Riviera Maya
I know this rare post will shock you. What can I say, once I go dark, its hard to get the words flowing again. Let’s see how this goes.
We spent Labor Day weekend in the Riviera Maya area of Mexico. This area is about 30 miles outside of Cancun. The occasion for the trip was the celebration of our 1st Wedding Anniversary.
Our accommodations for the four nights were at the Iberostar Paraiso Beach which we booked through Funjet. We highly recommend it if you have the means. 
Our trip began bright and early on a Saturday morning — well, more early and less bright. I think we had a 4am wake-up time in order to catch our flight. We had no complications in the travel process and were actually at the resort by mid-morning.
One way to tell you are in Mexico is to observe the many ways the natives try to get your cash. We saw this immediately in the airport as we were asked if we were in the Funjet group and then channel to an information desk. Unfortunately, they weren’t looking to get us to our bus, there were just trying to book additional events and they were not affiliated with Funject.
In the confusion, our bags were commandeered by a uniformed Funjet person and taken about 50 yards involving one left turn — $2. Then at the hotel, we noticed that we were not put in a king-sized bedroom. An ocean-view room with a king-sized bed was made available to us for a mere $100 — but the transaction had to be in cash…wink, wink.
But alas, that transaction was actually key to our enjoyment of the rest of the trip and worth every dollar that went home with the concierge. We were in close proximity to both the beach and the pool and could see the beach from our window. Awesome!
We found the resort to be uncrowded due to it being off-season. Note to self and to my dear readers: off-season is the only way to go to Mexico. We had ample room at the pools and the beach and we received an extra dinner night at the specialty restaurants. And it was just plain nice not to have to avoid people.
We mostly enjoyed the pools during the day. Oh yes, the swim up bars were nice too. Then at night, it became a familiar pattern to go out to the beach and pull the chairs out just short of the water’s edge. Once there, we drank a beer, listened to the waves crash in, and celebrated past, present, and future moments of our marriage.
The restaurants were adequate, but not superb. I think after 5 days we just got tired of the same offerings at every meal. The specialty restautrants definitely met expectations — the Japanese restaurant was probably enjoyed the most.
As you can see from the picture, we made friends while there. We met a few folks from the Grapevine area and also met a honeymooning couple from Vancouver. The Toucan and I were fast friends — just fast enough to take the picture and have him be scooped off my shoulder before anything bad happened!
It wasn’t Kauai, but it wasn’t too bad either. The price was great and the travel logistics were even better. We plan to do this again sometime when we’re jonesing for the beach, but have only a few days to play.