Cancun, Part 3

August 28, Wednesday

Emily woke up this morning at 9:15 AM and I woke up about an hour later. We kept hearing some really loud noises upstairs like furniture was being moved. I thought it could've been on the balcony but there's no balcony above us and nothing was going on next to us so it must've been upstairs. I eventually called the front desk to tell them about it and it stopped eventually. We got up and got ready for the day so we could go hang out on the beach. Unfortunately, around 11 AM the power went out. It was really frustrating for Emily because she needed to dry her hair. So did I but my hair wasn't bad. She ended up just using my round brush and going out on the balcony and that worked for her just fine. We think the power came back on around 1 PM based on what the clock said when we got back later. We left to get food at around noon. We tried the Isla Convoy restaurant because I knew they had seafood but they didn't have shrimp tacos and nothing looked good to me so we went to different restaurant called Nah K'aax. The seating for that restaurant is on the beach so that was perfect. We first looked at the menu for the bar but he told us that the one downstairs had a different menu so we tried that one because we wanted to sit on the beach. 

No one was there when we went down there and they gave us the choice of any table. Shortly after we sat down and ordered, a big family of seven people sat at the table next to us. At first, I thought we might be OK but then they let their kids start playing games and watching videos so I asked the waiter if we could switch tables and he said it was fine so we did. We ended up sitting over by a nice little sitting area which was the cabana they tried to sell me when I rejected the pool beds. There were a lot of seating areas that we could've sat on for free so that was nice to know. Anyway, we loved eating on the beach. Emily had shrimp tacos and I had a beef quesadilla with French fries, which I gave to Emily. She got a brownie and I got a tiny cheesecake for dessert. 

When we were done eating, we found some loungers next to where we had lunch. Emily had fun playing in the water. I said it looks like she had fun frolicking and she said she definitely did. 

I laid on the chair and relaxed. 

Eventually, it started raining so I gathered all of our things. I needed a bathroom break anyway and Emily wanted to wash off the sand so we went to the bathrooms and she got cleaned up. By the time we came out, it had stopped raining. We moved to a new location that was down farther and under one of those little huts that I love. Emily still had a little bit of sand so she decided to go to the pool for a little while and then she went back into the ocean a little bit later. I had fun relaxing but there was an annoying guy to us who was playing loud Greek music on his phone. I was tempted multiple times to ask him to use headphones but I decided not to. Emily came and sat with me and we ordered Coke Zero for her and a water for me and ice cream for both of us. By about 4 PM, Emily decided she wanted to go back to the room. I stayed for another hour and read my book. Before I went up to the room, I walked up and down the beach a little bit and took a bunch of pictures from the water. 

As I walked back to the lobby, I thought it would be fun to take a picture of Emily on the balcony so I sent her a text and she went out there and I got some pictures and video. 

I grabbed some treats for us and went upstairs. Emily had already showered and then I took a shower and got dressed for dinner. Our dinner reservation was for 6 PM but it was my fault that we ran a few minutes late but it was fine. The restaurant was beautiful! It was the Steakhouse Havanna. Emily got the sliced salmon as an appetizer and she didn't like it at all. I got the crabcake and it was tiny but pretty good. For the main course, I had the 13-ounce ribeye. It was really good but it was a really thin steak and it had a lot of fat. I got the garlic mashed potatoes as my side and they were amazing. Oh, they also had brought us some bread and some cauliflower purée which was delicious. Emily got the baby back ribs for her entrée but they were boneless and it came with corn on the cob and French fries. We had fun sitting and talking. Emily got a couple Coke Zeros and I asked for a virgin strawberry daiquiri which was absolutely delicious. For dessert, I got the macarons and there were four of them but they were tiny. Emily got the caramel fudge brownie and it came with a little scoop of ice cream and some caramel corn pieces and she enjoyed that. 

