05-16-2008
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#48 (permalink) | |
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beachaholic
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Ohio
Posts: 434
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05-16-2008
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#49 (permalink) |
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life=playa
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Colorado
Posts: 775
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I miss Carlos!
 Today is the day we meet with some internet friends (my husband thinks that I make internet friends is really strange, but he’s a good sport and plays along. He’s liked everyone we’ve met too). May 4, Day 5 – Every night I wake up for awhile around 4 am. It’s a little weird.  But with each passing day I seem to get better at falling back to sleep. There were several mornings that I woke up pretty early and thought, I should go take a picture of the sunrise, like all those other peeps do. Never happened.  We had breakfast a Bella Vista. This morning I had a mimosa. I had planned to have one every day and kind of forgot. I’ve got some catching up to do. You know, it is nothing short of amazing how much we can drink at sea level. Very little buzz (and trust me, I was trying) and no hangovers. Bella Vista has an omelet station where I would just ask for a single scrambled egg. They also had all kinds of fancy pre-made egg dishes, including something with quail eggs, which are so tiny, you'd have to eat ten to notice. They had bacon and sausage and all kinds of fancy sausage. They had lovely fresh fruit and finally the mango made an appearance.  There was junky cereal and healthy cereal  . There were the fresh donuts Zung loved so much. There were all kinds of breads and pastries. There were pancakes, waffles (I liked the waffles with maple syrup) and they would make French toast for you, but it always seems a bit soggy for me. There were about eight kinds of fresh juices. There was yogurt and bottled smoothies. There were cheeses and cold meats. There were crackers and biscuits and bars. One day at the pool I saw a pile of those bars, like 6 of them, on someone’s towel. You’d think there was a food shortage with hoarding like that. There is definitely no food shortage at the Grand.Let’s see if I can remember what we did today…oh, yea! We went to the beach. As we walked to the towel hut I was trying to remember how to say towels in Spanish. I kept thinking it was “tawaddes”. She seemed pleased that I tried. (She may have just gotten a good laugh for the day too). The wonderful Carlos came by with water and a tray of drinks. I took a Miami Vice. I told him he was my best friend. The weather was amazing. It was warm, but not blistering hot and the humidity was the lowest it has ever been. The other times we’ve been to Playa were late May through August and I was surprised how much of a difference coming 3 weeks earlier seemed to make.  I Love Playa!  I'm having so much fun!  Uh Oh!  It got me good.  Zung loves Playa too.  What a bod. He put those guys half his age to shame. He excercises all the time because he likes it. I hate that about him.    Twenty nine years and counting. For lunch today we went back to our room to order room service. Last year we had gotten this fabulous shrimp and avocado salad that I had been dreaming about all year. The maid was cleaning our room, so we went to meet with the Apple rep to get our airport transportation time moved. They had us down as being picked up at 11 am, but our plane didn’t leave until 5. They had us down for a different flight, so he changed it to 1:20. Still on the early side, but we could deal. We saw a butler and I asked him to come show me how my ipod worked on the docking station. It was something simple, just something needed to be plugged in that wasn’t. I asked him where our ice bucket was and he said he had taken it to fill it. His name was Rodolpho. We made rum and cokes without ice, because it took awhile for him to bring it back filled. We ordered the aforementioned shrimp and avocado salad, some lobster soup and a club sandwich. The shrimp and avocado salad was just as good as I remember, but the soup, which was packed with lobster, was awful. Way too salty to eat. What is it that they do to their lobster to make it so damn salty? After lunch we went back to the beach. This was the day that a group of about eight European single men showed up. Ugh! They were loud and really changed the ambience of the peaceful beach. When it suddenly got quiet I looked up and they were eating. I know an insurance group came in, so they may have been with that. I kind of can’t imagine a bunch of single guys deciding to go to the Grand for a guys vacation. I may be stereotyping though. We went to the main pool today so I could float around. Way too much activity for me. There was football throwing and basketball and it was too much. We stayed for about an hour and that was the last time we went to the main pool. We dressed for dinner and then went to the lobby bar. I had a Kir Royale and Zung had his first Margarita of the trip.  We were supposed to meet newlyweds, Amy and Kevin, there at 6:30. She said she had very long hair and they had lots of tattoos. I told her we were an Asian guy and a white chick who looks much younger than him. She came up to me, which is a good thing, because she had pinned up her hair and they were dressed so you couldn’t see much of their tattoos. They were a really nice and cute couple. They live in Colorado also. The guys made fun of us girls obsession with the forums and boards about Playa and how much we are on them. We had dinner ressies at 7, so we told them we planned to come back to the Lobby Bar after dinner. Dinner was at the Gourmet, Latelier.  They start you off with a chef prepared appy. Then I had the Lobster Salad with Asparagus. I can’t remember what Zung had. I think I had the lamb, and I can’t remember what Zung had. (I’m a terrible food reporter). For dessert I had the Canelon (Canelloni), which was scrumptious. Zung had the Chocolate Sweets.    After dinner we went for a walk around the pool. It is really pretty at night, all lit up.  Then we went back to the Lobby Bar.  Amy and Kevin showed up and we chatted a bit more. We thought about going to the theatre show, but never made it. Sometimes we are such old farts, it’s a shame. But I’m sure we did something today that justified how tired we felt at only 11pm.  And tomorrow was another busy day. 
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 Family Vacation to the Lindo |
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05-17-2008
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#50 (permalink) | |
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beachaholic
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Frozentundra, MinneSnowta
Posts: 372
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Thanks for the TR - looking fwd 2 more! |
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05-17-2008
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#59 (permalink) | |
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añejo
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Jersey
Posts: 1,659
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Not only are A & Z gorgeous - the WHOLE FAMILY is! |
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05-17-2008
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#60 (permalink) |
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toe in water
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 54
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Thanks for the awesome trip report! It brings back such great memories of my stay at the Grand last December.
I am trying to decide if I should go back to the Grand this December, or try Secrets Maroma (if it opens on time and is fully up and running). Hard decision. I also thought about Valentin Maya, but I am afraid I will be disappointed in that resort after staying at the Grand. I know the Grand is top notch... Decisions...Decisions....I can tell from your report you loved the grand as much the 2nd time around, so maybe I should just do it again! Thanks for the great pics and report! Kim |
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