Spring Break in Mexico

We spent the past six days in Puerto Morales, a town about half an hour south of Cancun. Out of the country! Using our passports! The kids had two weeks off for Spring Break, and we were determined to do SOMETHING this year. We’d initially planned a spring break vacation in Florida, but for various reasons decided to change our plan. Instead, we spent a long weekend in Jacksonville at the start of spring break, hung out at home for a few days, then flew to Cancun for most of the second week. The plan came together quickly, as big plans tend to for us, and we booked last-minute, but still managed to get a nice double room in the all-inclusive resort we stayed at in 2018--the last time we were in Cancun. Surprisingly, we even got a direct flight from Pittsburgh.

Traveling again felt just as amazing as I’d expected. We hadn’t flown internationally since our trip to Japan in November 2019. An easy flight took us from cold weather to sunny, warm Mexico--we got our bags, pushed our way through a crowd of timeshare-hawkers, found our driver, accepted cold bottles of water and resort-branded mini bottles of hand sanitizer, and were whisked away to the beautiful Grand Residences, where we were greeted with margaritas.

Though some things had changed since the last time we were there, the resort was just as beautiful as we’d remembered it. Enormous flower arrangements everywhere, fresh orchids along the walkways, giant pots of bougainvillea, palm trees, other large tropical plants. The landscaping is meticulous, colorful, and lush. Each of the five days we spent there followed the same blissful routine.

Morning

We got up each day and had the buffet breakfast in one of the restaurants. It’s a massive spread with hot breakfast foods, traditional Mexican dishes, pastries, fruit, omelets and quesadillas made to order. Coffee of all kinds. Greta likes the hot chocolate served from a large clay pot. Lucia liked the mini pancakes, which she spread with Nutella and ate as “pancake tacos.”

After breakfast we went back to the room and slathered ourselves with sunscreen, then headed to the pool for the day. The layout of the resort is ideal--the pool area is right on the beach, so you can always see/hear the ocean while you’re swimming.

Red seaweed is a problem with the beach--giant heaps of it are all along the waterline every morning, and there are clouds of it in the water--though we did get one day where, miraculously, the water was perfectly clear. I could actually see the kids suspended in the water when they dove through the waves.

But the ocean isn’t really the focus of this resort, at least it isn’t for us. We prefer the pool--the most beautiful pool I’ve ever seen--huge and multi-tiered and sparkling with blue tile. Each day we’d set up in poolside chairs, settle in, and spend the entire day swimming or sitting in the hot tub. We’d order chips and guacamole as a morning snack, frozen drinks. Servers came around offering fruit kebabs and fresh-fruit popsicles. We played Bingo poolside every day. I won a hat.

The kids swam themselves to exhaustion, and thus also spent many hours reading their books by the pool, recovering.

Lunchtime

Mostly we ordered lunch from the beach cafe and ate on our pool chairs. But two of the days were really windy, so we ate inside at a nicer restaurant. Three courses, of course, because why not? Shrimp cocktail, burrata, pasta, grilled seafood. Glasses of wine and prosecco. (Note: The frozen drinks we drank steadily by the pool had barely any alcohol in them, so we were able to stay upright, awake, and fully sober despite being in the sun all day.)

Dinnertime

Around five each day, we packed up and went back to the room to shower and change for dinner. Each night’s dinner was slightly different. Our first night, tables and a large grill were set up by the pool for a BBQ spread. We had steak, salmon, shrimp. For three nights we ate in the resort’s Mexican restaurant, where we really like the food and ambiance. We had so very very much to eat. There’s a menu, and with the all-inclusive we ordered with abandon, starters and entrees and dessert and drinks. One night we ordered every kind of taco so we could try them all. Lucia and Greta loved the churros with chocolate and caramel sauce for dessert. The last night, there was an Argentinean dinner, and we all had many kinds of empanadas and steaks. The waiter we’d had several times in the Mexican restaurant brought us an extra dessert with GRACIAS POUR SU VISITA written in chocolate sauce. (Andrew was everyone’s favorite resort guest because he can banter in Spanish.)

After Dinner

After dinner each night, we changed back into swimsuits and went for a nighttime swim in the pool. Though the pool is ostensibly open until ten each day, we were almost always the only people there, even though it was still so hot outside and the pool was lit up appealingly. The kids absolutely loved swimming at night.

By the time we got back to our room, it had been visited by the housecleaner for turndown service, the beds newly made, the lights dim, and each night a new bobblehead creature waiting on a tray. We had a nice room with a hot tub on the balcony, and Andrew and I sat out there while the kids worked their way through their nightly hysterical laughter and whispering and then finally--like a switch was flipped--fell asleep.

We had a slightly anxious morning on our second-to-last day, when we had to get our covid tests. The resort makes it easy, with a little testing office set up right by the lobby; they arrange it all. We all got negative results (yay) and were cleared to travel back to the U.S. the next day.

And that was it! Five nights in the indulgent surreality of an all-inclusive resort. The kids are sunburnt and peeling (they got burned the first day--just like in 2018--maybe next time we’ll do a better job of making sure they take breaks for sunscreen), Andrew and I are committed to eating nothing but salad for the next week, and I’m despondent over the return of grocery shopping--cooking--doing dishes instead of having all manner of food at my beck and call.

I mean beck and call literally. Andrew ordered a bottle of cava to be brought to the room before dinner one night. Another night, the kids ordered another round of desserts after night swimming. It was all just ridiculous and too much and exactly the kind of over-the-top Spring Break we needed.

The kids made us promise we wouldn’t wait another four years before returning to the resort, and Greta pointed out that if we waited four years she’d be FOURTEEN, which was such an unnecessarily cruel thing to say. Anyway. With the cheap direct flight, we can easily go back soon. I hope we will.

Next up: Barcelona at the end of April! Making up for lost covid time.