The Honeymooners

Senor!!  Seeeennnnooorrr!!!!!

A man in the Mexico airport yells at Mike and I as we dart from his grips.  The Time Share people.  I've heard of you and we're not getting sucked in.  Yet.

7hours of sleep in 2 days as newlyweds - we arrive at the Secrets Capri Rivera Cancun happy to finally be here.  As we drive up it looks like a 5star paradise.  Just what the Doctor ordered, I thought.  Exactly what we need!

Our first few hours in paradise were spent exploring the resort, resting, eating and freshening up to finally pass out at 8pm.  Our room was beautiful.  Marble floors, shower to die for, separate tub, king sized bed, tv, dvd, internet.  All the amenities of home and I assume that's why the staff say "Welcome Home" (throughout the 1st day of your stay).

Each morning we woke up at 6:00am, got ourselves ready for a workout which I would like to call Hot CrossFit as we were working out in 28degree temps.  I know, there was a furnace stat.  We, along with a couple other brave sorts, were usually the only ones in the gym at that time.  This made it great for us so we could rig up the cybrex equipment to suit our needs.  Makeshift racks and pull up bars - if anything you could give us an "A" for effort.

The food at the Secrets Capri was amazing.  The sweetest salsa and creamiest guacamole this side of tulum, beef was incredible, fresh fresh fruit, freshly squeezed orange juice, juicy fish, assortment of cheeses.  We did not go hungry.  Thank Gosh for the early morning workouts - I'm sure I gained 5lbs as it is (hate to see if I did nothing all week).  The resort has 4 'a la carte' restaurants - italian, japanese, steak, pub food.  No reservations needed which was a bonus.  Each of them we'd walk in and in 30mins we were walking back to our room - speedy service and always topped off with "It's a pleasure Mrs. Chaloner" (pronounced itsa pleashure).

We decided to indulge in their award winning spa on day 3.  Well, I'm not sure if it has actually won any awards but it should.  When we arrived the concierge gave us $200 in coupons for spa services so we thought we'd use them up.  Massages, hydrotherapy, seaweed wraps, manicure and waxing - I started to feel guilty from all of the pampering.  The spa was amazing - relaxation was key and the staff would constantly encourage you to 'have a seat in the relaxation chaise's' or seats or bench.  It was soooo worth the $ and time.  I would come back to go to the spa everyday.  I'm over the guilt.

Upon our checkin Javier (a concierge assistant) explained to us that we could go and tour the Secrets Maroma (new secrets resort) and receive a $100 spa coupon and 3 days, 2 nights free to return to the Capri for our time.  As a Grand Opening Special - per se.  Mike and I, hearing 'spa' politely agreed to go and so we made our tour time on our spa day (the next day).  Javier gave us this sad story that if we did not show up for the tour, he'd have to pay the taxi fare out of his paycheck so we made sure we were there.  As soon as we arrived at Maroma we were whisked away to a private room where a woman explained at the end of the 'tour' we would receive our coupons.  10 mins into our visit - I knew something was fishy.  This was not a tour - it was a sales meeting for a 'vacation club' membership!  Our tour guide/sleasy mexican sales rep - ate lunch with us, walked us around the resort explaining how this could be our 'love nest', showed us the suites that we could stay in, fed us every line in the book and for the small, pocket change price of $129,900 to join the club.  I was pissed by this point (3hours later) and Mike decided to play their game and give the man a sob story that we were going through expensive medical treatments (may have even saw his eyes well up - good one Mike!) and that we couldn't possibly afford an extra $2000.00 a month.  The sales guys accepts that and calls over his manager.  This is a heads up to other travelers in case you are roped into something like this, the price goes down drastically!  The manager takes approx $30,000 off the price, adds 2 weeks all inclusive trips for us and vacation credits to entice us.  Of course, our answer is NO again.  Thinking we were in the clear another manager comes over and tries to sell us another package for $111.00 a month.  Again NO.  This manager FINALLY asks us - "Senor, what could we offer you that you'd accept?"  Mike scratches out the $111.00/month and puts $48.00 total.  He laughs and says "we couldn't possibly!"  That's when they got rid of us.  We were back at our hotel coupons in hand, pissed off and chuckling at the same time 20mins after that.

We decided to book some excursions as we had received gifts from our wedding guests through our honeymoon registry.  We had looked around our hotel for our travel rep (couldn't find one) so we decided to go with the first available tour booker we saw.  A friendly senorita we'll call her Brenda (actually I believe that's her name...) booked us 2 awesome excursions and sent us on our way.  Our first included a trip to the Mayan ruins - COBA, rappelling, ziplining, hiking, canoeing, lunch and swimming in a cenote.  All were out of my comfort zone.  I made it 1/2 way to the top of the COBA ruin, panic hit and I had to go down on my bum to the bottom (did I mention this is the tallest ruin?!?).  Ziplining was scary as we were over crocodile infested water.  As we were getting hooked on to the line our tour guide "Cristina" asked us our names, age, where we worked...I was thinking she was getting our personal information in case of an accident.  Maybe slightly dramatic but still!  Swimming in the cenotes was "excellent" - it was a dark cave filled with bats and fish (in the water), cold fresh water and I floated happily on the inner tube.  Not brave enough to actually swim in the water....  We rappelled into the Cenote and of course, fearless Mike, volunteered us to go first.  Thanks Hubby.  Your new wife is scared sh**less...  A touch of rope burn later, I made it down.  A cute Mexican dude was at the end of the rope saying "relax senorita, this is beautiful".  Yes senor it is...  Our final activity was canoeing.  Note to self:  IF I want to stay married DO NOT canoe with my hubby.  We don't have rhythm, he gets pissed at me for my lack of 'effort', I get pissed at him for his lack of direction and so on... 11 hours later, we made it back to the hotel in 1 piece.  We were pleased with the amount you get to do for the price.  Gotta love organized tours!

Our second excursion was the "Royal Swim" with the Dolphins at Dolphin Discovery.  This was more expensive but since we were lucky enough to get some thoughtful gifts on our registry - we decided to go for it!  What an amazing experience it was - 1 hour swimming with a mother, daughter dolphin, snorkeling with sharks and stingrays, hugging manatees and feeding them lettuce.  We were thrilled with the amount we could do with this tour.  They also have a empire of taking pictures and selling them to you for an obscene prize.  We bought a CD.  We figured - this experience may not happen again.

We had 2 good days of suntanning.  Thankfully my new hubby is on 'sun control' and would remind me when to flip, lather up, and get into the shade.  I did well to not burn too much - except for the patch work art I have on my arms and back - last time I'll apply my own sunscreen.   I read a whole book while on this vacation and onto my second.  It's been YEARS since I've read and think I should do it more often.  Very relaxing and time passes soo quickly.  Maybe too quick.

To be continued.....  Spa time, again.