A couple of years ago I whined too loudly that I hate New England winters- too long, too cold, and too gray- and I wanted to get a break from it somehow- preferably end of January when the temperatures are coldest, the hubub of Christmas is over, and not much else to look forward to. Jay, the problem-solving and adoring man that he is looked for a warm place to take the family.
I grew up going to a time-share in Mexico for the first several years of my life, but I believe the tourist safety has declined (or maybe not... my invincible and Spanish-speaking father probably wouldn't feel intimidated by government recommendations and tends to do whatever the heck he wants 😆) because our beloved Mazatlan is now considered a "Do no travel" location. Jay figured the most touristy place in Mexico he could think of would probably be safe and so we decided on Cancun.
This trip was a really big milestone to me because we had never really taken a family vacation before. Family trips? Yes. Many. Never a family vacation.
What is the distinction? Family trips are to visit family.
Family vacation is only to be relaxing and have fun together.
Needless to say, our 2022 trip was wildly successful in meeting my anti-New England weather goals, but we used a travel agency to help us find a good place to stay and we thought we could do it cheaper on our own this time. Last year we spent January selling our house, so didn't repeat it, but this year we got to go again and it was just as fun as I remembered.
Without further ado, a bajillion pictures of our adventure this time around.
Getting to our rental house
The first night we discovered the main TV to be broken, so the kids watched a movie in the master bed while Jay went to Walmart to get groceries, sunscreen, diapers, etc. (They replaced the TV for us the next day)
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We developed a daily routine: Laze around in bed. Breakfast at home. Walk to the beach. Walk to town for lunch. Gelato at Adlo's. Walk home. Swim in our own pool. Beach again or laze around reading (mostly only the older kids did this). Bath for littles. Dinner (usually involving guacamole) in PJs at home. Movie. Bed. It was divine. 😎
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| We discovered some cannibals living in our back yard |
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| breakfast by the pool |
I love the beach at Playa Del Carmen where we stayed because:
-it's a neighborhood of houses so it's WAY less crowded than the areas where the resorts are
-the sandy part is wider than in front of many other beach house areas- better for sand play
-the sand is shallow for a long way out so even a skittish person like me feels comfortable wading out quite far and letting the good-swimmer-children do the same, unaccompanied by an adult to actually swim
-some days the waves are so calm that even that toddlers gain some confidence in the waves, yet
-some days the waves are big enough to boogie board
-the ocean is the most breathtaking turquoise blue
-the water is even warm enough that I'm willing to get in for long periods of time (80 F)
-there are very few creatures in the water, and none of them creepy (I hate jellyfish)
-no rip tides (like in CA)
-the sand is so so silky-soft and amazingly doesn't burn your feet
I think the only downsides compared to other beaches I've been to is there isn't much shell collecting to do here and my oldest really enjoys climbing on the rocks and looking for creatures in Maine, and there isn't really anything like that where we stayed.
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| First beach trip where Toad starts feeling confident in the water by himself 😅 |
I didn't get any good pictures of the boogie boarding, but there were several days with big enough waves for it. I really, really regret not bringing my phone to the beach on the very last day because little 3-year old Rose decided to try her hand at boogie boarding and she did AWESOME! She got a lot of amazed stares and chuckles from the people walking by. 😍
Walking to lunch
It took 20-30 minutes to walk to lunch each day, but it was a nice way to break up the day and we always saw local wild animals like agouti, coati and giant iguanas, which the kids loved. For some reason, most of our kids would order "hot cakes" (pancakes) for lunch and many restaurants seemed to serve them. We did go to a few places that only had tacos to force them to try local food. We learned last time to avoid all restaurants in the touristy part of town and to venture a few blocks away from the beach to save a lot of money. In the end, our favorite place was the cheapest place we went and only served pork tacos and empanadas. We found the street vendor food not to be very good.
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| Since you can't drink the water our kids reveled in being allowed to get other drinks at restaurants. |
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| Toad asked me why there was a giant turd in the tree. I'm guessing something lives in there? Anyone know what it is? |
Afternoons by the pool
The pool was not heated and the water was significantly colder than the beach, so we found it was best to swim after being nice an hot from our walk home. (Did I mention the weather was usually low 80s every afternoon? Amazing!)
Halfway through our trip we went to XCaret- there are advertisements for it EVERYWHERE and a Mexican company Jay consults for recommended it to us. It was great and I think 1 day is enough. It's sort of like a Mexican zoo/aquarium/museum/water park rolled into one. Almost everything is outside but I was impressed by how well shaded it was and there were very few times we felt too hot. I was very excited to see the manatees (didn't take a pic though) and there were a lot of cool experiences you could do for extra $$, which we didn't do, such as feeding sharks or manatees, swimming with dolphins, etc.
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| This pelican was a little too comfortable around people and traumatized Newt and Rose by giving each of them a nip as they tried to walk by. |
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| The Mexican cemetery was surprisingly colorful and interesting. |
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| There were ruins all over the place. Very cool! |
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| The underground "river" was really cool, but Rose was terrified and screamed the whole time 😓 Thank you Jay for swimming with her and Toad clinging to him the whole time 😆. Swimming while carrying Newt was enough for this preggo lady! |
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| I couldn't believe how HUGE the sea turtles were! |
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| They had an area specifically for kids, but only between the ages of 6-12 and they were pretty strict about the ages. Kind of a bummer for our big family, but Hazel and Toad liked it a lot. |
At the end of the night all the attractions close and they sort of herd you to this huge arena where you pass by people dressed in amazingly intricate costumes and they have a Mexican heritage show where they have people playing Mayan games with a ball on fire and an impressive scene where they reenact Cortez taking over the natives in battle. There are also many musical numbers with singing and dancing from different parts of the country. It was a great way to end the day feeling like you got a real taste of Mexican culture while getting to sit down after a long day of walking.
Our last morning, Jay and I went to the beach to watch the sunrise. I was surprised how cold I felt at 65 degrees and how warm the ocean was on my chilly feet. A fun end to an awesome trip!
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