The time finally arrived (and all too quickly ended) for our annual big vacation. We like to do something fun the week of our anniversary. Last year, it was the Dominican Republic (you can read recap
1,
2, and
3 here) and this year it was Mexico. We stayed at the
Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya. It's about an hour and half from the Cancun airport. Let me just start off by saying that we totally felt we got our money's worth on this vacation. This is an all-inclusive resort with excellent service in every area. They really do treat you like rock stars. We got an upgraded room and included airfare and transportation and were able to book all that through the hotel website. Our stay also came with $750 in resort credit to be used on tours, upgraded food/wine lists, and/or at the spa. The only catch with that is that you have to pay a 20% service fee on service-based things (ie. the spa). Get ready, there are about 69 pics for this post.....
Let's start off with a tour of the hotel:
We stayed in the "Heaven" area since it was adults only. This is our lobby area. There were also shops and restaurants throughout the lobby as well as the spa.
Everything about this place is music-themed. The staff have name tags that look like guitar picks. They don't have signs that say "restroom" or even signs that say "men" or "women". This is how they show restrooms:
Famous musicians
Now, I'm the idiot that had no clue what was going on. So, I go to the room on the right. Well, I walk in and see urinals on the wall. Wait, when did ladies rooms get urinals? Yeah, totally walked into the men's room....again! I did this on our Fredericksburg trip, too. I quickly walked out and then the light bulb went on and I realized how this thing worked. Female rock stars meant women's restrooms. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have 2 college degrees!
Next, we have some decor. Now, I didn't take a million pics of the decor. Throughout the hotel they had clothing, guitars, and other accessories of famous musicians in showcases. I did, however, take some pics of the lamps around the hotel. The lamp stands were made out of musical instruments.
Now, for our room. We got a king-sized bed with a partial ocean view room. I thought the bed was comfortable (although the pillows were way too soft for me since I prefer a firm pillow) and the room was spacious.
Yes, that's a nice big bathtub made for 2....with jets! It was right there in the main part of our room. We could watch TV (well, what little English channels they had) as we sat in that tub.
The bathroom part was a separate hallway. It had a double sink, enclosed huge shower, enclosed toilet, and lots of shelf space.
This is our bed with a nice balcony. There was also a table and 2 chairs off to the side. To the left of the bed was the Jacuzzi tub.
The "do not disturb" sign
The sign letting them know it was OK to come clean the room.
We were in the saxophone building. This is what the side of our elevator looked like.
We saw this weird animal lurking near our elevator.
The view from our balcony.
Of course we needed a selfie on our balcony upon arrival!
Now, here's a little bit about how our week went!
Tuesday:
I follow a blogger (The Organized Junkie) and she had posted a travel checklist that was very detailed and very much up my "square" alley. You can get a printable copy
here if you're interested.
This was huge help when packing!
We had a 7am direct flight to Cancun. We were up at 3:45am and grabbed a quick breakfast and headed to Mr. B's parents' house so his dad could drive us to the airport. Of course, we had to take an airplane selfie.....
It was about a 2 1/2 hour flight to Cancun. Then, we had about 1 1/2 hour drive to the hotel.
By the time we got to the hotel, it was about 11:45. Our room wasn't ready yet, so we went to the "Torro" restaurant out by the pool for a buffet lunch. After lunch, we met with our concierge person and she helped get us registered at the spa and meet with our transportation representative. She also offered us a breakfast the next morning with a $200 voucher if we took a tour of the VIP area. I knew exactly what this was. We did it last year. They try to sell you membership to their hotel (kind of like a time share...although they swear up and down that it's not like that at all). Hey, I'll spend a couple of hours listening to you try to sell me something for a nice meal and free money. By now, it's almost 3:00. Our room was ready and the bellhop took us to our room. We got settled in and headed straight for the pool. They always have a DJ and activities at the pool from about 9-5. They also have a snack bar with chicken fingers, fries, burgers, hot dogs, chips, guacamole, cheese, wings, etc. You just go grab food and drinks whenever you want! They also have servers walking around the pool area serving food and drinks. I didn't really got any good pool side pics, but I did get a pic of the area around the pool:
After we had our fill of swimming, we headed back to the room to shower and change for dinner. We decided on Italian food for dinner. We went to "Ciao" for dinner. The service was great....a little too attentive actually.
