My Rainy Mexico Vacation

Hello friends- I’m alive! But just barely. I spent a week in Mexico only to return to mountains and mountains of homework and a midterm so I basically dropped off the face of the planet (except for Instagram of course).

The question I am constantly asked is “how was Mexico?”  and my answer is “Meh. Not as good as Hawaii.” Could this be from the fact that it poured 5 of the 6 days? A large part of it yes. But I also didn’t care for feeling like I was trapped on the resort and couldn’t leave. And I’m not a drinker so the idea of as many free drinks as I wanted wasn’t a selling point. But my sisters were there and any time spent with them is always a good time.

We were welcomed to Mexico by my sisters in their ponchosOn our first day it was overcast so Ryan and I went for a walk around the entire resort. We stayed at the Grand Palladium, a huge resort made up of 4 or 5 “mini hotels”. Our mini hotel was the Kantenah. The lobby was beautiful and open air and even though we were stuck inside from the rain it still felt very outdoorsy.

He and I walked all over the entire property only to be caught in an absolute downpour.

We figured since we were wet anyway that we should go for a swim in the ocean and in the pool- both of which were absolutely deserted.

The water was really dirty from the waves and stormy weather and I couldn’t help but long for the crystal clear waters of Hawaii.

At the pool we went down the water slides in the kiddie pool only to be yelled at because it was for kids only. I was a little annoyed because there wasn’t a child in sight so we weren’t doing any harm.

After our morning of playing in the rain we decided to spend that day with the group drinking by the pool. I’m a light weight folks. I like a couple glasses of red wine and then I’m good. I drank several margaritas and went to bed probably around 9 pm.

The next day I insisted we go to the beach even though it was overcast. We headed out only to get rained on after about 20 minutes.

It went on like this for several days, we would swim in the pool or ocean in the rain. It was warm but it really sucked not having any sunshine.

We spent one morning at the spa which was a lot of fun. There were tons of different water features (Turkish bath, hot tub, cold immersion tub, outdoor endless pool, etc) so it a good way to spend a rainy morning.

After that first day of margaritas I was done drinking wise, but I enjoyed watching everyone else getting hammered because a drunk person acts as crazy as I do on a daily basis so it’s all good! We all went to the White Sands area to go to their Italian restaurant and were told their was a dress code and men in shorts couldn’t come in! We thought that was crazy since all the ladies were in shorts and tank tops. The husbands said they would wait for us at the bar and to hurry up but the restaurant was SO SLOW! It took 1.5 hours to get our food and it wasn’t very good. By the time we returned to the husbands they were wasted. The bar tenders were having fun giving them shot after shot after shot. It was the drunkest I had ever seen Ryan.

Unfortunately, he was so drunk that he spent the night on our bathroom floor and was unable to leave the room the next day to join us on our excursion at Xplor.

Xplor saved the trip! I am active. I have to be doing things and the hanging around all vacation because it was raining was so not my thing. Xplor is this fun adventure park that you pay $135 US per person for a shuttle to get to and you spend almost 8 hours there doing all the activities; zipline, swimming in a cave, rafting in a cave, ATVing. I’ll be writing a separate post!

While we were at Xplor the clouds finally began to go away and the sun to come out. The next day was our last day and it was finally sunny! Everyone woke up early and headed out to the beach because we were dying for some sun!

We spent a few hours on the beach and then migrated over to the pool. I could feel my pale skin starting to burn but I just didn’t care because I was so happy about finally getting a little sun.

Ryan felt so bad about missing out on the Xplor excursion (all he talked about was zip lines since we booked the trip) that my sisters talked me into booking us for the Xplor Fire tour- basically you go to the park at night and do all the activities and there are tiki torches. I was  hesitant because it was our last night and the group was going to go to dinner and stuff, but they nudged me into making sure Ryan got in his zip lining.

I’ll go into more details comparing the day time experience at Xplor to the night, but Ryan and I had a blast!

We didn’t get back home until 12:30 a.m. and our shuttle left at 7:40 a.m.! So we got in a little bit of sleep before we had to wake up, pack up, and leave.

While at the Cancun airport we tried out a fishy pedicure which I’ve always wanted to try.

It’s really creepy at first because when you put your feet initially the little fish swarm you and your natural instinct is to pull out. But after a few minutes their little ticklish nibbles don’t bother you and you get used to it.

It worked really well too! I don’t know who on earth came up with this idea, but it was fun.

The rest of our trip home was not fun in any sort of way. We landed at the Houston airport with an hour and a half between our next flight. We figured that would be plenty of time until we got into the U.S. Customs line. There were 30 stations but only eight were open and the line was LONG! After you go through initial customs, you get your checked bags and you wait in line for the “controlled exit”. After that line you go through security to get into the airport again! It took Ryan and I 2.5 hours to get through U.S Customs to gain entry to the U.S. for a couple of hours! We never left the airport!

So of course we missed our flight and had to take a much later one, landing in Calgary at 11:30 a.m. Once we got there we were delayed because our one bag we checked was lost! We didn’t get home until 3 a.m. and we were exhausted and angry. Ryan got to sleep the next day but I had to get up and go to classes feeling like a zombie.

When I looked at reviews everyone had the same complaint about Houston. Customs only every has 8 or less booths open so people keep missing their flights. I will never EVER fly through Houston again!

That is my trip in a nutshell! Usually when I go on vacation I break the posts into days because I do so much but the rain kept us from doing too much. Mexico was nice- but I’m a Hawaii girl and that’s where I’ll be going on my next beach vacation!