Spring Break 2013

with the Knight Family from Calgary! Yayy, thanks a bunch for visiting us in beautiful Cancun in the Mayan Riviera. It was a fabulous week and we were so glad to be able to spend time with our much missed friends. Lyn had traveled from Calgary with them and arrived very late on the first night. Me and the boys had already experienced the pools and enjoyed a fabulous dinner in the Mexican restaurant, which we had been told was full but the maitre’d had no problem finding me a beautiful table on the window overlooking the pools.

This time we stayed at the Crown Paradise Club on the southern shores of Cancun. The beach there was fabulous and is very close to a public beach which we often go to when we are in Cancun. The Crown Paradise Club has a great children’s area and our kids certainly took advantage of most of their daily and some of the nightly programs that were offered. Yes, we were the parents who put our children into the care of the resort staff so that we could have some adult time! This was of course necessary when you are eating at the French restaurant which does not allow children, or when you are just tired of them and want to enjoy the evening at the Mexican restaurant!

Days were filled with swimming in the pool, walking the beaches, swimming in the ocean, a day trip to Xel-ha to swim with the dolphins (another post). The first day was very sunny and hot, and despite all of our warnings about sun screen, we all got burned! It was nice that the next day was cloudy and we spent it at Xel-ha. Then we had a couple of cloudy days where it was quite cool – I think about 25 degrees or so in the day before it started to warm up again at the end of the week. We had our van with us so we gave them a couple tours of Hotel Row in Cancun and took them to dinner to one of the boys favorite Cancun stops – Bubba Gumps!

The kids enjoyed playing chess at the pool side and over lunches in the restaurants. Evan and Noah were quite helpful in teaching Kieran and Payton how to play, but Dave – you should probably double check them for the right moves! We played cards a couple of times in our room and drank some great Mojito’s, Margarita’s and of course Vodka sodas! We were always very tired and were in bed by about 9pm each night – the sun sure kicks the crap out of you!

Evan & Kieran couldn’t get enough of the ocean and Noah and Payton were constantly getting new drinks from the bartenders. The bartenders have a specific list of very colourful beverages for the little people and they thoroughly enjoyed drinking them! Payton had her hair braided for the end of the trip and we all bought sunglasses on the beach! Very nice! I think we only lost one set of goggles in the ocean and one chess piece by the pool – all in all very good!

The breakfast buffet was fabulous and we did our best to mix it up a little bit everyday, but after a week of eating the same food we were quite bored with the food. This was true of the lunch buffets and snack bars – at the end of our stay we were eating a little sushi, a little chicken wings, a little of this and a little of that without actually committing to eating one thing and this really seemed to work for us. The Italian restaurant was one of our favorites. The seafood restaurant was ok but nothing spectacular. The French restaurant was ok as well. Me and the boys enjoyed the Mexican restaurant as well.

A very big thank you to Grandma & Grandpa who gave us our Christmas and birthday money for the year to put towards our big vacation!

It was really great spending time with the Knight family and we sure do miss them! Here’s to the next visit:)

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Great Comments about the resort:

• The kids staff was unbelievable. We found them to be very attentive and offered a lot to our children and made them feel comfortable. They made you feel like part of the family!
• The Italian Restaurant.
• All the hosts and servers were quite enjoyable.
• The rooms were quite clean and serviced daily.
• Great Mojito’s
• Great Kids selection of beverages
• Wireless, once you pay for it is really quite good, unfortunate that you have to pay for it but still good.

• The restaurant booking policy… You had to book the day in advance for the next evenings dining and it seemed like there was only one person answering the phone. Then if you actually got through to somebody, you were automatically told that the restaurant was already full… You will have to be creative to figure out how to make the dining work in your favor. I would recommend making friends right away with the host of each restaurant in the hopes that they can seat you at one of the MANY empty tables. The resort definitely wants you to eat at the main buffet and does not want to have you going to the more expensive buffets where you will see them at least half empty on a nightly basis. Be ingenious (call 2 days in advance because you won’t be there the next morning as you are going on an excursion… show up early and tell them that you had a reservation and cannot understand why they do not have it in their book…pay the maitre’d!)
• The beds… very hard but we found out after our visit that you can actually request the mattress pads from the front desk which will make your sleep much more enjoyable.
• Other than those reasons, we really enjoyed the location and the facilities offered by the Crown Paradise Club.