Starting my posting career…with a Trip Report! 9/10-9/16 @ Iberostar Quetzal

[mastequilapf]

The Preface:

I was hoping that by now my post count and membership level would be higher than what is currently shown. However, unplanned circumstances prevented such from being the case. Since it has been so long since I introduced myself, I’ll do so again- my name is Josef. I am 26 and live with my wife, Susan, and pembroke welsh corgi (Hunter) in Atlanta, GA. For a living, I design audio and video systems for schools, churches, theatres, and similar facilities.

Beginning at the end of May, a chain of events lasting through mid-August necessitated an intense (and thankfully brief and successful) job search. No, I wasn’t laid off. To sum it up, my now former employer made some decisions/changes with which I disagreed. Anyway, most of my time away from work (and some at work) was devoted to the job search, and not to things in the “more fun” category, such as posting on the forums of playa.info. Now that the job search is over (started one week before we left for Playa), I can do what I hoped to have done long ago.

But I digress. We are relative Playa-newbies compared to some on the board. This was our second trip not only to Playa but also to the Quetzal. The first was last August for our honeymoon. We picked the Quetzal and thus Playa on the recommendation of a friend of my mother. Turns out that we had such a grand time meeting so many wonderful people and seeing so many beautiful things that we decided that a return visit was a must (like nobody ever does that)! Last March, when we had to get serious about making our travel plans, we were faced with a tough decision. Do we try somewhere new (such as a non-AI in downtown Playa), or should we go with the Quetzal again to relive some of the memories and perhaps see some folks we saw in 2005? By then I had been lurking on this website and the Iberostar discussion board for a while. Through this board I had become familiar with various bars, restaurants, and shops that I hadn’t heard of before our inaugural voyage. Before our trip last year we were too busy to be excited about the trip, let alone research what was in Playa. We thought that it might be fun to spend some more time in downtown Playa and have more freedom to eat/drink/be merry if we weren’t tied to the resort. We spend a lot of money on food and drink last year on or around 5th so it seemed like it might be the more frugal option. Also, we take pride in supporting as many small, family, or privately run businesses as possible.

On the other hand though, we liked how convenient the resort was- everything we could want was at the resort. The resort also provided refuge when needed from the constant barrage of “hey, honeymooners!” from sales associates lining 5th Avenue. But we do like being in the thick of things and talking to strangers. Making decisions sucks! It began to seem like a tossup. We know we both eat and drink a lot, so not having to worry about bar or restaurant tabs was a plus. We came across a great deal on the Quetzal, and after considering all our options, rebooked. I like to try new things, but I also believe in the phrase, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Now that we have returned home, we do not regret our decision. We saw and visited many intriguing and inspiring new places. We still spent a bit of money downtown, but we did see people we met last year, and found out what happened to those who we didn’t see. I have no idea what way our indecisive minds will fall for our 2007 trip. But that’s another story for another time. So now, with 4 bottles of tequila, 776 pictures, and a plethora of memories, I present our Iberostar Quetzal 2006 Trip report!

[Babaloo]

great!
and you seem to spell good, too.

I wanted to use the word "plethora" in my trip report...
...but didn't.

[TeeZet]

I would use the p... word, too.
If I only knew what it meant...

Great start of a trip-report!

[Bren]

We are looking forward to the story the real story......

[Dijo]

on to the "good" stuff.

[Tesla 573]

Originally Posted by TeeZet

I would use the p... word, too.
If I only knew what it meant...

Great start of a trip-report!

When you see it on an an Echocardiogram it's not good .
Vena Cava plethora

[Tesla 573]

Originally Posted by mastequilapf

The Preface:

I was hoping that by now my post count and membership level would be higher than what is currently shown. However, unplanned circumstances prevented such from being the case. Since it has been so long since I introduced myself, I’ll do so again- my name is Josef. I am 26 and live with my wife, Susan, and pembroke welsh corgi (Hunter) in Atlanta, GA. For a living, I design audio and video systems for schools, churches, theatres, and similar facilities.

Beginning at the end of May, a chain of events lasting through mid-August necessitated an intense (and thankfully brief and successful) job search. No, I wasn’t laid off. To sum it up, my now former employer made some decisions/changes with which I disagreed. Anyway, most of my time away from work (and some at work) was devoted to the job search, and not to things in the “more fun” category, such as posting on the forums of playa.info. Now that the job search is over (started one week before we left for Playa), I can do what I hoped to have done long ago.