After dinner, we did some exploring. I got a little cookie from the café. We went outside to see what was going on. There was a Latin party going on. I'm glad they were still able to do it because it had started raining when we were getting ready for dinner. We went back inside and I wanted to check out the gift shop. They had some cute magnets but I thought it would be nice if I got one from some of the vendors outside. I knew it was a risk that they would pressure me into buying something but it worked out OK. We also stepped at the spa to check that out but everything there cost money and nothing is included. We went back to the room and relaxed for a little while. We watched part of the movie Life of the Party with Melissa McCarthy. It's funny but also not that great so we didn't finish it. We decided to go back downstairs to karaoke. There was also another band playing in the lobby but this time it was a violinist. We had fun at karaoke. There was a group of kids who did song after song for a very long time. I think we sat there listening to them for about an hour. I told Emily she should add us to the list but there were already seven before us. I told her she could choose anything she wanted but if she wanted my opinion I'd like to do 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton. That's what we ended up doing. We had so much fun! Emily says one of the moms was singing along with us. Those kids started leaving finally. We were laughing because it seemed like it should be their bedtime because it was around 10:30 PM. Emily signed us up to do Taylor Swift a little bit later and we sang You Belong with Me and by then it was 11 PM so we left. We went upstairs and read scriptures and watched TV. Emily doesn't feel well and her tummy hurts and my throat is starting to get scratchy so I hope we're OK in the morning.

 

August 29, Thursday

Emily and I decided we should get up this morning at 10 AM so that's what we did. I don't know what time it was, but there were children screaming in the hallway and echoing and it was loud and that was very annoying. I can definitely see the appeal of an adult-only all-inclusive and that's probably what I'll choose next time. We spent the next two hours getting ready for the day and getting all packed up and we left our room right before noon. 

I was so excited to go to the Vina Del Mar restaurant to have our buffet lunch. We turned in our keys and told them we were just going to eat lunch and then leave and they watched our suitcases for us and told us we needed to come back to have them cut off our wristbands and get our luggage. We walked over to the restaurant only to find out it doesn't open until 1 PM, which is the time that our ride was coming to pick us up. There was nothing to be done so we had to go to the Isla Contoy for lunch. It was confusing because they had a buffet set up and I asked the lady at the hostess station if we could have the buffet and she said that's only for salads but we could order from the menu and they said it would take 20 to 30 minutes and it was already almost 12:20 PM by the time we ordered so we took a chance and ordered appetizers. We asked if we could have food from the buffet and he said we could. They had some great protein choices and we filled plates and even found the children's station that had cheese pizza and French fries and had some of that. By the time we finished our food, they brought our appetizers. My fish tacos were absolutely delicious. The breading was really delicate and it was so tasty and tender. Emily had a shrimp kebab that she was happy with. 

We stopped at the bathroom and I got one last thing of banana split gelato from the café and we went to have them cut off our bands and get our bags. At first it seemed like they didn't know where our bags were but thankfully, they found they were in a back room being watched so that was good. It was a few minutes before 1 PM and we didn't see our ride so we sat and waited. She got there a few minutes after 1 PM and we got loaded in her Toyota minivan and said goodbye to the resort. It was a quick drive to the airport. The lady’s driving scared me a bit because she was going 60 km/h and you could barely fit a car between her and the next person, but thankfully we arrived safely. We quickly got through security so that was nice. We didn't know what gate we were at yet because they hadn't published it yet so we just found a gate with some empty chairs and hung out there for a while. I think we sat there for about an hour. When it was getting close to 3 PM, I told Emily we should head to our gate. We went to the bathroom and stopped at the convenience store and by the time we got to our gate they were already loading everybody. As we walked up, they were calling groups six, seven, eight, and nine. Well, I've learned my lesson with American Airlines. I need to stop assuming that I have time because I don't. Then they fussed about the size of our suitcases and we had to take some things out of the front pockets so it would fit in their little example holder thing. They offered to check our bags and I said no and we pulled some things out and got it small enough that it was acceptable. We shoved our things in our backpacks and got on the plane. There were people in our seats. Emily was ahead of me and she asked them to move and they did. Anyway, the flight was fine and I got a bunch of phone chores done and even got to read some of my book so that was nice. I told Emily that our customs guy looks like Glen Powell. It was so nice to have Michael pick us up at the airport. We picked up Chick-fil-A on the way home and got some for Jonny, too. Daniel was having dinner with friends and going to the gym. We ate our food and I started downloading the pictures from our cenotes tour. We watched an episode of The 1% Club and then we got ready for bed.

It was a wonderful trip, but it's nice to be home.