courtesy of Amy being an amazing employee at her work! We both got two treatments each. Before our treatments, we were able to enjoy the spa's different showers, jacuzzis, an aromatherapy steam room, and a relaxing pool. Then we got whisked away to our treatment rooms. I had the Paradise treatment with the perfect mixture that offers the sea and the Earth. It begins with an exfoliation with a mixture of marine salts and bee wax that not only clear the dead cells also hydrates the skin, later a mud and marine seaweed massage wrap and a neck massage with exotic essences inspiring serenity and harmony and my second treatment was a deep cleaning facial.

Overall, it was an incredibly relaxing vacation. It was so heavenly to not have to set an alarm clock, to not have to deal with the disruption of a cell phone (work phone calls) or the "need" to be on the computer. The only schedule we had to maintain was our spa appointment, our dinner reservations (8:30pm each night), and our shuttle pick-up on the final day.

We did have only 3 complaints of our resort - first...we thought the pool should have had seating in it (benches around the edges in some locations). It was a huge winding pool and my pics don't do it justice. Secondly, the bathrooms were so slippery...there should have been mats on the floors to prevent slippage. Finally, though there were some labels for some of the food at the buffets, it would have been nice if everything was labeled.

I would like to say the staff couldn't have been friendlier, the grounds couldn't have been better maintained, and even our fellow vacationers were fun to interact with!!!

Our shuttle picked us up ridiculously early to take us to the airport. Amy had a theory that it was the Mexican government's *evil* plan to force the tourists to spend ridiculous amounts of money at the airport before departing. It worked - Amy and I had a few drinks and ate some food, but I will say we had a blast doing it!

Oh, and in case you were wondering...we did see our "besties" at the airport in Cancun and in the Immigration line once we were back in Houston, but we managed to successfully avoid them.

Now it's back to reality, but of course I get to start planning next year's escapade! =D