But I digress. We are relative Playa-newbies compared to some on the board. This was our second trip not only to Playa but also to the Quetzal. The first was last August for our honeymoon. We picked the Quetzal and thus Playa on the recommendation of a friend of my mother. Turns out that we had such a grand time meeting so many wonderful people and seeing so many beautiful things that we decided that a return visit was a must (like nobody ever does that)! Last March, when we had to get serious about making our travel plans, we were faced with a tough decision. Do we try somewhere new (such as a non-AI in downtown Playa), or should we go with the Quetzal again to relive some of the memories and perhaps see some folks we saw in 2005? By then I had been lurking on this website and the Iberostar discussion board for a while. Through this board I had become familiar with various bars, restaurants, and shops that I hadn’t heard of before our inaugural voyage. Before our trip last year we were too busy to be excited about the trip, let alone research what was in Playa. We thought that it might be fun to spend some more time in downtown Playa and have more freedom to eat/drink/be merry if we weren’t tied to the resort. We spend a lot of money on food and drink last year on or around 5th so it seemed like it might be the more frugal option. Also, we take pride in supporting as many small, family, or privately run businesses as possible.

On the other hand though, we liked how convenient the resort was- everything we could want was at the resort. The resort also provided refuge when needed from the constant barrage of “hey, honeymooners!” from sales associates lining 5th Avenue. But we do like being in the thick of things and talking to strangers. Making decisions sucks! It began to seem like a tossup. We know we both eat and drink a lot, so not having to worry about bar or restaurant tabs was a plus. We came across a great deal on the Quetzal, and after considering all our options, rebooked. I like to try new things, but I also believe in the phrase, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Now that we have returned home, we do not regret our decision. We saw and visited many intriguing and inspiring new places. We still spent a bit of money downtown, but we did see people we met last year, and found out what happened to those who we didn’t see. I have no idea what way our indecisive minds will fall for our 2007 trip. But that’s another story for another time. So now, with 4 bottles of tequila, 776 pictures, and a plethora of memories, I present our Iberostar Quetzal 2006 Trip report!

Great report.........pictures please

[mastequilapf]

oh there will be plenty of pictures (although not all 776 are going to be published). I'm putting day one together now.

[Tesla 573]

Originally Posted by mastequilapf

oh there will be plenty of pictures (although not all 776 are going to be published). I'm putting day one together now.

Goody!

[NJ Bill T]

Originally Posted by mastequilapf

oh there will be plenty of pictures (although not all 776 are going to be published). I'm putting day one together now.

You beat me to the punch Josef. I was going to ask where the pictures were. I'll be following this thread (now the heat is on) to see the IB Quetzal. We were at the IB Lindo in 2004 and loved it, and suffered the same quandry you did about where to go for this year. I always wanted to try one of the "off the beaten path" boutique hotels in Playa, but my conservative wife needs the security of an AI, and preferably one she's been to already. This year we are staying at the RIU Tequila. It will give us the chance to actually check out some of the places we read about online for the next vacation, but still offer her the security of the big resort AI concept. Best of both worlds I hope.

[mastequilapf]

Day One – The Day of the Swan – Travel Day



Errrt…errrrt…errrt…whack! Woke up and shut off the alarm at 5:30 am. Didn’t get much sleep the night before due to excitement and making sure we had everything: camera, batteries, underwear, passports, various confirmations. Seems like everything was in order. Showered, got dressed, woke the wife (or so I thought), grabbed some cereal. Instead of milk, I put Sauza Hornitos on my cereal to celebrate the arrival of our departure day. Only kidding! As much as I love tequila, that would have been GROSS! After breakfast, went to brush the chompers. But wait, wife is still in bed! WTF?! She should be more excited. I stirred her again, she arose from the depths of the bed, showered, and also had a bite of cereal. We were ready to go by 6:30 am, a little before Mom was supposed to arrive to drive us to the airport at 6:45 am for a 9:45 am flight.

Armed with 3 suitcases, Can-do maps, camera, iPods, and a mediocre understanding of the Spanish language, our voyage began. By the way, Mom and Dad are great! In addition to being our taxi, they babysat our doggie while we were away! So we got in the car, seemed like Mom was driving 25 miles per hour down the highway! Go faster, Mom, go faster! We must get to Playa!

Upon arrival, check in was a breeze, and we made our way to the gate to find our winged chariot still dark, uncatered, and unfueled.



