Cancun-Mayan Riviera-Palace Spa Resort

.....Me gusta la playa.

Paul and I decided that after all the China stuff (rejection) we needed a vacation.

We picked the Palace Spa Resort in the Mayan Riviera. As we live in San Diego and are at the border, the swine flu was not even a care in our planning and it shouldn't be in yours if you plan on going south!

The best thing was the 1500 room resort had 1/8Th capacity. The service was great, the resort was all inclusive which is not normally our style.

The room was nice with an ocean view. If you go ask to be in the 1500- 1600 building(s). The rooms included liquor for those who couldn't get out and order at the pool. We never even cracked the bottles, of course Paul seldom has a drink and I go for wine as a preference. But they keep your refrigerator stocked with juice,soda, beer and water. We asked to remove the everything and just leave soda and water. The water came in handy on or day trips we brought plenty to help with the heat.

The food and tips- Tips were included with everything and you didn't feel pressure from staff,, but we still tipped 20-50 pesos for good service. You can tell the people are worried for their jobs because there are so few room occupied. They has 6 restaurants open, 2 were closed. All the food was fine...I would say like cruise food, some times better than others.

The Pool- they have two area, kids and no kids under 18. The no under 18 was a constant large pool party with more drinking than we cared to be around. The few times we watched the activities the people were having fun doing pretty silly, a bit risque, but other wise harmless stuff. The other pool was empty!!!

The Lagoon- We stayed hear most of the time. We sat in the VIP section which was covered in shade. We never figured out if we were VIP but they didn't toss us out of the nice seats! It was quiet, relaxing and those frosty fu-fu drinks were fun! (No direct ocean , lots of fish in a protected lagoon)

The Spa- great book a package as soon as you arrive and this is not included in all inclusive but great spa and massage!!!!

The trip(s)---UGH!

The Chitzen Itza trip was 2.5 hours of driving in a crowded,no space bus, then forced shopping, a crappy guide, and 2.5 hours of driving back. Do your self a favor pay for a private driver to take you for the day, have the concierge set it up. We had to stop in 4 other resort both coming and going ---other folks had a worse day they had 9 stop before they were back at there resort. Chitzen Itza is worth doing just not on a big bus"""""""!

The Tulum Express is worth doing the guide was on time, very informed. Bring your bathing suit this has a beach rated top in the world.

2009 Ladies trip Tankah Bay, Mexico

This may be  a bit long and a few things are "under the dome" and bear not repeating..OK, actually nothing that exciting, lots of laughing, eating , walking, mucho tequila and vino.

Saturday Arrival, perfect flights arrive to cooked meal, Jackie, Pam ,stocked kitchen, and a cook!. The house is great sleeps 16 but we were only 9 .

Sunday was Superbowl so we went between sunbathing, swimming, snorkeling, kayaking, television, walking to eating and drinking.

Monday was all about "Sue's Birthday", her and her best-est friend(s).  We all decided to go to Tulum. Now many took the 'tour' but myself, Roz, Pam and Jackie decided to do our own tour.  Two of our group found their ADD kick in and then things went south.  The laughter was so tear jerking that as we passed  our peers on  the 'tour' Carolina wished to jump ship but feared the wrath of her fellow tourist.  We found our interpretation of the  piles of rocks(Pam) to be very imaginative and the book we purchased gave us all the information on the history. IE Yum Kaac is the god of corn, it was a commercial trading town and no live virgins (or dead) were sacrificed to the gods . We ended the day in Tulum at a great Thai restaurant on the beach- Sue had more birthday shots!

Tuesday was Massage Day. Daniel the local massage/shaman came to bless us and we all agreed he was a blessing. The massages were great and while never crossing the line being conservative folks from the USA made each of us nervous.BUT not that nervous we scheduled him to come back a second day. Relax-Go Daniel. Oh yeah speaking of conservative ladies on our beach walk we came upon a small hotel with naked people, two men, one woman lay naked on beach chairs. Yes, they could get away with it, yes, we looked, and YES he was well endowed.

(Now my view is if you lie naked on a public beach you want to be looked at, so I looked)

Wednesday is Cenote and Gary's bar. For those from New England this is a deep mixed fresh water and seawater, all right its a clear water marsh and you all know what a bar is!

A note on Gary, He is a middle age guy who I thought was the waiter but found out he is the "owner and owns 5 Million dollars worth of beach front, lives in the adjoining shack,needs dental work, has blue eyes" which was 6 things more than we needed to know, on the positive it was the only place with a glass of decent wine.

Thursday off to Coba. This time Jayne, Sherry and I took 'the tour" while the other ladies jumped on bikes and rode off into the jungle.  Coba (yes Pam, more pile of rocks) is the largest city, we got to walk up to the top  of the largest pyramid and biking through the woods was fun.

Shopping and Local beer while we waited ride. It was hot!

Friday MORE massage(s), more Gary's bar, more kayaking---I don't know who won but is wasn't Jackie and Roz, they just laughed until they floated back to civilization.

Every day we had a delicious breakfast and terrific dinner prepared by Lily and Serena. Each beautiful sunrise and sunset made this location absolutely beautiful.  We found the house on VRBO.com.

If you have a group and want a relaxing fun place this would be it!