Cancun for M&D 50th Wedding Anniversary

 Darrin and I got to go to Cancun with my parents, siblings and their +1s. We were celebrating my parents 50th wedding anniversary-what an amazing milestone-I'm so grateful for their example! What a wonderful opportunity to go with family. 

We got to go Friday-Friday and my in laws watched the kids-so thankful for them! Only left the resort once to go to Xel-Ha.

Notes about our all inclusive resort (Hotel NYX):

Pros:

• The food is actually really good-some of the best we've had at a resort -pleasant surprise (majority buffet)
• Desserts are actually GOOD here (never had that in Mexico)
• Good price
• Mostly adults
• Incredible beach that's so shallow for a looong ways out with super soft white sand (best beach of any resort we've been to) with good boogie boarding and body surfing
• Right next to our resorts beach is a beach with TONS of conch shells and other shells in the ocean
• Cool scorpion ancient temple short walk
• Mall within short walk
• No bugs
• Quick response time when we need things in the room

Cons:

• Only one pool and it's pretty cold 
• Things close pretty early (hot tubs at 7 and pool at 8)
• No snorkeling 
• Each room has had small maintenance issues but they've fixed them
• Not good pillows
• Dinner reservations for the special restaurants are done really poorly
• Not many resort activities/performances
• Almost daily they try to get us to listen to their 1.5 hour presentation to get a "free thing”

Here's the day to day:

Day 1-Day 1 Pictures

• Left at 6:50am for our 9:26am Delta flight. Got the kids ready for school and Mom and Dad Simon picked them up when they got home.
• Flight was good. Sat on the plane for about an hour while we waited for deicing, took a short nap with Darrin and then watched two movies. "BLINK" a documentary and "freakier Friday" both which were great.
• Our resort was about a 35 minute ride. Checked in
• Dinner at Basam (the buffet) which was impressive!
• Went to see the ocean and beach in the dark
• Drinks and chatting
• Bed

Day 2-Day 2 Pictures

• Breakfast at 10
• Beach time!
• Walked the beach with Darrin and found an ancient ruin temple called scorpion temple that we checked out and on the way back we found an INCREDIBLE spot for seashells and conch shells. You had to get in up to about my belly button and there were just SO SO many to find. We did this for a couple hours and kept telling people about it and giving away the shells.
• Lunch at the beach restaurant
• Hot tubing with Darrin and took a little siesta
• Tiff got here! Yay! She lost her passport so only Adam came while she tried to find a way to get a new one asap. Her nanny found hers (on the top shelf of her linen closet) and so she got to come today only one day late SUCH A MIRACLE!!!!
• Dinner at the buffet
• Games-played flip 7 several times
• Josie and Vineet got here
• Drinks outside with Bekah, Candra (Bekahs cousin/friend) and Jason and chatted mostly about places we've all traveled.

Day 3-Day 3 Pictures

• Breakfast
• Beach time- went in the ocean with my Mom, Heidi, Bekah, and Candra which was fun. My mom was laughing and screaming which was so fun. It wiped out her energy but she said it was worth it.
• Went back out with Darrin and Heidi for body surfing and caught a lot of waves-it was so much fun.
• Lunch at the deck restaurant
• Met for pictures at 5-a bit of drama with that
• Dinner at buffet
• Games-Skyjo

Day 4-Day 4 Pictures

• Yoga at nine with Heidi, Cindy, Mom, and Josie.
• Breakfast
• Hot tub and farkle for a long time with Bekah, Candra, and Colby and Cindy so much fun. 
• Lunch
• Beach time went back to the conch spot to find Tiff some shells to bring back for her girls
• Walked to the mall to browse
• Got ready for our fancy Italian restaurant dinner
• Sat at two tables. One table was finished with dinner in just over an hour and our table (Bekah, Candra, Tiff, Adam, Jason, Heidi, Darrin, me) took a little over THREE hours. It was the slowest serve BUT our waiter was actually super nice. Our table never had a dull moment and we had great conversations the whole time so it certainly wasn't something we were mad about but kind of annoying. The food had beautiful presentation but really was so so. Not very good. There was a live saxophone player though that was SO SO GOOD! The atmosphere was awesome.

