Long before our 5 year anniversary approached, I had decided I wanted to take a vacation to an all-inclusive resort. We had never been, and had heard WONDERFUL things about going to one. We saved our money and went to Cancun July 21st-25th. It was awesome!!
The thought of the cost of an all-inclusive had turned me away from it for our honeymoon, but being the penny-pincher that I am, I allowed money to keep us from having the most fun on our honeymoon that we could (I didn't want to buy drinks with dinner, always chose the cheapest thing on the menu, no room service, etc.). For our honeymoon, we went to Disney World, and it was a lot of fun, but it could have been better for me had I not stressed so much. I decided rather than stress about money while we are on vacation this time, I would just stress about it one time when you pay for the resort up front. It worked like a charm. I never (well...almost never) stressed about anything once we got there. It was such a nice, relaxing vacation!
I was a little worried about being away from Logan for that long since we hadn't been apart for more than a night, but after the first 2 days, it wasn't so bad. I almost wished we had just 1 more day to enjoy it all since we really only had 3 days there and the other 2 were mostly travel days.
We stayed at the Excellence Resort - Playa Mujeres. It was gorgeous!! I highly recommend it. The only downsides I saw was that the mirrors in the bathroom were a little tall for me, so it made it hard to see to get ready in the mornings, etc. (ha!) and the bed was slightly harder than I would like & expect for a resort (but I am spoiled with a Tempurpedic at home).
Here are some pics of our room (after we walked in I told Brandon "Don't touch anything! I want pictures." Ha!)...
Our room was on the corner, and we had a special banner on our door since it was our anniversary. So special & fun!
Also, see that extra wood panel to the right of our door? That is actually a little room service door. I thought it was the coolest thing. You ordered room service and could have it delivered there. I am a breakfast person - I have to eat breakfast pretty much every day. (Little known fact - Twice in college I actually passed out because I skipped breakfast) However, when it's our choice, neither of us our morning people, so the thought of getting up early on our vacation to get ready and go to breakfast was not a priority. So the cool thing about the box was Brandon could basically roll over, grab the phone, order room service and go back to sleep until it arrived. Then, there's another little door inside our room, and we just got it out of there. Pretty awesome!
Also, see that extra wood panel to the right of our door? That is actually a little room service door. I thought it was the coolest thing. You ordered room service and could have it delivered there. I am a breakfast person - I have to eat breakfast pretty much every day. (Little known fact - Twice in college I actually passed out because I skipped breakfast) However, when it's our choice, neither of us our morning people, so the thought of getting up early on our vacation to get ready and go to breakfast was not a priority. So the cool thing about the box was Brandon could basically roll over, grab the phone, order room service and go back to sleep until it arrived. Then, there's another little door inside our room, and we just got it out of there. Pretty awesome!
Brandon checking out the view from our room...gorgeous!
The resort had 7 different restaurants (not all were open at all times or every day), so we had a lot of variety to choose from. The first night we were there we decided to try their "Mexican" restaurant. We, of course, ordered the fajitas and margaritas, but the fajitas were just not TexMex quality. I was disappointed. Ha!
I was really hungry and I forgot to take a picture before I started, so excuse the half eaten food. Ha!
Our first full day there, we slept in (huge treat now that we have a baby - ha!) and spent most of the day enjoying the resort & beach. I even convinced Brandon to get a pedicure with me (I've had better pedicures though, but it was still fun)! I basically took no pictures this day.
Sunset
I did manage to get our picture at dinner. Ha!
The next day was the highlight of the trip. This caused me a little stress because it was an additional cost and not cheap. We got to swim with dolphins! They even charged us ANOTHER arm & leg just for the pictures. Grrr...
It was sooo much fun though, and probably a once in a lifetime thing, so we did it and bought the pictures so we could prove it :) Our dolphins' names were Isomal and Christa.
These next few are of what they call the dorsal tow. You put your arms out and the dolphins swim along either side of you and you just grab on to their dorsal fin and they pull you along. It was fun!
The next one is by far the coolest thing we did. It was called the foot push, and you just float on your belly with your arms out and the dolphins swim up behind you, put their noses on the bottoms of your feet and push you up and out of the water. It was pretty awesome!
I promptly face-planted in the water after this, but it was still lots of fun!
We did a few more tricks with the dophins, but that was already a bunch of pictures and the others aren't as exciting, so I won't make you look at millions of pictures of us with dolphins.
To get to the place where we swam with the dolphins we had to ride a ferry over to Isle Mujeres. The open water was sooo beautiful.
Swimming with the dolphins and travel time pretty much took up our whole day that day, so I didn't get any other pictures. Not even a picture at dinner. I'm kind of mad at myself now. I'm never good at getting pictures though.
After seeing the sunset the one night, I really wanted to get a picture of the sun over the water, but since the sun set over the land, it meant to get the shot, we had to get up for sunrise. Well, I convinced Brandon to get up with me, and unfortunately, the morning we chose, it was cloudy. I was so bummed. Here's the best we got...
The rest of the day (which was our last) we spent at the beach, the pool & the restaurants. Up until this day, we had spent very little time at the beach, and none at the pool. It was a nice relaxing way to end our trip, but we sure wished we had a little more time. They had dancing lessons and cooking lessons (at scheduled times) that I had really wanted to do, but they all happened either the first day we arrived when we didn't know or on the day we scheduled to go to the dolphins. So I'm hoping we get to go back one day to enjoy more of the resort.
This was the pool just outside our building. Our balcony is the 2nd from the top on the very far left.
Relaxing by the beach. Because of the room we chose, we had a more private beach with our own concierge & waitress. It was nice.
These crazy iguanas were all over the place...
Cheers to our last afternoon...
On this trip I discovered my new favorite drink - a lemon drop martini. They were delicious! The other drink pictured was not Brandon's favorite, but just happened to be what he was drinking. I'm not sure he ever had the same drink twice (except maybe margaritas and beers). He is much more adventurous with trying new drinks than me. Ha!
I also didn't do so great getting pictures that last day. I didn't get a picture of us at dinner again! Oh well...we'll just have to go back ;-) Ha! I did manage to get a farewell picture of us before we had to leave the next morning. Well rested and still very much in love!
When we returned home, my inlaws met us at the airport with Logan. I was sooooo ready to see him I could hardly stand it. However, he broke my heart a little as he acted like he didn't know me/want to see me when we first got there. I know that wasn't the case, but it was not the reunion I had planned in my head. Ha! I didn't get any pictures of this either :(
Again, I must say, I highly recommend the resort or just any all inclusive resort if you can save the money to go. It was some much needed rest and alone time for Brandon & I. I am so blessed to be married to such a wonderful man and can't wait to spend the next 95 together :)