I totally forgot food pics, but trust me, it was amazing. When they asked if we were celebrating anything, we told them it was our anniversary this week. So, they made this for us:
Yeah, the spelling on some things is not always on point. I can't tell you how many times my last name was spelled "browney" this week.
We wanted to catch the circus show at 8:30, so I needed a little pick me up. Expresso after Tirimisu....yes, please!
They had nightly entertainment. We went to their circus show that evening. It did not disappoint.
We decided to go back to the room and relax in that big tub and watch some TV. We found a channel in English that had a show we liked.
This is the same shot as above, only at night.
Yeah, that's a whirlpool.
I got a small shot of the waves.
Check out some of the night time views of the beach. We were in complete amazement at how dark it got! That bottom picture during the day is where you can see the ocean just beyond those trees.
Wednesday
We slept in until about 9:30. We were meeting our concierge lady at 10:30 to go to the presentation and breakfast we agreed to. The rep that was presenting to us was American. We spent about 2 hours talking and listening to several people try to sell us membership...again. We turned it down....again. We did tell them that it was this presentation last year that made us want to come stay at the Hard Rock. They told us about a new location opening in Los Cabos in a couple of years. Yeah, so going to do that! When we got back, we spent the next few hours at the pool. We ate lunch from the snack area and even found some people to chat with. We enjoyed the entertainment before heading back to our room around 5:30. We decided to try the Asian restaurant this time.
The restaurant was called "Zen." This was probably my favorite place we ate the whole trip.
The appetizer was a spring roll with some sushi. We liked it so much, we got another order of sushi and spring rolls.
This was my main course: fried rice with shrimp. Mr. B had noodles and shrimp.
Let's not forget the dessert! Tempura fried ice cream with caramel sauce. It was so good. I'm still mystified at how they make this happen without melting the ice cream.
They only had chopsticks at the table. It totally worked for me with the appetizer. However, about half way through the main course, I was getting a hand cramp and getting impatient eating rice with these stupid things. I asked (in Spanish even) for a spoon. "yo necesito una cuchara por favor." Yeah, be impressed....
After dinner selfie
A nice couple came along and offered to take our pic....of course, one must return the favor.
After dinner, Mr. B wanted to check out the Led Zeppelin cover band at the night club. I indulged him. I mean, after all, this is his vacation too:)
My rock n' roll stud!
After the band, we went back to the room to watch a movie. Since Asian food doesn't last long in your belly, we ordered room service for a late night snack of fruit and quesadillas. 24/7 room service is included in your stay! We took advantage of it several times.
Thursday
We ordered room service for breakfast for 10:00am.
Yeah, we ate it all!
We spent our $200 voucher for a bali bed on the beach with a private server. It came with an appetizer, a bottle of wine, and service from 9-5. Our server would bring us food and drinks all day when we asked.
So this was our setup that day.
And this was our view. The beach is different here. It's a very rocky area of beach on this resort. You can't go beyond the rocks. It's more of a cove to swim in. This suits me better since I'm not a huge fan of open water. This gave me the ocean vibe without all the open water. However, there was still fish lurking in these waters. They actually came up really close. Many times I jumped up on Mr. B asking for his protection from the fishies. I know, they won't hurt me. But there were reports of a barracuda lurking about. I'm totally a pool kind of girl.
Proof that I got in the water!
Of course, you must take beach selfies!
We hung out at the beach from about 11-4:30. My legs got burned pretty bad....but now, they're totally tanned:)
We wanted to soak in the pool for a few minutes to get the sticky salt water feel off us. Then it was time for a shower and dinner. We chose Mexican food for this night.
Los Gallos restaurant
Baja tacos for me, flank steak for him. These tacos were bomb!
Appetizer....some of the best queso I've ever had and some pork taquitos.
