We got our passports before Covid hit, and we finally got to use them! We spent Spring Break in Mexico at The Fives all inclusive resort. It was dreamy! So hot. Perfect water temperature. Great food. Fun excursions. So great. The beach was not the best swimming/playing beach. There were rocks and lots of seaweed and it was really rough. But we have been to the beach plenty of times so we were happy to hang out in the pools instead. It was pretty though! I'll do separate posts about our excursions.
The UV rays must be stronger in Mexico or something. Because we used sunscreen but the kids still got very burned on the first day. Rookie vacation mistake! We were swimming and then we went walking around to the beach for tacos and stuff. That's when Kaden and Sadie got burned. They should've work shirts like the boys. I saw Kaden getting red and made Kylee give him her shirt until we could get back to the room. Unfortunately Kylee had already gotten burned from swimming. I swear, we have never been burned like that when we use sunscreen! Even if it had been a couple hours. I ended up spending too much money on aloe at the little resort store... Sadie has never been burned before. She usually just tans. Kaden hasn't either, but only because he usually wears shirts. Dylan didn't swim as long as the rest of us and he had a shirt on after that so he was fine. We survived, but they were hurting!
Sadie and Kaden loved being able to swim whenever they want. There was a pool just a few steps from our room. There were lots of pools. This one was large and it winded around, but the area outside our room was not very crowded usually. Of course they preferred to be close to the bar and basketball hoop, especially because it was more shallow over there. They did have pool hours so they got kicked out at 9pm or so. They would hop in at 9am, swim over to the bar and get a drink, then just hang out. Dylan swam but not as much as the younger ones. Kylee was good to hang out with them, or hang out with me.
Other than the pools and beach, the animals were really fun! We saw so many monkeys. The ones with babies on their backs were especially fun to see. One of them came and drank handfuls from the pool, which stressed me out because I think it's salty water. One time a few monkeys were hanging out by the bar, one of them snuck behind the bar and nabbed a mango and escaped with it back up in the tree where he ate it as we all watched and filmed (pics of that below). And the best was when we were walking on the sidewalk and this monkey just strolled on past us like he belonged there just as much as us. He then saw something on the second floor balcony that he liked, so he climbed up there and startled all the people in that room. It was hilarious. Ryan got a video, but I am just posting a couple pictures. The other animals that were everywhere were coatimundi. They are little trash pandas. I can't imagine how much alcohol they consume, always sticking their snouts into abandoned cups to drink the rest of the drinks. We also saw quite a few lizards. They look like iguanas but one of the locals at Xplor told us they are not iguanas, but something else. Google couldn't help me figure it out though. I'm going with gray iguana. This one ran into the building, which was a bad choice. They had to catch him and pick him up by his tail and drop him outside in the bushes.
The food was mostly great! I enjoyed trying all the things. The kids were not as thrilled with everything, but thy found plenty of good things. When we arrived at the resort it was about 4pm and we had not eaten a real meal all day. We were at this all inclusive resort, but we couldn't find food anywhere! The lunch places were closed and dinner places hadn't opened yet. You had to have reservations for most of the restaurants. We were literally about to cry, we were just walking around trying to find any food. We finally went to the beach where we found a burger place and they gave the kids burgers. We were able to go eat at the buffet once it opened without a reservation thank goodness. But it was a struggle! You just picture food available everywhere and we were starving, haha. We went to the same French place for breakfast brunch almost every day, which was so yummy. Dylan especially enjoyed loading up on pancake with chocolate chips or waffles. There were plenty of desserts, but they weren't super sweet. I really liked them. They clearly have different food restrictions there. The "american" type food all had these big warnings on them: excessive calories, excessive sugar. The soda says it contains caffeine and is not suitable for children. It makes me so frustrated that America is the only country that does not care about what goes in our food. At one point Kylee said, "I miss real chocolate..." Lol.
The taco stand by the beach was super yummy! Unfortunately they weren't great at having it ready right at noon. They really don't worry about being on time.
Kylee and I went to dinner this night (Ryan took the other kids to the buffet, and one night we let them order room service) and we asked for all the desserts because they sounded so good. This plate was so pretty and it was all so yummy! We were thrilled.
Kylee and Dylan cooking sandwiches at the buffet one lunch.
They sure got their fill of fruity, sugary drinks.
When in doubt, always get the fish.
Kaden sticking with fries and butter noodles. They got nuggets a few times too.
Super dark chocolate. Ice cream there is weird and not like normal, but it's sweet. The cheesecake was really not sweet at all, other than the raspberry coulee on top. I didn't hate any of it, I could've gotten used to desserts like that. But it wasn't quite as satisfying as regular american sweets.
Dylan and his breakfasts.
More pictures just of the resort and stuff. You know, I was really surprised how many workers they had that didn't speak English. Maybe I'm ignorant, I should've practiced more Spanish before we came. But I assumed at a tourist resort, they would speak English. There were so many people that came to help in our room (we had a problematic toilet, and we didn't get a sofa bed so we had the little kids sleeping on couches, etc) that didn't speak English. Luckily I could usually catch a word here or there that I understood and I could figure out what they were asking. But I do not speak Spanish very well so I didn't really try. I could usually get the gist of what Ryan was talking about to whomever he was conversing with. It was fun. I was just surprised. I'm glad I had Ryan. Dylan used google translate to talk to the guy that stopped at his room, lol. And one time the guy had the lady at the front desk call me to translate for him.
