So, Tonnie has been such a sweet woman to our family and such a good friend for many years. So, Dad (yes, Dad) thought that it would be fun for us to take them to Mexico on a nice Cancun vacation. I agreed, and it was decided that we would take Sam, Tonnie, Sara and Tyler. Sam took Cameron and Kohl to Hawaii a few years ago. Sara has never even been on a plane.
So, we had purchased the one week trial vacation at that very beautiful place in Cancun. Well, of course we don’t book too far in advance due to Dad’s job, thus they said that they had a wonderful property in Cozumel (an island right off of Cancun) that we could have a 3 bed-room there instead. That is what dad decided to do. I went on-line and looked at the property, you know Photoshop eh? And it looked beautiful, but didn’t seem to have a beach. So, I called my contact and he did a 3-way conference call and we spoke with a guy "Louis" that swore they had a real, roll in the waves, build sand castles beach. My contact, Jose, heard this and said that if we got there and weren’t happy with it, he would personally see to moving us back across to the beautiful (4 pool, all new, granite gourmet kitchen) place in Cancun. That made me happy and I thought all would be well. We would have an employee at the airport to pick us up and take us to the Ferry to go across to the property.
So… Tonnie has a flying phobia that she was determined to have in check so that her family could have this experience. Dad receives a call and says that he has to speak in Mexico City on Monday (we’re flying in at 9:30 pm on Sunday) and so he won’t be there for an additional day. Also, Paul had gone with dad to spend time with him. They left 2 days after the family reunion here in SL.
We get on the plane and Tonnie, is upset but, she was quiet, no one could tell, she’s not going to make a spectacle of herself, but was so scared that we all felt sorry for her. I had Delta let Sara sit in the cockpit and announce over the PA a welcome to Sara on her very first flight. She was cute and just kept saying how much fun it was. She wants to go sky diving now. Oops!
We arrive in Cancun, finally find our guy and we have the snorkel bag, plus a bag of food. See with this full sized kitchen we figured we could save a thousand dollars on food, by cooking for ourselves like in Park City or Hawaii. And Sara has some food allergies. So that was the plan.
The guy takes us to the Ferry place and points down a brick/cobblestone road and says the "Ferry is that way and leaves in 12 minutes," and we still have to buy tickets with pesos (no American money or credit cards accepted. Luckily we had exchanged about $180). Tonnie says she feels like we’re missing a bag and Sam goes to look and the guy, says no he has them all and slams the door so Sam can’t look. Okay, so we’re dragging all of these bags (no cart or help) plus the snorkel bag is a monster. And we finally get the tickets get to the ferry and check the bags, okay, we ARE missing a bag. MY carry-on bag with my camera, iPhone charger, movies, jammies etc…. I’ve got that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that it really is missing and I’m praying that it’s really just been checked and will be on the ferry (like they thought it was someone else’s and gave them the claim ticket or something crazy like that), even though I have that horrible feeling and don’t actually expect it to be there, but I’m really hoping. Nope we get there and the bag is gone, in Mexico. Was it left at the ferry ticket counter? Did someone just grab it in the ferry line? Can’t figure it out but it makes me pretty sad.
I just prayed for comfort that I would somehow feel okay about losing an expensive bag, 3 of dad’s favorite movies and be able to replace my camera charger. I knew that praying for it’s return would be wrong and what I really needed was just some peace in that it’s really just stuff.
We then have to pay for an unexpected cab ride to the property and we check in. okay so this place is like 20 years older than the one we purchased at. Then we get to the room. You know the 3 bedroom we bought with the full sized kitchen, 2 balconies each with its own hot tub? Nope an old 2 burner stove and 10 inches of granite between it and the little bar type sink for a toaster and coffee pot. NO room, certainly not a full sized kitchen and no way Tonnie and I can cook for 8 people in that. I had brought some spaghetti and sauce for that evening as I knew we wouldn’t have time to hit up a store like the Sam’s club in Cancun that we usually do. (this place doesn’t even have a store close to a smiths, let alone a Sam’s club). All dishes are under the sink, there is no hot water and just no way to do this.
We take a little walk and no beach. There is a wall against the sea and steps down into it. NO BEACH! No sandy beach. The Louise guy completely lied on my conference call. They have sand for some chairs to sit on and about 12 cabanas, a volleyball area, a very small pool and well, that’s it.
So, I decide that I’m not happy and will call Jose and get moved back to Cancun like he said he’d do. AND!!!! The last ferry is at 10 so dad can’t make it or change his flight so he’s hosed and we won’t see him until Wednesday now. Thus, by moving back to the Puerto Moreleos property he can just come to where we are from the airport Tuesday night. No trying to find accommodations for one night and no 35 minute ferry ride.
So nothing we can do but spend the night. We do the dishes and decide to take hot showers and go to bed. Toilet is clogged in Tonnie’s room. Guy comes up and fixes it. oh and no hot water. They shut it off at 11 and turn it back on at 4 am. ??? seriously?
