Sandos Playacar for 5

[gopherlips]

I am going to try and post a decent report for those that are more beach people than 5th people. I like to lay on the beach and cook with a drink in my hand and watch the water go by when I am on the family trip. We will go back without the kids and experience the "other side" of Playa.

After getting to bed at 1 on the night before/morning of leaving for Playa, I sleep for about 1.5 hrs before getting up to get everyone up and ready to go to the airport. Luckily, we are in a smaller city and the airport is easy to get in and out of. We arrived at the Knoxville airport at 4:30 am for a 6am flight. We were 10th in line for check in. about 2 minutes after we arrive there were about 100 people in line. Luck was on our side. Something I did not know about the Knoxville airport - It does not open until 5am. This is not good. I did not even get to have my customary 3 cups before leaving the house.. I need coffee. I need coffee very soon. I am use to flying out of Atlanta and this was a new experience for me. NO COFFEE until the airport is open.

So, we wait in line for all of the idots, I mean nice cutomers of Continental Airlines, in front of us to figure out how to check in for a flight . Just an FYI, everyone is an idiot before I get my coffee. We get up to the counter and are out of the line in less than one minute for all 5 of us. Off to the gate to look for some coffee. We make it to the security area and I am being profiled and profiling is wrong. I did not get to go through any gates the enire trip without being probed, but more on that later. 5:12 am - I have a $5 cup of nasty coffee, and I am happy






After we landed in Cancun we make it thru customs, where I was again "profiled" and get to the open area headed towards our ground transport. Who are these guys all dressed in white that attack you as you are trying to leave the airport? I was in no mood for them - lack of coffee, lack of sleep, and my 7 yr old son that talked for 5.5 hours of flight time. I am an experienced traveler and can usually be asleep before pulling away from the gate - not this time!!!!

Off to the resort. We arrive at the resort at about 1:30 and Check in – there was a lady that wanted us to go to a breakfast meeting to see the new resort accommodations and spend 90 minutes with them to get “preferential treatment”. I am a mortgage broker, so timeshare is not in my vocabulary. I suggested to her that if she would pay me $1,000 USD for my time, then I would be happy to go to her seminar. She did not bother us anymore. I saw some of the people that did the presentation at 11:45 the next day still listening to their 90 minute presentation (started at 9:00)!! Our room was not ready quite yet and they told us to eat lunch and come back at 2 to check in - no problem. Back at 2 and move to the room. Rooms were great for us. Piled the kids in one room and we used the other.

We were set to meet Susie and Rick to drop off the Mule items at 4, but we were late. We walked to the front of the resort and I told my wife - there they go - so we walk back to the entrance and find Rick in the courtyard. If you ever have a chance to meet them, they seem to be some of the nicest people I have met and are living the dream that most of us have, but don't have the guts to fulfill. After talking for a while it was off to the beach and beach bar and an early night - I was beat.

More tomorrow and maybe by then I can figure out how to make the pictures actually show up in my post. I took nearly 500 pictures and I tried Photobucket and I must just be a picture newbie because I can't seem to get it to work.

Now I have to finance something so that I can go back to Playa, and soon.

[Shammy]

Hey, I fixed your report to include the photos rather than the links to them. Use the [img] & [/img] tags (image) instead of the [url] tags (links) you were using!

[gopherlips]

Originally Posted by Shammy

Hey, I fixed your report to include the photos rather than the links to them. Use the [img] & [/img] tags (image) instead of the [url] tags (links) you were using!

Thanks, now I can post a bunch of pictures and not write, well, not all of the pictures

[cuffedlinks]

Originally Posted by gopherlips

Thanks, now I can post a bunch of pictures and not write, well, not all of the pictures

That is why we have that handy-dandy little PM function.......

[bedeaway]

Originally Posted by gopherlips

We were set to meet Susie and Rick to drop off the Mule items at 4, but we were late. We walked to the front of the resort and I told my wife - there they go - so we walk back to the entrance and find Rick in the courtyard. If you ever have a chance to meet them, they seem to be some of the nicest people I have met and are living the dream that most of us have, but don't have the guts to fulfill. After talking for a while it was off to the beach and beach bar and an early night - I was beat.
.

Great report so far!

I agree, they are so sweet! I got to meet them just a few short weeks ago (seems like a life time ago) and I'm so glad to have made new friends!

We stayed at the Sandos Playacar as well, I can't wait to see what you thought of it.

Carry on!

[gopherlips]

Time for Day 2. I am usually up at 5:30 every morning - not today Bullseye - 9:45 and I finally open one eye and no one else has moved at all last night. This is a very strange thing for me since my wife is always cold and usually "seeps" over to my side of the bed during the night and I usually have to push her back to her 3/4 of the bed. I get up and go to look for coffee and get something that is black and hot but makes me yearn for the airport coffee. What the hell is this stuff. I read sixkristy6's post and thought the coffee could not be that bad - I was wrong.

