01-04-2009
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#1 (permalink) |
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beachaholic
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 306
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Sunshinejk's Iberostar Quetzal/Tucan Trip Report
Well, I am finally getting to my trip report. I did start about a week or so ago, had Day 1 all typed in, and then when I hit submit, it blanked out on me. So...hopefully I have a better shot at it this time.
I named the title my Quetzal/Tucan trip report, but we stayed on the Quetzal side. I know when I did searches for this resort, I had a hard time finding any, and when I read them, I like it when others put the name of the resort in their title. So, since this is basically the same resort, just two different sides, I am putting both names in the trip report. Anywho....Day 1...Travel Day...December 13, 2008 After a good night's nap, Korey and I woke up at 2 a.m. so we could depart for our 6:15 a.m. flight our of Minneapolis, MN. Since neither of us did ANY early packing, we stayed up until 12:30 a.m. (me) and 1:30 a.m. (Korey) to get everything in order. The kids were snuggled in their beds with Grandma Jean as we packed and tried to clear the cyclone of a mess in our house. WE left our WI home at 2:35 a.m. for the hour and a half treck to Minneapolis. We were going to try and dodge airport food, and stopped at the 24-hour drive through in the Hudson, WI's McDonald's, only to find the guy working was clueless, and they were also out of breakfast burritos. So we left the drive through foodless and hungry. On to Minneapolis we go. Check-in was smooth and we had 1/2 hour to kill before the 5:30 a.m. boarding time, so we grabbed breakfast at the terminal restaurant. My sausage Panini and Breakfast potatoes was REALLY good, and so was Korey's breakfast burrito and potatoes. With a full tummy we went to await boarding. The flight into Cancun was smooth, other than the screaming baby the entire 3 hours. I was slightly annoyed, as I was looking forward to getting AWAY from the screaming kids and wasn't happy my trip was starting out this way. However, as a mom, I understood that the poor baby probably had the weird airplane thing going with her ears. Korey managed a bit of a nap, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't sleep for the 3+ hour flight even though I was living on less than 2 hours of sleep. As we prepare to land, there are a lot of clouds as we get closer to Cancun. Hopefully it is sunny when we get to Playacar. We land, and it is cloudy, and stays cloudy all day. But it is a WARM cloudy, so I am happy. We get our baggage and get a green light in customs. We are off to a great start. We head out to find our shuttle to the hotel, totally ignoring the excursion and time share hasslers. We find our Lomas rep, get in line for the van and within 15 minutes we are on our way to the Iberostar Quetzal. We shared a van with a party of 7 and we all had the same destination, so no stops. YES!! Here is Korey in the Van on the way to the hotel:  We arrive at the Iberostar Quetzal and are awe struck. It isn't fancy schmancy like the Grand Sunset Princess was last year. It is....but it isn't....The Iberostar has a more relaxed, homey feel to it with the thatched roofs and the jungley atmoshpere. The gardens are amazing and you feel like you really are in the jungle. The resort is decorated for the holidays with tons of lights and ornaments and a HUGE Christmas tree in the lobby. Check-in is a breeze. We are greeted with a drink as we check in and it was very good. We filled out our paperwork as I entered my hubby's info, I marked him off as female. OOPS  . I guess that's what happens with less than 2 hours of sleep. Anyway...we got there about 11:30, so our room wasn't ready yet. So we got our bracelets and went to find the buffet. We are totally in awe as we walk along the stone paths in the "jungle". We saw those rat-looking things (acouti's??) everywhere, peacocks, swans, chickens, roosters, turtles, parrots, Tucans...but no monkeys...yet.     We found the buffet and they had a small selection. But for lunch, I liked that. And really, all I wanted were the home-made chips, pico de gallo, and guacamole. It was fabulous. About 2:00, we went to check if our room was ready, and it was. We went to room 2732, which was on the second floor.     After we get to our room, we change into our swimsuits and head down to the beach. I am going to stop here, to make sure I am doing this photobucket thing right.....Day one will be continued. Last edited by sunshinejk; 01-04-2009 at 01:55 PM.. |
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01-04-2009
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#2 (permalink) |
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Just a Random Moderator
  Join Date: May 2003
Location: Q Roo
Posts: 14,068
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You'll need to select the link that starts with "[IMG]" - do you want some help with the post you've already got up there?
EDIT: I fixed the first one for you if you want to go in and see how it looks on editing. |
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01-04-2009
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#3 (permalink) |
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beachaholic
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 306
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The first pass, I used the HTML code, then when I went to edit it, I tried the IMG code, and it still doesn't work. I don't know why I can never remember how to do it. I will take all the help I can get. Somehow, Korey's picture is in there, by the animals, but I don't know how it got there.
