Welcome to day two.
Arriving in the evening the lobby was seriously quiet and dark. The resort was very similar in design to the Tulum grand Palladium – but this was a single resort instead of three stuck together like Tulum. Also, we are travelling in the low season. so it’s not crowded at all. I like that because people are nasty and leak fluids.
We got to our rooms, and Sasha and Petru’s place was nice, but the room that Yulia and I got was totally wrong. way too small. not part of our club, etc. The Club desk was closed so we took care of it in the morning. We moved over a building to a much nicer room. Bigger, more light. Yulia noted that it was *identical* to her room in Cabo. I think a lot of the architecture is standard across resorts. But we don’t go for the rooms in any case.
The resort has an awesome beach. The waves are strong but not crazy, sand is clean with no seaweed, an big saltwater swimming pool (basically and stone and concrete tidal pool.) There’s a bar right on the beach itself, and stairs go up to the rest of the resort. The resort if basically terraced – almost like those photos of towns on the hills of Greece you see in your dentist’s office by the tropical fish tank and issues of Highlights Magazine.
There’s an infinity pool, a central Pool with swim-up bar, and a private pool on the far side. Several restaurants and bars, and one big buffet. It’s a nice setup. It’s much smaller than Tulum was, but that means we don’t need to wait for Golf Carts to shuttle us around. Everything has a balance. Once we were settled we immediately hit the pool, because it was hot. Seriously hot. Fortunately, it was also very humid, with sporadic lightning in the evening. It’s the rainy season all right.
But the day is perfect and clear. Should be an interesting weather time out here.
We also had an “update” meeting with our club where they naturally tried to upsell us on a level. We skipped that, but had them explain how to use the booking site better and find travel deals. That was honestly really helpful – I can see that we didn’t book this trip exactly right – but that’s fine. I’m going to look at the site when we get back since we have a small trip planned around December and we might be able to get a better affiliate deal through this.
Business and room swaps finished, it was time for swimming. The saltwater tidal pool was awesome. There were fish in it so we had Puffers and assorted multicolor fish swimming around us. Waves crashed over the rocks and splashed us in the tidal pool. It was nice having the ocean with no seaweed. that was a real problem in the Yucatan – and it sounds like it’s only getting worse. This water was super clean – a big improvement.
The infinity pool is adult only – so we have been spending most of our time there since the central pool fills with kids and families pretty quick. We will have to go to that swim up bar later in the week but I’ll trade a loud DJ for shouting kids anytime. We went down the hillside stairs from there to the beach again and mess about in the surf until a few serious waves came in and clobbered us. Yulia lost her sunglasses and my Straw hat was soaked. Fortunately a beach seller was there and Yulia got some new cheap sunglasses. A few years back i had an excellent Tommy Bahama straw hat. Wide Brim, natural straw. Loved it. It wore out after a few years and one big splash ended it. Total Straw Collapse. This hat is synthetic, and some time in the sun let it spring right back into shape. When you lack hair a good hat is critical.
We went back up to the infinity pool and made that the whole afternoon. Now we start making dinner reservations for the week and look at tours. Don’t want to over-pivot and plan too much, but can’t plan too little either.
Vacation is hard work.
Cognitive Dissonance 