07-08-2006
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#1 (permalink) |
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beachaholic
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Waukesha, WI (burb west of Milwaukee)
Posts: 299
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Trip Report...a newbie in Playa @ the Playa Maya
First of all I would like to say this was our first trip to Playa del Carmen. I want to thank everyone from the forum who take the time to post all the helpful tips for us "newbies". The info truly helped us get through parts of our vacation. I hope my report will help someone else in their future visit.
I also want to mention that I forgot to take pictures of food & recall amounts spent. Even though people have posted so many in their trip reports I just simply forgot. Of the photos we did take, a lot were of the ruins & the beauty of th ocean versus people. Except for the peep meet photos which are posted in the "Anyone interested in a Peep Meet on Sunday, June 25th at the Beer Bucket around 8??" thread that angelhouston819 posted. And as a warning, I can get a bit wordy so bear with this long report. The night before: As most trips begin for us, it is the night before we fly out and we are rushing around finishing last minute packing, cleaning & other vacation preparations. I finished ironing some clothes (yes, I do iron even though I hate to do it) and finally got to bed at 11:30 p.m. Day 1 - Travel Day We were up at 3:45 a.m., get to the airport by 5:15 and board the plane at 5:55 for a 6:25 take off. We are flying out of Milwaukee's General Mitchell Airport on Northwest Airlines. We have a 55 minute delay leaving the runway because an early morning thunderstorm rolls through. Thankfully the pilot is concerned and chooses to stay on the ground until it is safe to take off. We finally fly out at 7:20 and arrive in Memphis, TN late, but for us it is not a concern as our flight into Cancun does not depart until 10:29. We board our flight for Cancun at 10:00. We had the pleasure of sitting next to a very nice man from Texas who was heading to Cozumel for vacation. He kept us very entertained during our 2 1/2 hour flight by talking about his girlfriend, son & friends. He likes to dive a lot and was sharing stories of his dives. His friends were also on the plane sitting near us and they would buy beer back & forth for each other (it honestly smelled like a brewery around us & I should know about that as we pass one everytime we drive into Milwaukee on I-94). It was comical to watch him as he was very animated and his favorite phrase to say was "It's all good," after many stories. We arrive in Cancun 15 minutes early.   We breeze through immigration (it was empty, we were the first plane coming through at that time), Jim hit the green light, woo hoo!! We start heading towards the double glass doors and I tell Jim that he needs to ignore the people holding signs and asking if we need rides. I said we just need to get through the double doors, go to the right and we will see the ADO buses. Well it almost goes smoothly but in my tunnel vision through all the timeshare/taxi people I go too far and end up by the rental car area (I should have re-read the info from the forum about turning right directly after exiting the double doors). So we backtracked and turn left when I get to the double doors. Of course I pass up the woman selling tickets for the bus and Jim starts yelling at me, "she's selling bus tickets!" I see her log on her shirt and we then purchase our tickets for $8 US per person, one-way for a 1:45 p.m. departure. Whew! We made it through our first obstacle. We get our bags loaded on the bus and wait in line for the bus to leave. Now at this point I'm starting to really feel the heat. I knew it was going to be hot, obviously it's June and we're in Mexico! But this thick northern blood was feeling the heat and will continue to throughout this trip! As we are waiting for the bus to load I hear my name called. It's Adguy (Lee) and his wife Jennifer also waiting in line (we are wearing our Nerak beads)! We knew we were arriving at the same time and would hopefully be taking the bus into Playa together. It was so nice to have people to chat with that we felt like we knew from the forum! We load the bus on time and head to Playa, I believe it was a 40 minute ride.  We arrive in Playa and of course we are expecting to get dropped off at the bus station on Juarez & 5th, but instead we are dropped off at 12th & 20th. Now this was a bit confusing at first but after I got out my "Mapchick map" I was able to get my bearings and head straight down 12th towards 5th. It worked out perfectly and we then turned right on 5th and continued schlepping our luggage to 8th, turned left and made our way to the beach. What a sight to see, the ocean was gorgeous!  Jim took this photo at the end of 8th facing Mosquito Blue's beach Jim stays with the luggage and I walk across the beach and up to the lobby of the Playa Maya to check in. They promptly send someone out to help with our luggage and we continue the check-in process which goes smooth and quick. They show us our room (#204) and we immediately check out the balcony & view, this will be perfect for the next 7 days!   