Day 4 & 5

We got up early! For us. We were at the harbor at 8:45 am. We took a see-doo out to the ocean with a guide. It was a lot of fun, but it was nerve racking until I got comfortable. In the bay area, it was ok, but in the ocean, it was a bit rough.....also, our guide wanted us to go full speed. I didn't do that too often. We stopped near a coral reef and snorkled. Rachel took her life vest off and swam to the bottom. We had a water camera and took some fun pictures of that and the fish.

We set out to eat at 3 restaurants for dinner - 1st up - Maria's at our hotel. The beef fillet was incredible! Rachel ordered the Mayan Coffee. Unfortunately we didn't take a picture or video of this, but it was awesome. They make this coffee at your table, pouring some type of liquor back and forth between 2 "gravy bowls" while on fire. The guy also sliced a whole orange, but kept the peel attached, the cut he did created a spiral "slide" with the peel. He poured flaming liquor down that into the mug. It was a unique experience. They also rub the glass rim on the orange and dip it in sugar.

2nd - Maria Marie's - this was at the rich hotel. The fillet was not as good here, but they gave us a special dessert that was great! The 2 couples next to us were interesting. One was from Midtown Tulsa - ironic, and the other is from Charlotte, but use to work with my brother (Kris) at Impact (his name was Tim Ayber?). We ended up talking to the Tulsa couple until almost 11pm, so we didn't get to our 3rd restaurant!

Food and More

We scheduled an adventure for tomorrow. We booked a trip to go take a wave runner (seedoo) out in the bay, under the main bridge and to the ocean for snorkling. Rachel and I will have to share a wave runner, but that should make for some fun memories. We will get to use the seedoo for about 2 hours and snorkle for 1/2 hr. We're pretty excited about that, it will be Rachel's first time on a seedoo......wish me luck, as she will take a stab at driving! LOL

Dinner - We went to the sister resort again for dinner, simply because that resort is 16+, empty, and rich. We ate at a place called Pelicanos! We had trout, beef/shrimp skewers, and duck. The beef was "melt in your mouth" yummy. The rice was incredible.....yes, rice. The mashed potatoes were green! :) ....good too. They had the oddest carrot cake I've ever had. It was more like a custard with a tiny bit of cake in it.

After dinner, we sat in the rich hotel lobby, and to our surpise, within 20 minutes or so they began their evening show.....we had no idea. It was "International" - basically various dancing, etc. It was fine, entertaining, but not my style.

The Water

Of course, it's beautiful. Like we expected, going from the beach to the water was rock filled. Thankfully we had water shoes. You had to go about 10-15 feet out to get past the rocks, and maybe 30-40 feet out it was just under 5' deep. You can of course see your hands and legs in the water, which is awesome.

Cancun Day 3

Today was nice, relaxing, and eventful. We slept in a bit. Rachel finished her 2nd book already. Both were about 500 pages.....yeah.....2 days, 1,000 pages, and she still wants to read more! We sat on the beds again for a while. Again, those are wonderful. They need those on the beaches in the US. We were in our room taking a break, watching TV, and it began raining hard outside. About 20 minutes into it, we had a knock on our door, and within seconds, 4 employees were in our room unplugging the balcony drain and cleaning out the nearly 2 inches of water from our room. Yeah.....we didn't even notice.....seriously! The bed/TV/bathroom are on one level. You have to take 2 steps down to get to the couch/table/balcony. It was crazy. Within 5 minutes, they had it all cleaned up and dry. We were cracking up. We went back to the beach after this, this time with sunscreen (first time since we've been here), not crazy, we've just been sitting on those canopy beds.

The Beach

One of the main reasons we chose this resort from our top 5 was because of the beach area. They do have an abundance of seating as well as actual beach. Best of all, the H1N1 has kept likely 1000's of people away from Cancun, so the hotel is not too busy. What this means? We have access to a bed on the beach. No joke. They have what is similar to a crib mattress, only it's a queen, it's on a wooden frame with 1/2 curtains all around, and pillows. We nearly fell asleep on that this afternoon.

Drinks

YES, we have all you can eat & drink. We've tried a couple local mixes....couple sips....not our style. They have servers on the beach, so today we sat on the beach and they would conveniently ask if we needed anything. It was so nice. The most important drink of all - FANTA (orange) - all I can drink.....enough said :) !!!!!

Cancun

We arrived on May 16th. Our hotel is the Gran Caribe Real. It's been great. The lobby is cool, because you walk in off the street, no doors, just wide open. We have a partial oceanview, which is fine. The resort is very clean and the staff takes excellent care of us. We are on the VIP floor, so we have a nice private lounge to use, as well, we have access to the neighboring resort's restaurants. We ate at Asiana's today. Amazing. We ate sushi, scallops, duck, and normal asian cuisine! The sister resort is high dollar. Rooms there start at around $300/night. So it was nice to order from a menu and not just have buffet food (although that food was good too). Room service is awesome. We have ordered fajitas every time. Homemade guac. w/ pico de gallo & refried beans......awesome food. I sent the resort an email saying we were celebrating our 3 year anniversary (I told them it was in March). Tonight when we returned to our room, we had a heart shape on our bed made of rose (real) petals. I'll post the pictures when we get back. I forgot the USB cord. And later, we had a bottle of champagne (horrible smell...lol) and a nice cake! The resort definitely goes out of their way to make this a vacation to remember. It's our first time to experience anything this upscale.