Birthday in Mexico!!

March 6th - flight to Mexico (my brother's birthday - I'm wondering if he's having as good a day as I am....)

Ahhhhhhhh - our vacation has begun...

First morning: enjoying the pool outside our swim up suite. We had already done a 3:15 bike ride (on stationary bikes) and a 20 minute transition run. After the pool - breakfast!
Our resort: Excellence Riviera Cancun (adults only)

We met up with our friends, Jon & Cyndy from San Francisco. We have been planning this vacation for a long time and we finally got our schedules to work! We've vacationed with Jon & Cyndy before (New Orleans & Phoenix for spring training), so we knew we would have a blast! No disappointments there or with our fabulous resort. Ooh la la!

Chris outside our 1st level suite. We had 2 jetted tubs - one inside & one outside on our little patio. Plus the pool only steps from our back door...

Our view from our patio (would definitely recommend a swim up suite)

Looking straight across the pool into our suite

Pictures of the resort

The lazy river

The spa - our friends Cyndy & Jon took advantage of the spa and said the massages were excellent!

Natural Residents
Beautiful architecture & gardens around the entire resort

One of 10 bars - this one was mainly open in the early evenings when they had live music performing.

The theater: shows included Oscar/Academy Awards night; the Circus; Mexican night; Romantic Dancing night; Michale Jackson impersonator... (everything was in English, as 99% of visitors are either Americans or Canadians)

One of two restaurants that overlooked one of the pools.

Another beautiful pool. Early in the week, the pools were pretty empty. Mexico also had their fair share of poor weather and hadn't had too many sunny days, so the pools & ocean were quite cool. We had a full week of sunshine (a few clouds here and there), so by the end of the week, the pools & ocean were full of people.

Blue Bar - swim up bar; only a few brave souls early in the week

What does Chris see?

Another bar - the Sol bar, so he could

get us...

some of these...yum!

A couple more lovely pictures of the resort:

Our resort also had a couple piers where you could have a romantic dinner. We had wonderful weather (low 80's early in the week, to high 80's later in the week), but it was still a little breezy. So we didn't see many takers on the romantic dinner by the sea...

Pictures of the resort from the piers. Some bad looking clouds, but they went right on by. We didn't have any rain, and the covering clouds didn't stay around long at all.

Lots of palapas provided covering from the sun. We walked by a lot of other resorts that didn't have as much covering as our resort did. Everyone tried to get a shaded area, since the sun was so strong, so we were lucky to have so many to choose from. We got a shady area every day.

Early in the morning, the resort workers would cut down some coconuts, and then they would serve them later in the day. You could get one with just the coconut milk, or have some alcohol added.

Happy feet!!

We loved walking & running on the beach every day.

because it was so soft and clean

and the water so clear and clean...

We took the hobie cat's (small catamaran's) out sailing a few times and had a blast! We could have done that all day every day! It really got us stoked for sailing season - woop woop!

some more natural residents

Happy couples

Dinner @ Chez Isabelle (French Cuisine)

Jon & Cyndy

Good friends!

Birthday Dinner!! - Agave, the Mexican restaurant

They set up a special table for us. Thanks to Cyndy & Chris for reminding the staff about my birthday!!

Dancing with the mariachi band

Doing the macarena dance with Jill (from Salt Lake City), Cyndy, Jon, and Laura (also from Salt Lake City). It was very easy to meet great fun people! Jill & Laura were fun, and up for anything! I guess we created quite a ruckus - I got so many birthday wishes the following day :)

Yum - chocolate birthday cake!

Surprise!! - decorated room; and milk bath prepared by housekeeping

Live evening music. The resort was beautiful at night.

One morning, Chris & I took a walk down the beach to Puerto Morales - a little town about 2 miles south of our resort. It was a very windy morning...but warm!

Lots of boats to take you snorkeling & diving. There was a reef closer to Cozumel that offered some great diving.

We spent a lot of time posing for pictures...

and taking them... but they were all worth it!

The restaurants and bars were decorated so beautifully. You felt so spoiled every where you went.

Spice - Asian restaurant

Martini bar - cool ceiling

Enjoying some cocktails at the Martini bar

Oh, and the food & drinks.... I guess these two hanging out in the lobby should have forewarned us.... Great Mexican wine that we had at Chez Isabelle

Amazing salad at Chez Isabelle

Yummy dessert at Chez Isabelle

Pre dinner cocktails

Asian sampler at Spice

Mexican sampler at Agave restaurant

Yummy dessert at Toscana

Our last night - we took a taxi to Playa del Carmen (a 30 minute ride). A cute touristy town that had a ton of restaurants and hotels. I absolutely loved our resort, but may choose one closer to Playa del Carmen the next time. I enjoy strolling down city streets, as much as I enjoy strolling on the beach. And they had a ... Starbucks!! :)

Enjoying some live music at the bar Fusion: a great Playa del Carmen bar that was on the beach!

Dinner at La Parilla - a touristy restaurant, but the food & drinks were excellent!

And I had to take a picture of these 2 friends. Chris & I didn't miss one workout all week - 15 hours worth - thanks to these 2. The resort wasn't large enough to rent bikes and ride around, so we had to spend some time in the gym. We took turns riding the recumbant bike, since we both preferred the regular stationary bike. 8 hours we spent on these 2 guys for the week. No wonder they had put signs on them by the end of the week (keep it to 20 minutes during peak hours....)
We also spent 2 hours swimming the lazy river (not including ocean play time); and 5 hours running on the beach. Plus 7 hours of beach walking. Whew!

What a fabulous vacation! I'm ready to go back!!!
It was my first time at an all inclusive resort, and my first time in Mexico. I wasn't sure of what to expect - but wow - was I blown away. Both Chris & I loved this vacation. Typically, we enjoy staying busy and checking out the sights every day. But here, we just enjoyed relaxing. Literally, by Monday (after arriving Saturday night), we were already asking each other what day it was - we relaxed that quickly...
We only left the resort twice (once for Playa del Carmen); and once for me to swim with the dolphins (the day I forgot my camera - bummer!) I'm an animal lover, and really enjoyed the dolphin experience - they are so soft, curious, and magical.

We'll be heading back to Mexico again - let us know if you want to join us :)