It is now approximately 3:15 and we are tired, hungry & very thirsty! I have to mention it was so nice of the Playa Maya to have the air conditioning in our room very cool and the fridge filled with a large bottle of water (which we drank down in 10 minutes), and then 2 bottles of beer that we opened right away. There were also 2 cans of soda and 2 Kahlua candies (which we saved for another time). We then changed out of our travel clothes and headed down to the Playa Maya restaurant (on the beach!) and ordered food & more drink. The first thing we ordered was a bucket of beer, 3 Dos Equis & 3 Sol. We then ordered guacamole & chips with pico de gallo, Jim ordered 3 beef tacos & I ordered 3 shrimp tacos, Yum-O! How nice after a day of travel to be able to sink our toes in the sand, eat a wonderful meal and watch the beautiful ocean. What a fantastic start to our vacation!  Since we were so thirsty & hungry we chowed down our food & slugged our first beers as soon as they were placed on our table. After that we were able to leisurely finish our first bucket of beer and enjoy the views around us. Eventually it was time for the restaurant to close (6:00) so we ordered another bucket of beer and headed up to our room. After a long day of travel and finally eating and drinking we were too tired to venture out of our hotel (are we the first to do this?) so we sat on our balcony and finished up our 2nd bucket of beer.   I just loved the colors in the sky that night We then showered and crashed hard with dreams of sitting on the beach and drinking more buckets of beer the following day.
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 Tammy GO PACK GO!!! DRINKIN' BEER & DOIN' A SHOT FOR EVERY TOUCHDOWN! Last edited by W8N4Summer; 09-01-2006 at 06:32 AM. |
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07-08-2006
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#2 (permalink) |
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beachaholic
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Waukesha, WI (burb west of Milwaukee)
Posts: 299
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Sorry about the text going out so far, not sure how to fix it. I'm assuming it has something to do with the photos need to be made smaller.
Okay, I figured it out. Last edited by W8N4Summer; 07-15-2006 at 06:31 AM. |
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07-09-2006
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#10 (permalink) |
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beachaholic
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Waukesha, WI (burb west of Milwaukee)
Posts: 299
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Day 2 - Our first full day in Playa
I woke up early today. As is mentioned in many trip reports, it's that work clock that gets us up early even though we would really love to be sleeping in since we are on vacation! Jim was still sleeping (he can sleep late whenever) so I decide to go out on the balcony and have my first morning enjoying the sights, sounds & smells of the ocean. I am a Pisces so I think it's one of those things I'm naturally drawn to. I had noticed one of my neighbor's was also on her balcony and we said good morning to each other. I was thinking I could really go for some coffee so I asked my neighbor if she knew when they started serving coffee in the lobby? She had thought it was 7:00, excellent; it's almost 7:00 now so I head down to the lobby area where there was infact a fresh pot of coffee just waiting for me! I pour 2 cups and head back to the room. I put Jim's cup on the nightstand next to his side of the bed, I knew the aroma would wake him up soon. I went back out to the balcony and began journaling our trip. Well I was right about the aroma waking Jim because I had just finished journaling the travel day and he opened the balcony door to join me. We then decide to head out and check out 5th Av. for the first time. It was very quiet and the stores and restaurants were just starting to open. We then go back to the hotel to get breakfast. We ate breakfast everyday at the hotel as it is included in the stay. We both had the combination plate with bacon and juice or coffee; it was delicious and hit the spot. Today we are going to just hang out on the beach and relax after traveling the previous day. I have to mention what is so nice about the Playa Maya is that they have a big beautiful beach area in front of the hotel. Each day they would have beach chairs out and you could ask to have an umbrella set up when you were ready for one. So we picked a spot to hang for the day and then went to the room to change for our day of beachin' it.   