There was a kids area, but these two kids did not want to go. They felt like it was for babies, which is partly true. It was kind of a babysitting place. But they had free ice cream once so they agreed to go for that.
There was a fun walkway through the jungle. This is where we saw the first monkeys.
They had a little market a couple days and Ryan got swindled into buying a sugar skull because he didn't think the guy would have USU. But he did! I guess we underestimated how many Utahns come to Playa del Carmen. Kylee wanted to get a Henna tattoo but we worried it would be too expensive and it would take too long because there were some girls in line already. We also didn't have much cash and we didn't know if they would take credit cards. We underestimated how much cash we would need for tipping and we were running low especially on the last days. Especially when we were forced to stay another night...
Kylee and Ryan went to this free finger painting class and both did one of these scenes on a tile.
Kids showing off how tall they are. Dylan was not quite to Kylee yet. But definitely past me.
Comparing eye color in the filtered sunlight.
Dylan spent a lot of time at the gym! It was crowded in the mornings but pretty empty the rest of the time so he would go by himself and stay there for a long time. I spent my mornings there as well, there wasn't a good place to run at the resort and it was so hot and humid outside I didn't want to run outside anyway, even at 6am. The teenager club (pictured here next to the gym) was a game room that the boys liked to go to as well. Kaden got pretty obsessed with it after a few days and wanted to stay until 11pm. We didn't let him.
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The trip home was kind of crazy. First off, we were meeting our shuttle at 12:30 but nothing opened for lunch (at least nothing quick) until 12. So we packed up our rooms and headed to the beach to get another burger. In the meantime our key cards were disabled and we had to ask an attendant to let us in our room so we could get our luggage. On the way to the airport, we hit a bunch of traffic and also received texts saying our flight was delayed 4 hours! We were already plenty early for our original flight time and now we had way more time to spare. When our shuttle let us out, there were people crowded around the entrances of the airport but nobody was going inside. We were just trying to find shade and waiting for doors to open. Turns out the airport had been evacuated and shut down due to an "incident" earlier. We were hearing things like an explosion or gunshot. There were men dressed in camo and combat boots carrying huge guns roaming around. It was all a little unsettling. While we were standing there, there was a noise. Not a huge noise, maybe a car backfire, but it didn't even sound that loud. People started panicking and there was a small stampede heading towards us and our little kids were about to get trampled. But then everyone was saying it's okay, it was not a gunshot, etc. And everyone kind of laughed and got back in line. I'm not going to lie, my heart was beating pretty fast at the idea that there could be danger that easily. Finally the doors opened and everyone started pushing like sand in a funnel to get through the doors. Ryan went in front with the intentions of trying to get in a line to see if we could get on an earlier flight instead of 8pm and getting to SLC at midnight. I was dragging a suitcase and gripping Kaden's hand so he didn't get separated and I told Sadie to hold on tight to me. Kylee and Dylan did get pushed back a little but luckily they are tall so I could still see them. I got through the first set of doors and stepped aside to wait for them. I knew I could find Ryan later. It was scary! Then we all had to funnel into the lines that weave around to talk to an attendant. We were in that line for a couple hours. We were hearing people, and talking to people, whose flight were supposed to be leaving soon and yet they were stuck in the line. It was pretty crazy. We got through finally, got up to security, found some food, and waited patiently to board our plane. They changed our flight from 8 to 6:30. We got loaded and we all started watching a movie. We sat there on the plane, not moving, for a long time. I was getting more stressed the longer we sat there. We basically watched a whole movie before the pilot got on the intercom and said that Salt Lake customs will be closed, and they refused to stay open later for us, so we can't take off because we can't land there. So we all had to get off the plane, grab our luggage and we were told our flight would leave the next morning "around 8". So we got on our phones and looked for a hotel close by. We found a Springhill Suites and assumed that would be decent, so we booked a room. Then we had to find a ride, and of course there were taxi guys willing but they wanted to charge us like $75. For a 10 minute ride. Ryan talked him down a little after looking for other options, and we got to the hotel to find a lobby full of people from our flight who were trying to get a room, or waiting for a room. The guy in front of us was telling the lady that he saw a room online and she was saying they have no rooms. Ryan and I looked at each other like, oh no. I was about ready to just curl up on the lobby couch for a few hours. But she ended up having a room for us, just not the one we had booked. It was only a kind bed with a sofa bed. We had to make it work. Dylan took the cushions from the couch and made a bed on the kitchen floor. Kylee and Sadie shared the sofa bed and Kaden slept in the king bed with Ryan and I. Dylan tried to say he was going to the gym at 11pm. When we needed to leave at 5:30 to make sure we were at the airport with plenty of time. Funny kid. We got a little sleep, and headed down to catch the hotel's shuttle to the airport. Kylee and I got stuck in the elevator without a key to make it move and no service to let Ryan know. I was panicking for a minute because the last text he had sent was telling me to hurry because they were about to leave. I pushed the emergency button on the elevator but someone called it down so it opened for us. Phew! Everything after that went smoothly. We waited in lines again, and hung out at the same gate at the airport again. We got food again. But we got on the plane and made it home. Kylee was stressed about missing another day of school and Dylan was stressed about missing track because they had a meet coming up. But nothing we could do. The kids did really well waiting in the lines both days and we all kept our spirits up. Sometimes you just don't have control of things and there's no reason to stress. We were annoyed at the cost of another night at a hotel and we barely had enough cash to tip our last drivers, we had to borrow cash from the kids. But we made it! This picture was trying to show the airport chaos but it doesn't do it justice.
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