Cancun, Mexico is not the sort of place we vacation. I mean, we don’t really vacation. We travel. We have adventures. We dive deep into local culture. We don’t sit on the beach or by the pool sipping umbrella drinks all day until it’s time to change into evening clothes and go out.
And yet…
We booked a ten-day trip to the Catalonia all-inclusive resort in Puerto Adventuras, a hotel-laden tourist town on the Mexican Riviera south of Cancun not far from Playa Del Carmen. We did this mostly because my husband Pierre just had ankle surgery and I was still recovering from some weird illness, so neither of us were moving too fast. I also had some airline tickets to use after I had to cancel a trip to Cancun for an organized retreat. With both parents sort of out of commission and our family really needing an escape (it was late January, before the pandemic hit), we did the unthinkable: we looked at beachfront, all-inclusive resorts in Cancun.
It wasn’t until the taxi van ride from Cancun airport to our resort—with warm breezes blowing through the window and my sense of adventure stirring—that I realized how ungrateful I was being. Oh, boo-hoo, we have to go to an all-inclusive resort and swim in warm ocean waters on white sand beaches and maybe do a little snorkeling and drink fruity drinks and eat at one of eight restaurants and attend their nightly theater acts. I mean, really, there are people who save up their whole lives to have a vacation like this. And others who will never get the chance.
I also laughed at myself when I realized I did our packing all wrong. I packed as if our kids were still young (like when we traveled around the world) with their small kiddie roller bags and miniature daypacks, and us with largish backpacks plus day packs. This is totally appropriate for a lengthy trip to Southeast Asia or some other rugged place, but not for a resort destination. It’s embarrassing! Our 14-year-old was contorting his body to reach the handle of his roller bag, although his younger sister didn’t mind. Seriously, a couple of carry-on roller bags would have done the trick. And I’m supposed to be a travel expert! Where had my travel sense gone?
At Catalonia Hotel
Arriving at Catalonia Hotel, the staff greeted us with drinks, attached our wrist bands, and sent us off. The room itself was fairly basic, but we didn’t mind because we didn’t plan to spend much time there. It had a balcony, comfortable beds, a TV, air-conditioning, and great water pressure, so that’s what counted. Note to the ladies: they had plenty of soap and shampoo, but no hair conditioner, so bring your own.
The sprawling grounds were stunning. They have two large pool areas (one that was more for families like us), two buffet restaurants serving all three meals, six restaurants for dinner, a number of bars and snack bars, including a Creperie and a sports bar.
They also had nonstop music and activities in one of the pools plus a place where you could check out snorkeling gear, and for an added fee, do some scuba diving or ride a sailboat or sign up for various local tours. They also had a theater where they put on shows, such as the Lion King and Aladdin, and had live music at night. Ping-pong tables and pool volleyball are also available, and they have bikes to check out, although I may have been the only person to do this.
Know that you need to make reservations in advance for the a-la-carte restaurants, but we didn’t have trouble eating where we wanted as long as we reserved a few days in advance. Our favorite was Ayami, the Japanese restaurant where the food was excellent as well as the cooking show. The sports bar was also a great place for the kids before dinner because they could freely play air hockey, ping pong, and pool.
Daily Resort Life
I have to say, we adjusted to resort life quickly. Generally, we got up, donned flip-flops and headed to one of two buffet restaurants for the most amazing spread of breakfast food I have seen, both Mexican and European/American. Being the healthy eater in the family, I loved their large assortment of fresh fruit and vegetable juices, and they even had gluten-free bread. The fresh coffee is rich and flavorful, but know the decaf is freeze-dried.
Then we would change to bathing suits. Pierre and our daughter Lily would head to the quieter pool next to the Creperie and park themselves on a couple of chairs. Lily would spend the day in the unheated pool and Pierre would read, then leave his crutches to crawl into the pool for a swim. Our son Julien would mostly stay in the room and play video games (we let that slide, as there were not many other teens here), and I would swim in the ocean, read, do my thing.
People we chatted with seemed to mostly come from the U.S., Canada, and France, and the staff spoke those languages plus Spanish, of course.
At lunch we’d all meet and head to one of the buffet restaurants, then back to the pool or beach. And finally, we would take showers, change into our evening clothes and go out to dinner, sometimes followed by a night at the show or listening to live music.
And then repeat.
Scuba Diving
Every morning, the staff gave free scuba diving demos in the pool. Both our kids did this, and Julien decided to get PADI certified while we were there. I was so thrilled that he took an interest in something other than video games that I happily took out our credit card for his lessons and accompanied him on his first ocean dive. Although it wasn’t like diving in north Bali or the Caribbean, still, there were plenty of colorful fish and corral, and best of all, our son discovered something he loves. I was a proud mama.
Venturing out to the Mexican Riviera
There is plenty to do on the Mexican Riviera in case you want to leave your resort. This part of the Yucatan is known for its unique, often swimmable cenotes (underwater, limestone caves or sinkholes) and you can see turtles at nearby Akumal beach. For kids of all ages, there are adventure parks like Xplor or Xcaret that can include swimming with dolphins and zip-lining. There is also plenty of shopping in Playa del Carmen, Cancun, and Tulum.
We didn’t do any of that, although we did leave the resort twice. Once to walk to the tourist shops around the town’s marina—and they had beautiful Mexican textiles and crafts—and a second time to visit the Mayan ruins in Tulum.
To visit the ruins, we just walked to the main highway and caught a Colectivo. Colectivos are air-conditioned vans that run up and down the highway between Cancun and Tulum every 10 minutes or so and are cheap, costing us only 30 pesos ($1.25) each to get to Tulum. You can learn more here.
I knew what to expect and still I was surprised. The last time I had been to Cancun and Tulum was about 20 years ago. Then, there was a long road between the two towns, and now it’s a thick, multi-lane highway. Then, the landscape nearing Tulum was relatively bare. Now, there are mega resorts and huge adventure parks. Then, we could walk right up to the ruins in Tulum. Now, you have to walk down a long road filled with tourist shops and a Senior Frogs just to get to the ruins, and then you wait in a long line and follow a particular path to get onto the grounds.
It’s all good, though. The ruins were lovely, but all the walking in the hot sun proved too much for all of us. We hadn’t brought our beach gear to take advantage of the beautiful private beach there, but you should if you go! We stopped at a sidewalk bar for fresh coconut milk and headed back to our resort.
For many the Mexican Riviera offers an entertaining vacation for families, with plenty to see and do. We returned happy, and thought we might even go back and explore, travel style.
This blog post is copyrighted (c) 2020 by Cindy Bailey Giauque and is an original publication of www.mylittlevagabonds.com. Please join us on Twitter and Facebook. Happy travels!