Cancun

Last year about this time of year we were lucky enough to be enjoying a free trip to Cancun, which was a reward from ConAgra for being on the Brand team of the Year.  At the time, I considered it a once-in-a-lifetime thing.  Kevin was quite confident it would never happen again.   Last year he was working on the Marie Callendar's team which won brand team of the year, and this year he is on Banquet.  Even though Banquet had done really well, Kevin assured me we had no chance of winning the award.  Well surprise surprise- Banquet did win so hooray, we were headed back to Cancun.  This time they put us in a different resort, the Royal which is an adults only, all-inclusive resort.  It was fabulous!  Here is your photo recap:

Here we are at the beach in front of the hotel

 

 The rooms were lovely.  When we checked in we got to chose our pillow from the pillow menu as well as the scent we wanted in our room, and what time of day we wanted our maid to come.  Kevin ordered every pillow on the menu so we had quite a few pillows.

Here is the view from our room.  We took this from our balcony.

This is a panoramic shot I took with my iphone to give you a better idea of the full view.

Here are our fellow travelmates- the Banquet team and their spouses.  (Kevin and I, Ben and Nikki Steve and Katrina, Jeff and Jenn, and Jennifer and Clay.)  We met up for dinner every night and had a great time visiting.

Here we are on the beach.  We did a bit of boogie boarding, which was fun but wouldve worked a lot better with flippers.  Kevin still had some success.  The top right picture is Kevin catching a pretty good wave. 

 

I had fun drawing in the sand and Kevin was a good sport for my cheesy pictures.

Beautiful Sky:

The Pool:

 

 This was our favorite spot- our beach bed with our chairs in front that overlooked the ocean and were not too far from the swim up bar.  Fortunately for Kevin, I was up early enough every morning to reserve our piece of prime pool real estate.

 The Swim-up bar

 Our favorite drinks were the mango tango and pina colada- virgin of course.  All the staff there were so fun and friendly and happy to help out however they could.  You never felt like you were bothering them. They didnt always understand what we were saying, (and vice versa) but at least they tried.

The pool area.  That man in the picture was the beachtler (like the beach butler).  He had sunscreen and books on his cart and he was particularly helpful to Kevin - cleaning his glasses for him multiple times a day.

 Our excursion:

We only left the resort twice- once to souvenir shop and once to do a "jungle tour."  We rode these two man speedboats through the lagoon out to a reef to snorkel and then rode back.  It was definitely lacking in what I would call "jungle" but it was an absolute blast driving the speedboats.  The snorkeling was fun too.  We went with Ben and Nikki who unfortunately both got a big cut up in the reef when we snorkelled but otherwise it was a successful trip.  We felt like those speedboats were quite an adventure and we are glad we did it.  The picture above is from the website because we didnt take our camera with us so its all we've got.

The Food:

We did a lot of eating and took very full advantage of the "all-inclusive."  As opposed to our last Cancun experience, the food here was actually quite good.

The breakfast buffet was a definite highlight.  When the waiter didn't have the juice Kevin asked for he took a plate of whatever fruits Kevin wanted and made him fresh juices.  It was awesome.

Random Pictures:

Top Left picture- outside one of the restaurants

Top Right- my favorite of the maids towel creations

Bottom middle- Kevin playing ping pong.  They had a 24 hour game lounge where we played many games of ping pong, pool and giant jenga and ate many nachos with apple beer.

Bottom Right- the Coffee House was one of our favorite stops.  They had the best milkshakes- coconut strawberry with whip cream and chocolate sauce on top- pretty much changed my life!

Top Left: Kevin at the asian restaurant, enjoying the music. That little old man got really into his instrument.  It was quite entertaining.

Top Right:  The Lobby at night.  There were no doors.  It was an open air building.  Pretty neat.  You just cant do that in Omaha.

Bottom- There was shows nightly in the lobby but we only were awake late enough for one of them.  We were on the "early to bed, early to rise" schedule.

And before we knew it, our trip was over.  We had a great time and got some very much needed Rest and Relaxation.  Farewell Cancun...