![]() I also have to give some unexpected props to our hotel - it was way more eco conscious than I expected. But considering the amount of sugary drinks we were hitting the swim up bar for each day, we were pretty eager to balance things out with at least one nutritious meal a day. So, can you eat healthy at an all-inclusive? It’s not always easy and we gave ourselves plenty of leeway to indulge. I’m not going to lie - I think one of my favorite parts of this whole trip was breaking out my beachwear again and having somewhere to get gussied up for every night. Lucky for us, as we were attending the wedding one night and the rehearsal another, we really only needed to worry about one night.Ĭraving a taste of our destination, we headed to Mexico Lindo. The process of actually making those reservations wasn’t the simplest - you could only do it upon check-in to the hotel, within certain hours of the day, at certain places that were always miles away from where you were during said window. But you also can hit up some of the a la carte restaurants, to which you have a certain allotment of reservation requests based on your length and status of stay. Yes, you have 24/7 access to food at buffets, no matter what. Relaxing, it turns out, can be quite a lot of work.Īs relative newcomers to the all inclusive world - I’ve been to just a few before, two in Bali, and one in Aruba - we didn’t really understand the dinner reservation system very well. There were all kinds of things on our to-do list that we didn’t get to, in addition to the gym - stand up paddle boarding, beach-bumming (we spent most of our time at the pools), and beyond. What can I say? We had a busy schedule to keep.Īll the things that I feel would have once made me roll my eyes about staying at an all-inclusive - a bowling alley, a mini-golf course - were, in fact, a blast, and I loved getting to know Ian’s friends over competitive rounds of each. We were majorly impressed by the size and variety of the gym, which I have to confess we never used. But after a few days meandering the sprawling properties, we found more - the tranquil adults-only pool in the chaos of mid-day, the manicured beaches at sunrise, the modern spa where we indulged in a late afternoon treatment. The little slice of paradise outside our sliding door was without question one of our favorite places at the resort. As did the bottle of tequila in the room upon arrival. The swim up pool we dozen in while the sun was shining, the massive jacuzzi that we filled up while the rain was falling - this made it feel like vacation. With a small media discount, we paid $207 per person per night. The upgrade was hard to justify considering what we were paying for a room in a stunning boutique hotel in Tulum, but… I guess if you’re going to do it, do it big?įor us, the room was all about the balcony. While there were very reasonably priced rooms available via a group rate for the wedding we were attending, we splashed out massively on a junior suite swim up room. We were staying at the Barcelo Maya Caribe, one of half a dozen mega resorts connected by efficient shuttles and endless beachfront making up the Barceló Maya Grand Resort. I got a frozen drink half the size of me the moment we walked out of baggage claim, feeling lighter than I had in ages. We timed our flights to arrive together and after much debate, we’d splurged on private transfers to and from all our destinations, which Ian arranged. We hadn’t spent a week together in nine months, and so we pushed it to the limit of each of our abilities to escape - three nights at the wedding resort just south of Playa del Carmen, and four nights in our dream destination of Tulum. Pool hopping, free flow piña coladas, and copious naps? Yes please. And so when Ian was called up for groomsman duty at an all-inclusive resort in the Riviera Maya, well, that sounded like just what we were craving. When I visited Mexico for the first time, kicking off the New Year in 2019, I left with a staggering sense that my normal travel style had left me, in my exhausted state, well, a bit frazzled.
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