Since we were too full for dessert at the restaurant, we ordered room service and got oreo cheesecake instead.
We took a quick night time balcony selfie before crashing for the night. Mr. B wanted to check out the Jimmy Hindrix cover band, but we just couldn't handle it. All day in the sun will take a lot out of you. Relaxing on the beach is very tiring:)
Friday
Yay! It's our anniversary day. I love celebrating our wedding anniversary. We are forever being told that we still act like newlyweds. That's OK. I think that's a good thing. Since the hotel knew we were celebrating our anniversary, we got a special breakfast delivered to us.
Salmon scrambled eggs, coffee, mimosas, toast, hash browns, yogurt parfaits. Yeah, it was good. After breakfast, we spent the afternoon at the pool.
The annual anniversary selfie
5 years of anniversary selfies
This was the only rainy day of our trip. Around 2:30, a thunderstorm came rolling in.
We were told to exit the pool so we didn't get wet! LOL. But seriously, we had to get out since there was lightening. We went and stayed in the lobby since we had a spa appointment at 4. We used our resort credits on an Agave spa ritual for 2. We started out with an hour of hydrotherapy. Mr. B and I went in separate sides of the spa....men on one side, women on the other. First, I went in the sauna, then cold room, then steam room, hot tub time. They provide you with a robe and slippers, fruit and nuts, and water. After our hydro session, we were brought back together for our Agave ritual. We started with a 30 minute hot tub experience on the roof top. It was still raining, so it was nice to relax in the hot tub and watch the thunderstorm roll in over the ocean. Our session started with a full body exfoliation and mud wrap while getting a facial. Then we showered off the mud and got our massage. Now, the experience was amazing and relaxing. However, I'd hardly call what we got a massage and facial. It was more just rubbing lotion on me. I've gotten a way better massage and facial at Massage Envy.
After our spa experience, we headed back to get ready for dinner.
This was waiting on us when we got back to our room! Yeah, again with the spelling.....yes, we ate it before our dinner #becausewecan
Before dinner selfie
We had reservations at the Brazilian Steak House.
Ipanema: It had the feel of Texas de Brazil. However, I much prefer the food at Texas de Brazil. The food here was alright, but I wasn't that impressed. The salad bar and hot sides buffet was lacking, and the meat was just OK.
This was the dessert they served us. Yep, happy honeymoon! The dessert was bomb though!
We asked another couple to take a quick pic of us! The guy told us that they actually invested in a selfie stick for this vacation. He thought he'd never own one of those, but he got a lot of really good pics with it. Oddly enough, we saw a ton of people with selfie sticks on this trip.
We caught a show after dinner. It was a Michael Jackson show. They had a great impersonator. I managed to get a few good shots. It was actually a really good show.
You've been hit by a smooth criminal
Thriller!
Next, we headed to the night club to check out the band. This night club has a swimming pool and whirlpools on the floor. So you can jam on the floor or in water!
Definitely a cool sight!
Jamming to the band! Got to enjoy our last night in Mexico!
Saturday
We got one last breakfast delivered to our room.
Again, totally ate it all
This is our "We're so sad to leave. Can we have just one more day, please?" final balcony selfie.
Mr. B really wanted a pic with the Hard Rock sign in front of the hotel. Our bellboy was nice enough to stop and take the pic for us on our way to the lobby. I believe this will be the pic that goes in our picture frame that I bought! I collect picture frames from our vacation spots.
Our flight left at 4, so we were at the airport a little before 2. By the time we got home, it was after 9:00pm. We unpacked, got a few groceries, showered, and were in bed before midnight. We got up the next morning and went to Weatherford for the day to spend time with Mr. B's family celebrating his grandma's 91st birthday. It's been a crazy and eventful week. We didn't finally get to sit and relax on Sunday until 9:30 that evening. I've already got another full week ahead......
Something I learned in Mexico (besides "don't drink the water") "When we're in Mexico, we're all Mexican!" It's been a great 5 years of wedded bliss to Mr. B! You know I'm already thinking about next year's adventure.....
