2013 Mexico

For the second year in a row, a friend had a timeshare that was going to expire in November. This year, I was able to book it during my daughter’s fall break in early October.

Trip Planning

I looked at Southern Florida, hoping to get a cheap flight. We could go to Orlando again. The furthest south we could go was Fort Lauderdale, but the timeshares available weren’t very nice. I used Kayak Explore to see where we could go for a reasonable airfare.

During the summer of 2013, I had learned to scuba dive, and I wanted to dive on this trip.

After a lot of research, I found a very nice 2-bedroom resort centrally located between Cozumel and Cancun. I found a dive shop that would take us diving in Cancun, Cozumel, and in the cenotes on the mainland. I was talking to a friend about the trip and after some chatting and emails, she and her husband decided to go with us.

Day One: Travel

After a long wait, rushed scuba certifications for my daughter and friends, and last-minute gear purchases, vacation day had arrived. Kelly, Eric, and I drove to the airport together. We had booked the same flight out of Lexington and I planned to drive. Our flight was originally scheduled for 7:30, but had been updated three days before the flight to leave at 7:10. We had planned to leave the house at 6:00 but it took a while to load everything, so we didn’t get to the airport until about 6:30. I dropped Kelly, Eric, and our luggage at the terminal and went to quickly park.

When I got into the airport, the lines were atrocious. It was a pretty stressful way to start our vacation. The lines moved slow but we eventually made it through security – but not before Eric got a nice little pat-down. I suppose his 6-foot-plus massive military frame triggers a red flag.

Kelly and Eric got preferred seating, and were further up in the plane than me. Once we were all settled, the plane took off on time and arrived in Atlanta with no problems. We stopped at the food court and had breakfast. Kelly and Eric only had a 45-minute layover, so they hurried to their flight. Shortly after they left, Kendra’s flight arrived from Louisville and she met me in the food court so she could have breakfast.

Our flight to Cancun left about an hour after Kelly and Eric’s. We got on our plane and had an uneventful flight. When we arrived in Cancun, we didn’t have working phones, because we weren’t willing to pay the international rates. It felt pretty crippling, but Kelly and Eric found us easily.

We stepped outside the airport and found the station that I had been directed to. We did have to wade through hordes of salespeople trying to get us to take their taxi or buy a tour package. Our driver, Marisio, was waiting for us with a sign next to a white van. He grabbed our bags and loaded them into the back of the van, then drove us to the dive shop so that we could make our final arrangements, including signing all of the forms, getting rental gear, storing our own gear, and nailing down our dive plans.

Marisio drove us to the resort. We stayed at the Grand Mayan Resort in Riveria Maya. He dropped us at the lobby and we checked our luggage with the valets. We went inside to the beautiful open-air lobby to check in.

It took a long time to go through the line, and the beautiful open-air lobby meant no air conditioning whatsoever. Once we checked in, although it was 4:00, we were told that our room wouldn’t be ready until 5:00. The sent us over to the sales desk to get our packets. They tried to get us to book a free breakfast (salespitch). We told them we had diving plans every day. They tried to get us to book things through them. We declined. We were tired and hot and managed to get away pretty quickly. We found an outdoor bar with large fans and ordered some bottled water. I was hot, frustrated, and had a migraine. I checked with the desk regularly until we finally got delivered to our room with our luggage (for a tip, of course).

I had a fully-blown medicine-resistant migraine and went straight to bed, even though it was 5:00. While I rested, Kendra, Kelly, and Eric walked around the resort, looked at the beautiful pools, watched the sunset, and grabbed some sandwiches for dinner, since we didn’t have any groceries yet. I got up and nibbled a little when they came back, we talked about our plans for the next day, then we all went to bed.

Day Two: Diving in Cancun

We woke early and headed to the “Green Break” – a snack shack located on the entry drive where Marisio would pick us up. We got there when they opened, ordered a VERY expensive breakfast for four (787 pesos = $60 US), then were on our way in the van to Cancun.

We arrived at the dive shop a little early. Our dive was scheduled to start at 9:00, but didn’t get going until after 10:00. We were on Mexican time. We enjoyed the beautiful water, the warm sunshine, and the breeze from the boat ride. There were a few other divers along, including “Rick” AKA “Dickey”. More on him later…

The crew had our gear all ready for us, brought it to us and had us sit on the edge of the boat and fall backwards into the clear, aqua waters.

This was the first time that any of us had dived in the ocean. Kendra and I went to the bottom and started looking around – we were at a depth of around 45 ft. Eric seemed to have some trouble descending and gave up. Soon, Kelly came down to dive a 3-person team with Kendra and me. We dove around, having a great time until one of the crazier divers (Dickey) ran out of air and the Divemaster called the dive.

After we went to the surface, we found out that Eric couldn’t descend lower than about 10 feet, and had to surface to be sick. We drank some water and enjoyed a nice boat ride to our second dive site. Eric decided to stay aboard as we did our second dive.

*For the rest of this journal, I didn’t take any notes. The following format will be used:

Ride to the dive shop with Marisio
2-tank AM dive in Cancun
Lunch at the restaurant next to the dive shop
Stop at the liquor store and Wal-Mart for groceries
Back to the room to relax
Pirate Ship dinner

Day Three: Cenotes

Dive shop van picks us up at the resort
2-tank mid-day dive in Cenotes
Dive shop van drops us at the resort with Kendra’s gear (Our gear goes back to the shop)
Shower/change/catch a resort shuttle
Dinner/shopping time in Playa del Carmen