Hmph! Gosh we were early. I think it was about 7:45 am. Bugger. Since I burned all my frequent flyer points on first class tickets last year, we had to buy coach tickets, so we’re stuck at the gate. No Delta Crown Room. There isn’t much fun to be had at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport Concourse E at this time of day. Several couples began to gather who were obviously on their honeymoons (the heavy makeup and shellacked hairdos, veils, and glowing smiles kinda gave them away). Congrats to them! We know how they feel. Somehow time passed, and just before boarding time, surprise! Free first class upgrade! We went from row 44 to row 5! Sweet! What a way to start a vacation!

The flight was great – We noticed that the jet was about 2/3 full. I passed out and Susan took some great shots from the plane:



She also had mimosas and some new signature drink that Delta is offering this month. Susan said it was muy fuerte – very strong. We landed and made it through immigration, got our bags, and got “green-lighted” in about 15 minutes, maybe less! We were surprised after hearing horror stories about how the airport is a mob scene now that they are operating with only one terminal thanks to Wilma. Oh well, I guess we’ll chalk that one up to it being low season. We decided to stick with the standard van transport that comes with our Funjet package. We waited for a couple other couples to get on board (more honeymooners- one couple was from Atlanta, but we hadn’t seen them get on the plane).

We were finally off! Our driver stuck in a CD with some classic American love songs, but didn’t say a word during the entire hour or so we were in the van. We made a stop at one of the El Dorado properties (can’t remember which) the Iberostar Paraiso complex, and last but not least, the Iberostar Quetzal! Ah! We can’t believe that we’re here. We’ve waited so long! It’s great to be back and to see this wonderful place again. All the beautiful wildlife! And the buildings! And the replica Mayan statues!


The Lobby!


Around the resort


The mighty jungle!


The pool






Peacock takes a peek!


The beach, looking back at one of the buildings


Muppet? Bird? Who knows?

We did notice that Hurricane Wilma appeared to have sheared off most of the trees about 30 or 40 feet up, but that all the plants had regenerated considerably, so the jungle was noticeably thicker.

It was about 1:30 pm then, and based on our experience last year, we weren’t expecting our room to be ready for a couple of hours. But upon check-in, it was ready, so we made haste to our building, unpacked, cracked a few beers, donned our swimwear and sunscreen (a must for us fair-skinned folk), and headed to the pool, with a quick stop at the bar. Our room was perfect. It faced the jungle just like we requested!



And it had a great view!



Sunscreen, oh sunscreen. Since I HATE the smell and feeling of lotion-style sunscreen on my body, we decided to try the spray-on aerosol kind. We picked up a few cans before we left ($10 each- ouch!). I have two words considering this stuff: JUST DON’T! One can ran out after covering basically myself, my wife, and my wife again the next day. I also got a hideous sunburn because of it (photos are forthcoming). We found some lotion-style sunscreen that actually smelled nice (like oranges) that I was able to tolerate. $17.50 USD. Sweet!



But wait, we needed to figure out what we were going to do that evening. We had to figure out dinner, get our Playa Deal Cards, make reservations for the “a-la-carte” restaurants at the Quetzal, and oh yeah, relax a little bit. Here’s how the remainder of the day progressed:

We decided to spend a couple of hours at the beach:


My legs are sexy.


Ah, this is the life. Susan, did you get the name and number of the Re-Max realtor on that sign that we passed in Playacar?

The little girl in the pink to the right of the first beach photo was so cute with a British accent. After the beach, we returned to the room, showered, and then walked into town to fetch our Playa Deal Cards. On our way out, we made reservations for the 9:00 pm seating at the Restaurante Bonsai, the Japanese joint at the Quetzal. For Tuesday, we reserved La Hacienda (Mexican), and Thursday La Gondola (Italian). We then left the resort on foot, and walked the 30 minutes to downtown. Despite the heat and humidity, I love this walk.


The road to downtown.


Susan loves the royal Poinciana tree.

We finally found the Posada Freud after passing it a couple of times (I know I had written the location down properly), and decided that the most appropriate thing to do would be to test the card, you know, just to make sure that it wasn’t defective. Back at home I had printed out descriptions of all the restaurants and bars. Let’s see-hmmm…after little deliberation, we decided on the Beer Bucket. It seemed fitting to spend some time there since we had read so much about it on here, yet I hadn’t remembered seeing it last year.



What an awesome place. We met Tim (who lives here part-time and appears to be a regular-he gave us his card but it’s still in a suitcase) and Owner Ron whom we all know, and Ron’s dog Macy. Susan and I THOROUGHLY enjoyed our drinks, and are sorry that we didn’t make time to return (Playa is like Europe – week-long visits aren’t enough).