10:30 - the first signs of life

Now we can start moving towards the buffet and find out that breakfast is over. No matter, my kids can live on nachos and I can live on tequila. Off to the beach!!? Noooooooooooooo, my kids have to see the pool first. We have a pool at home, why do we travel 2000 miles so the kids can get in the pool???

I take the opportunity to get pictures of the main plaza area between the pool and the entry palapa

Fianlly we make it to the beach

and this is what I see heading south -

and this was looking back north

This is the area of the beach that we spent most of our time. Heading north was the Iberostar and the beach was packed like sardines. Not sure if it was the smaller beach, bigger hotel, or their pool was dirty, but it was packed. Pics later.

We hang out on the beach for a while and the water was completely flat. There are more waves at the lake where we live. It was BEAUTIFUL!!!

We then headed back to the buffet. The buffets were not bad. The Grand Festival had 4 times the diversity as the one closer to the beach so we spent most of our time there.
Mexico has become a very international destination and that was great with us. The only jerks we saw while we were there were, you guessed it, the Americans - specifically these 20 something guys from Ohio that continually annoyed the Animacion staff. Made me want to speak another language. We talked to them alot and dound out that they work 14 hours a day and get one day off a week. You tend to appreciate anything that they do after you learn how hard they work.

There were a group of Italian girls there that attached themselves to my son and he had to hide from them at time - but you know he loved it. This was Griffen's hard life

The rest of the day was spent recovering from the Sunday travel day and drinking heavily


Pretty early night - if you have kids you know what melt down is. By 8, we were experiencing it.

Tomorrow - our trip to 5th and topless babes on the beach

[gopherlips]

Forgot one thing

THANKS SHAMMY AND KRISTY AND SUSIE!!!
:c lap:

[sixkristy6]

Originally Posted by gopherlips

Forgot one thing

THANKS SHAMMY AND KRISTY AND SUSIE!!!
:c lap:

Am I the Kristy you are referring to?

[Susie Q Roo]

Awwww... you guys are so sweet! And I can't thank you enough for bringing my stuff down for me (and the pina colada!). What a nice family you all seem to be!

[gopherlips]

Originally Posted by sixkristy6

Am I the Kristy you are referring to?

Yes you are!! Your trip report and aswers to my questions really helped us at the resort. But I still can't figure out how they can make coffee so badly - that was the only real downer about the place.

SusieQ and Babaloo helped by giving us thelay of the land and giving us suggestions about where/what to visit and just a better idea of the culture.

Shammy fixed my post and everyone helped by letting me know hoe to do the pictures.

But I have so many pictures - you may be sorry for telling me how to do it.

[gopherlips]

Day 3 (Tuesday)
Not a lot to say about the day other than we simply hung out on the beach and enjoyed the Sunshine
topless babes on the beach as promised from the last post What were you thinking?

Of course I had to show off my gymnast daughters, and yes she is doing a handstand on a ball in the sand



The beach and the weather was absolutely incredible today




The cultural diversity of the resort was fantastic and it gave all of a chance to mingle - Griffen has never played soccer/futbol, but no one on the sand cared:

Just when we were getting ready to leave late in the afternoon for 5th, I caught Griffen messing with my girlfriend from the resort.


The animacion staff really is great at this resort!!
We catch a cab to 5th and were able to get 1, single, uno picture. Just after this picture was taken, Griffen dropped the camera and it was dead or at least in about 6 pieces)*^%()&^(&& - sorry, it was an expensive camera.

We did get to see and taste some of the great things 5th had to offer, but alas, we have no photo evidence of the trip - so I guess we will have to go back next year
No pictures of the Tequila Barrel, the Swing Bar, or anything else for that matter.
More later - I have to get some work done.

[2theC]

Great report so far!! More beach pics please!

[gopherlips]

Forgot - too much tequila - Tuesday was the day the kids did their artsy stuff at the resort. They have these ceramic? type things that you can paint and then the vendor takes the painted product and glazes and fires them so that you can take them home. You have to buy the piece and paint it yourself. It was a good distraction for the for a couple of hours. They can't stay in the sun all day, so this was a good thing. I watched from the pool for a little while and then went back to the beach to look at the walking by.

[Dijo]

and as long as the kids are happy, so is everyone else.

[sixkristy6]

Originally Posted by gopherlips

Yes you are!! Your trip report and aswers to my questions really helped us at the resort. But I still can't figure out how they can make coffee so badly - that was the only real downer about the place.

I think (for me) the coffee would have been okay had they had real milk not the powdered stuff (I like cream in my coffee).
The coffee we had at Java Joe's was amazing but I think they are originally from NYC? Or NY? I forgot what Mitch told us.