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01-04-2009
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#7 (permalink) | |
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beachaholic
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 306
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Quote:
Geesh, I hope that is even making sense. Anyway, I think I got it now....I just gotta go on more vacations, so I remember how to do this!! LOL. Last edited by sunshinejk; 01-04-2009 at 02:06 PM.. |
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01-04-2009
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#9 (permalink) |
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aņejo
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Connecticut
Posts: 3,322
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Beautiful pics! But I have to ask...what is this? It looks like one of those big moths.
We enjoyed our stay there a few years ago. It was right after Hurricane Emily hit and the jungle was pretty much gone. You could see the water from outsde the buffet area!! |
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01-04-2009
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#10 (permalink) |
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beachaholic
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 306
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Day One, Continued...
I have to say, I loved the location of our room. We were closer to the lobby than the beach, but that is OK. We were building #27 and our room was on the second of three levels. We were also right on the end, so we only had neighbors on one side of us, which we NEVER heard. (we never heard the ones above or below us, either).
Here is the view off our balcony and to the right. We had a wonderful view of a pond that was graced by pink flamingoes every day.  Looking straight out...if you can see where the palm leave bends, there was a HUGE spider web in there. The maid cleaned it out on day two, but it came back a few days later. It had a gigantic spider in the middle. I don't think you can see it in the photo, though.  This is the view off the left of our balcony. You can see the building next to us, and the path that takes us to the center of the resort, and to the lobby/buffet areas.  Here is the Quetzal buffet. The buffets are surrounded by ponds filled with Koi and fountains. If you look in the "window" you can see the huge Christmas decorations that lit up the scene at night. I thought the resort was beautifully decorated for the holidays.  Since our room was ready early, we changed into our swimsuits and went to walk the beach. Lo and Behold...as we are walking the path from our room to the beach, we hear some rustling in the trees above. We look up and I am in awe, as we see MONEKYS!!!   You can only see a monkey tail in this one. It is wrapped around the tree trunk:  Mama was jumping from one tree to the next with her baby on her back.   The beach was AWESOME!! There were some sand whales, but that didn't bother us at all. Everyone that climbed them seemed to have a blast on them. I didn't climb them, though. We walked the beach for about an hour. Here are some pics: Me on the beach. Korey is a terrible photographer. He could at least warn me when he is going to take a picture....  To the South of our resort....  As we were walking, something jumped right in front of us, about 3 feet in the air. It scared the crap out of us and I screamed like a 6 year old little girl. We saw that it was this sand crab that Korey almost stepped on it.  I made Korey climb this dead tree and pose for a picture:  We were getting phyically tired of walking the beach, so we head back to the resort. It was about time to make reservations for the a-la carte restaurants, so we make our way to the lobby and stand in line. There were not many in front of us, but it took FOREVER for the woman in front of us to make her reservations. She was with a huge group, then would make the reservations, someone would come up to her in line, and she would change them. The receptionist would have to call the restaurant. We finally got our turn and it only takes us 5 minutes!  We were only allowed to book 3, so we booked the Hacienda (Sunday), Bonsai (tuesday) and the Steakhouse (Wednesday).We decide to go and get a drink to go and went to the room to have our luggage delivered and to get our playing cards. As we are in our room, I went to take more pictures off our balcony and I hear the trees rustling again and the monkeys have come for a visit.... There were a LOT of monkeys jumping around in the little jungle area off our balcony, but the ones we got the best pictures of were a mommy and her baby:       We enjoyed the monkeys for a while, then brought our cards to the bar area for a game or two of Hand and Foot. We did end up moving to the lobby, as the tables were not big enough for our game. That is one of the only disappointments of the resort. The tables (other than dining tables) were all small and not very card friendly. When we tired of cards, we decided to head back to the room and ditch them. By this time, it was dark and with all of the lights around the hotel, it was just beautiful. On our way to our room, we espied a shopping set-up by the locals. After the pit-stop in our room, we browsed for some souvineers for the kids. We found a satchel that our 7-year old would love. It reminded us of Indiana Jones, which is one of Quin's favorite movies. The salesman asked 500 pesos. We are terrible with the exchange rate, and kept thinking last years 10 to 1 USD, so we were thinking $50 US, which at the time of our vacation, 500 pesos was about $38 US. Then the man switched to US dollars and asked 45, no...then he went to 40....no...then he went to 35 US. I was OK with 35 US, but hubby walked away. We went to the buffet for dinner. It was awesome. I have to say, the buffets are really good here. I started to develop a headache, though, so we ate quickly and headed back to the room. On the way we stopped back and did get the satchel for Quin. $20 US, plus 150 pesos. I think that came to about $32 US...so, not down that much from the original 500 pesos. Oh well, it really is a nice leather satchel, and I think we got our money's worth. We headed back to the room and were fast asleep by 9 p.m. Hopefully the migrane is gone by morning.... 
Last edited by sunshinejk; 01-04-2009 at 03:04 PM.. |
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01-04-2009
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#11 (permalink) | |
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beachaholic
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 306
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