After offering parting words, we returned to the Quetzal to have a couple drinks and then to head to dinner. We went over to the Tucan side of the resort to see if Francisca, our favorite waitress from last year, was still around. We didn’t see her, but that’s ok, maybe she’s off tonight. We then walked the few steps over to the Bonsai. I had the camera, but didn’t manage to take any pictures (for which I’m now kicking myself). I had a few mojitos, and Susan had some red wine and mojitos. You could choose an appetizer, either soup or sushi. I don’t do sushi, so I had the soup, and then pick one, some, or all of the choices for your entrée: chicken, beef, shrimp, or octopus. We both chose all four. It was a beautiful restaurant, and we met a really cool guy from Spain named Gabriel. Susan and I know very little Spanish, and he knows very little English, yet we still managed to carry on a great conversation for about 90 minutes! Language is never a barrier in my mind! We had dessert, said goodbye to Gabriel and his party (this was their last night), and decided to go back to the Tucan lobby bar to check again for Francisca before we headed back to downtown.

We didn’t see her, but decided to stay for a couple (or three in Susan’s case) drinks anyway. Susan began to teach me songs that she learned in Spanish class in high school:



One was called “Mi Gallo” (about a rooster dying and not crowing anymore) and another called “Que Bonita Bandera” (which is actually about the Puerto Rican flag). Then suddenly, hark! We hear a familiar voice! It’s Francisca! She remembered us! We had brought photos of her from last year to give her incase we saw her.



We spent a while catching up with Francisca, meanwhile tossing back drinks with great exuberance! Susan had several martinis called “Alexandra” (brandy, crème de cacao, and cream), and I had several shots of Hornitos. Needless to say, both of us were good to go!

We told Francisca and company that we were going to go downtown for a bit. She was excited that we’d be there all week and that we’d have plenty of time to chat. I’m sorry to say that was the final good decision we made that evening. Prior to leaving, I think Susan and I both had another drink or two. We walked (stumbled) over to the taxi stand, and summoned a waiting cab.

As everyone is aware, all fun things must come to an end, especially when martinis and tequila are involved. I didn’t think I was too plastered, but Susan was. Something caused me to underestimate her plasteredness, and decided that it would still be okay to go back downtown. Definitely wasn’t the swaying while we were waiting for the cab that helped form my opinion (studies have shown that one is most sane and capable of abstract thought after having consumed tequila). In any case, we made it downtown and about 100 yards into the Plaza, Alexandra decided to climb the stairs and exit the building. Our night had come to a screeching halt. After about 15 minutes, we hailed another cab, and prayed that the topes or cobblestone road would cause her two twin sisters (Alexandra and Alexandra) to decide to take a hike too.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case, and we made it back to the room without further incident. It was about 11:30 pm. All in all a great day! Maybe tomorrow we’ll take it a bit easier. NAH!

[cuffedlinks]

Ha !

Wow - what a day!
Loving the report....the pics are great too....!

[nemcd]

Great report - I'm looking forward to more installments and pics!

[mastequilapf]

Originally Posted by NJ Bill T

You beat me to the punch Josef. I was going to ask where the pictures were. I'll be following this thread (now the heat is on) to see the IB Quetzal. We were at the IB Lindo in 2004 and loved it, and suffered the same quandry you did about where to go for this year. I always wanted to try one of the "off the beaten path" boutique hotels in Playa, but my conservative wife needs the security of an AI, and preferably one she's been to already. This year we are staying at the RIU Tequila. It will give us the chance to actually check out some of the places we read about online for the next vacation, but still offer her the security of the big resort AI concept. Best of both worlds I hope.

I don't think I would ever stay at a place that's not in Playa or Playacar, just because it would make it harder to see the smaller shops, bars, restaurants, etc.

My understanding (having never been to the Lindo) is that compared to the Lindo, the Quetzal is more open air and jungle-y. The only airconditioned parts of the Quetzal are your room, and two of the a-la-carte restaurants. All the other places, while not having AC, do offer shad and are equipped with numerous ceililng fans that are able to keep a good breeze going. We usually adjust to it by the end of the first day. It is rather refreshing.

I hope y'all enjoy the Tequlia this year. We spent some time with some folks this year who were staying there who said they loved it.

[Nerak936]

Great start! Loving the report and the pics are GREAT!! We loved the Quetzal (stayed there 3 times). It's a beautiful resort, and its proximity to Playa makes it all the better.