Glen's Travels: Friday, December 30, 2011

Friday, December 30, 2011

Another nice relaxing day! However, today we decided to make a drastic change to our agenda......and instead of heading ot the beach, we spent the morning laying around the pool!

As shown in the pictures below, the main pool is simply huge. We found a great "spot"

.....and I have to say a life of leisure sure seems to agree with all of us!!!!!!

bathing beauties!

The swim up bar is separate from the main pool, and is in sort of a little "grotto". We (suprisingly) did not spend a lot of time there...but it did not get a lot of sun due to all the trees and plants...plus the water was a bit cold - of course nothing a few beers couldn't fix?

In the afternoon, we decided to get adventourous, and we walked along the beach to the town of Playa Del Carmen...about a 40 minute walk down the beach

We all remebered this little town from the last time we were in Mexico (8 years ago), but it has sure grown since then! However....despite all the growth/changes, the town center has remained a "quaint little mexican village".

We had a awesome afternoon just sauntering along looking at all the shops...followed by a bucket of beers and a plate of DELICIOUS nacho's at a little Mexican Cantina ($20US). We decided we had enough exercise for the day and grabbed a cab to take us back to the resort ($10).

When we were booking the resort, we did not really put any value into being close to Playa (last time we were in Mexico we were a 30 minute bus ride from town)....but we all agreed that it was a real bonus to be within walking distance and that we'd head back into Playa again some time during the trip.

The walk to "town"

Part of the main square

The ferry to Cozumel leaves from the dock which is behind the kids

The cigar shop

Coco Bongo's - which is a huge (and famous down there) "Las Vegas style nightclub"

Waiting for our nacho's

end of the day cervesa

Today we also had our first, of three, al a Carte Meals at the Tropical Restaurant (al a carte just means a sit down dinner at one of the resorts on-site specialty restaurants versus the buffet). This restaurant was also located right down on the beach.

A trip hint for the future is that we booked all our al a carte meals via e-mail a couple of weeks before the trip. This turned out to be a very good idea because we got the restaurants we wanted....with 7pm sitting times (I was at the desk when one fellow was trying to book his al a carte meals when they arrived and he was having trouble finding any times/restaurants because the resort was so busy....i.e. Christmas time).

Anyway, we wanted to try Tropical because we were not sure what tropical food would be (ie. jerk chicken, what else?) In this case, it turned out that the food was pretty "normal", and we think that the "tropical theme" was more related to the decor of the restaurant and the fact that you were right down on the beach. This was also the only specialty restaurant that allowed guys to wear bermuda shorts (all the others required gentleman to wear long pants).

As we did all week, after supper we headed to the show. Tonight's show was a magic show! It was also fun because Jordyn got picked out of the crowd to assist him (......big suprise that he "found" the pretty girl in the audience for that!). I do have to say that he was really good, and that this was likely the best show all week (but I have always been a sucker for magic shows?)