The Trip Begins!

Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - heading to Mexico!

Travelling anywhere always seems to take the FULL DAY and our to trip to Mexico was no exception....we left Mom and Dad’s at 7am (6am wake-up call…not the way a holiday is supposed to start?) and checked into our rooms at about 8:30 that night.

First of all, we had two cars in Calgary and with the Nissan having a sleep over at Brad and Beth’s until we got back home, we had to drive it over to their house before we headed out to the airport.

After dropping the car at their house, we drove the truck to the airport, parked it in the Park and Ride Lot ($12 per day) and caught their little coach to the airport terminal. We checked our luggage, cleared security, and had breakfast at Chile’s in the departure area...which got us to the gate at about 10am.

The plane left at 11am, and via the miracle of modern travel, we left the snow and cold behind and landed in hot and sunny Cancun at 4:45pm (you “lose” an hour as Cancun is on the same time as Saskatchewan).  After collecting our luggage and clearing Mexican custom’s, we found the bus that transported us to our resort.  I note that there were a few anxious moments in Mexican Customs as Heather’s passport is in pretty rough shape. It went through washing machine with mine those other times (refer the whole China passport adventure story). Anyway, the Mexican authorities definitely did not like her well used passport….and told us to get a new one the next time we tried to come to Mexico…but they still let us in – so all was good!

The bus made a couple of stops at other resorts to drop off other vacationers….and we finally got into our hotel rooms at about 8:30pm (Mexican time).

The rooms were great – ours had a king size bed, while the kid’s had two queens. They had great patio’s, nice showers/bathrooms and a beer fridge…plus the two rooms were connected by an interlocking door.

All in all, we were off to a really good start at the Iberostar Tucan!

The "Lobby Bar"

We quickly unpacked, and then headed down to the buffet for some supper (we were all pretty hungry and thirsty by then!!!!). The meal put a little wind back in our sails, and after supper we went to the lobby lounge with Jordyn AND Chad (I am happy to report that we were able to get Chad an adult wrist band). The drinks put a little more wind in our sail’s…which when added to our  “vacation energy” made for a really fun night (although ours ended a little earlier than the kid’s did as they ended up going to Mascara…the resort’s discotech/night club until the wee hours of the morning).

Mascara Night Club (in our resort)