Day 5-Day 5 Pictures

• Breakfast
• Bracelet making (Darrin made one for Rachel and I made one for Parker hoping to come back another time or two to make some for the other kids. They're cool bracelets!)
• Farkle in the hot tub first with Josie, Vineet, Mom, Cindy and Colby and then with only Tiff and Adam
• Walked with Bekah, Candra, Cindy and Colby over to the Scorpion temple and the Cancun sign while Darrin swam.
• Seashell castle building with Bekah and Candra while Darrin found the shells for us. So fun!
• New drink-Bahama mama delicious
• Met up with everyone at 5 to do a Q&A with my parents asking questions about their life and then took a quick family picture.
• Went to dinner tonight at the Japanese teppanyaki restaurant which was SO good!

Day 6-Day 6 Pictures

Xel Ha today! 10 of us went. All but Mom, Dad and Josie. 

Xcaret Bus picked is up at 7:25 at the bus stop outside our hotel. Our hotel NYX is 1.5 hours from Xel-Ha. But it took two hours because the first bus took us the wrong way for 30 minutes then we had to transfer buses and go the right way. That's just the way they do it I guess. Oh, and most of the time on the bus they gave a presentation trying to sell the extra cost excursions they offer there.

We read online that you HAVE TO buy their sunscreen no matter what to protect the reef and no outside food or drink and you HAVE TO bring your passports to verify your tickets. NONE of that was true... They didn't check passports and didn't check bags at all.

• Put our stuff in the included lockers
• Rode bikes to the river (5 minutes?)
• Floated down mangroves and the river
• Cliff jumped on the river
• Got Tiff and Adam
• Saw dolphins there, macaws and coati
• Snorkeling where we found a huge conch that Darrin brought up for us. It was living and so pink and orange. Also saw a HUGE fish-probably the biggest we've seen snorkeling. Estimating 4 feet long and 16" tall! Eyes the size of golf balls. Followed that for a while.
• Snorkeled to a cool cave and got out to walk around and explore.
• Rope swing
• Beautiful lakes
• Went back down the river
• More cliff jumping
• Darrin did the tight rope
• Ziplineing
• Lighthouse water slides

Everything closed by 5 although the park closes at 6 and our ride didn't get there until 5:45. Rode back in the bus that was FREEZING.

The weather today was gorgeous and having these experiences with my family are priceless! So grateful!

Day 7-Day 7 Pictures

• Breakfast
• Bracelet making
• Body surfing with Darrin and Heidi
• Swimming in the pool for the first time
• water aerobics class! Darrin joined for a bit and my mom joined for a bit. Good workout
• Hot tub
• Went to lunch with Heidi and Jason
• Hot tubbing in the rain and played farkle with a bunch of the family-fun!
• Dinner at the Japanese restaurant (they have the grill that you can only eat at once but a sushi restaurant that accepts walk ins so we did that) and it was SO GOOD! pot stickers, fried cheese, vegetarian and fish sushi (the vegetarian was actually delicious and I even tried one fish one and it was good), teriyaki chicken and rice bowl, and Darrin had fried shrimp and lots of fish sushi. Dessert was odd lol but everything else was really really good! Such a fun night at this restaurant all eating together. Bekah sent out awards to everyone for the trip. I got best body surfer and Darrin got best seashell finder. We also talked about our weirdest jobs we've had which was fun.
• Games after at our game spot on the second floor (flip 7, the game of life and Mexico (dice game))

Day 8-Day 8 Pictures

Time to go home. It's been SUCH an incredible time with my family! Ready ish to get home to the kids but not ready for the time with my family to end.

• Breakfast
• Bracelet making
• Drinks
• Packing
• Checkout at noon
• Lunch at the resort. They said our all inclusive was good until 5pm
• Happy shuttle picked us up at 1
• Security made us discard our large conch shells
• Flight left at 3:45
• Landed early
• Got home by 7:30pm

Travel was smooth and I'm so grateful to be home to my kids in my bed and for my in laws for taking such good care of the kids! What a blessing this trip was!!