Another nice thing included in your stay at the Playa Maya are the beach towels, nice, big, thick beach towels. They give you a tag that says "1 free beach towel" and each day you give it to them and they give you a new towel. At the end of the day you hand in your towel and they give you a new tag for the next day. After hanging out at the beach all morning you really build up an appetite, we decide to sit under the thatched roof area of the restaurant and order lunch. At this point I have to admit that I still cannot believe I'm here! It's just so beautiful on this beach!  Anyway, back to lunch. I ordered shrimp tacos again and Jim got the Playa Burger with fries. And of course we had to order the chips & guac. & pico de gallo, have said Yum-O?! What an addiction! Our lunch was excellent and now it's time for a bucket of cerveza's, which we take over to our beach chairs and chill for the rest of the afternoon. Around 3:00 we decide it's time to get off our butts and go do some shopping. We get showered and changed and head down 5th to check out some of the shops and end up at the market on 5th & Juarez. We buy some cerveza's to put in the fridge and some snack foods for those late night snack attacks. After dropping off the goods we decide it's time for dinner. We head for Babe's Noodle Bar. This place is so highly rated on Playa Info that we were really looking forward to tasting it for ourselves. Jim ordered the chicken & shrimp and I ordered the sesame chicken. His was excellent (I tasted it) and mine was not. Unfortunately the chicken was very dry and the sauce was too sweet for my liking. Oh well, 1out of 2 isn't too bad. We also drank down 2 cerveza's and then we were quickly on our way (the main reason for moving on quickly was due to the area of the restaurant & the constant vehicle/scooter traffic that went through during our meal. The exhaust added into the flavor of my food was not appealing). We go back down 5th and check out some of the tequila shops and do some price comparison for future purchases.  All that tequila shopping was making us thirsty so it was time to stop at the Tequila Barrel, another famous spot in Playa. We order some cerveza's and 2 shots of tequila, it was called Lepis, if I remember correctly it was an anejo & tasted okay. While we were sitting at the Tequila Barrel Adguy (Lee) & his wife Jennifer were just leaving (we hadn't seen them when we first arrived as we walked to the north entrance and were not paying attention to the people sitting out front & then sat at the bar. We actually moved outside when a table outside became available and that's when we saw them. I guess I really didn't need to explain all that, oh well.). They had been there a while and had tried a few tequila's and then were heading out for Lee's birthday dinner. Happy Birthday Adguy! We then have a couple more cerveza's and 2 more shots, this time we tried Centenario Azul that was much better than the Lepis. As we were sitting there enjoying our drinks and people watching a nice young man came up to us and quickly said, "We need to take your welcome photo". We pose, and click he takes our picture. My first thought was oh, do they have a board that they post people's pictures on? Silly me, after he left and we were sitting there for a while I said, watch, he will come back with our picture on something to buy. Sure enough, it was our photo on a bottle of Corona. We were debating whether to buy it or not and since we had not purchased an actual souvenir yet we decided to buy it for $10 US. Okay, now it's time for another shot of tequila and more cerveza; do you see a pattern here? I cannot recall the name of the tequila (surprise, surprise?), but it was just okay like the first one we tried. I guess the Centenario Azul wins for tonight! The munchies are now setting in so we ordered some chicken nachos, they were okay but a little on the cold side considering it's hotter than Hades at the moment! It's time to leave our spot at the Tequila Barrel and head back toward the hotel. Since we are feeling pretty good with all that tequila in us we decide we should take a walk down the beach to check out some of the beach clubs. Well I guess it was a little too late (I probably should have researched this better) as the first 2 we stopped at were closed (the staff were just hanging out) so we decided that was a sign to head back to the hotel and call it a night. Tomorrow we take the ferry boat over to Cozumel. Last edited by W8N4Summer; 07-15-2006 at 06:34 AM. |
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07-10-2006
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#14 (permalink) |
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into ruins
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Sunny Florida!!!
Posts: 72
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"While we were sitting at the Tequila Barrel Adguy (Lee) & his wife Jennifer were just leaving"
With as much as we kept bumping into each other during our first 24 hours down there, I thought for sure you'd take out a restraining order on us!  Sorry we missed you at TB...I'm just surprised they still had tequila left after we were done! 
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