Fine, we go to bed. 7:50 am there is this pounding right on the wall. It’s outside, they’re hammering off the stucco so that they can re-stucco, but it’s on the wall outside my room! I call downstairs and get the on-site manager named Dedrie and she says that she’ll talk to Jose and they’ll move us to Cancun. She hears the hammering. She will call me in an hour. Okay so hammering is going on. Tonnie and Sam are laughing so hard they’re crying because this is in my room right by my head. I was laying in the bed with the covers up to my nose, you know the heat and humidity so swamp cooler on full blast kind of damp and cold, but it’s too hot to turn off. I’m stewing over the fact that my bag is stolen, my one method of communication with Dad is cut off as my iPhone (only phone that will work) is now dead and the charger is in the bag and I can’t talk to him. I’m thinking that this is NOTHING like what we purchased or paid for. The relentless hammering and I’m staring at the wall trying not to be sick over the bag, just praying that I will be able to move on and accept that it is stolen and just get come comfort and peace in that fact. I did get a text off to dad explaining a few things. So, the lady calls me to say that she’s not been able to reach Jose, but she will call me when she can and she can hear the banging. So, we come downstairs to talk to her and she says that she’s aware that their facility is nothing like the one we looked at, but she is working on moving us to Cancun (good because then dad won’t have to spend the night there and then catch a morning ferry, he’ll just be with us and they have kitchens) Until that is done she gives us wrist bands to give us all the food and drinks we want for the day and to enjoy the day there. Okay, hour later, they can’t move us, they are at full capacity. She offers to discount the food and drink passes about 25%, offers to have dad and Paul picked up at the airport taken to the Cancun facility stay in the showroom then taken to the ferry in the morning. I am supposed to talk to Matthew and decide what he wants to do about that. So, I find a guest with an iPhone charger and she lets me borrow it. They move us to their penthouse, it’s still old, but 2 stories, 3 huge bedrooms and full kitchen, 2 beautiful balconies overlooking the ocean. We spent the day there and it was peaceful, no screaming children, the pool had 3 people in it. I’m reading, this is the planets 2nd best most healthy reef just under the great barrier. Hmmm. So we go snorkeling, I taught Tonnie and Sara how, Tyler learned when we took him to Hawaii. More fish there than in Hawaii. No lie! It was amazing and the water looked like it was about a foot deep the night before, it’s more like 6-8 right off the dock, it’s so clean and clear.
So, I’m supposed to talk to her in the morning and let her know what we’ve decided. Well since the other place doesn’t have any rooms and I don’t know where to move to, because she say’s if we really want to leave we had the free night and day there and then they’ll credit back all of it and we can come at another time to the other property. So, I make the decision that since we have a good discounted deal on food and drinks (all you can drink eat etc. for a discounted rate) that it’s a pretty good deal, we couldn’t cook for that. Then with the fact that she’ll have dad taken care of and delivered to us the next day and he won’t have to pay for his own accommodations. We decide to do that, since I had a charged battery now. So that is decided and I’m supposed to talk to her in the am with this decision. Okay so morning comes, I go to talk to her and ‘she’s in meetings" come back in 20 minutes. I do and she’s still in meetings. Right…. Well then Jose calls and he has MADE them boot someone and we will have our room in Cancun. However dad is in horrible meetings now on Tuesday (got extended) and I can’t talk to him to see if he wants to change the plan back!!!! Arugh! So, I decide that the snorkeling is so amazing and it’s like we have the place to ourselves. No hurry for a cabana and since it’s not busy the pool isn’t an issue. It’s an island and no public beach, secluded, little crime and it feels safe. I have also mentioned that I think the driver kept my bag.
So, finally they come to the pool to get me Dedrie is on the phone and I say that they’ve kept telling me she’s in meetings and we haven’t eaten or anything because I still hadn’t talked to her and now they have a room but I can’t talk to Matthew until that evening (Monday). She’s now upset because they were supposed to call her on her cell phone due to the urgency of our situation. So I think the staff was told to be nice to us. Other people would ask for stuff and they would tell them no. I ask and it was okay Mrs. Hanson.
Later I find out dad has been e-mailing and demanding that they take care of his wife and family he’s such a Man!
So, we decide to start paying for the food at noon the next day right when Dad and Paul should arrive. They do pick him up at the airport but when he arrives no one knows about his room. He yells and they have a room. But they are showing the lockout room as they are showering in the main one. Too funny. Ok, urgent message. The "pajama bag" has been found! This guy named Thomas will give it to Matthew in the morning before they take him and Paul to the shuttle. So, Paul goes to get the bag ~ no one has a clue. Matthew sends him back and finally after Paul learns not to take no for an answer, they find it. yay. So Dad and Paul finally arrive that afternoon around 1:30. So, Paul isn’t feeling well. But goes to the pool and we buy our arm bands and there we go. (an expense that we didn’t count on by the way), but there you go. If we had moved to the other one the food is a mandatory cost but I can’t figure out why because they are the ones with the good kitchens. Go figure. Okay and it wouldn’t have been discounted.
Dad has my bag and everything is in it. I guess Dedrie called it a pajama bag so that it would more likely be returned and they searched the guys van ~ hmmm dunno what to think about that. But never the less it was found. I was really bugged about it as it has a little journal in it too. What a "miracle if you will".
So, dad has to work and finally gets to the pool after we have a nice lunch. Then we swim a bit and have dinner. Paul ate about ½ of a burger and a few fries. Dad has major trouble getting the internet to work in the lobby as it’s not available in the rooms. So, Paul can’t get out of bed in the morning. Fever of 102.7 and it’s not going down with Advil and Tylenol. We decide to buy some antibiotics for the stomach that are available at the little drug store next door. Imodium, Pedilyte, Gatorade and water … nothing is helping. So whole day in bed hoping that hydration will help and these new antibiotics. Next morning, nothing has changed. My mind is going to the Cozumel hospital and hoping that doesn’t happen so Dedrie calls a doctor in and he is pretty direct. She said he doesn’t have a good bedside manner, but he’s a good doctor and takes care of most of the diving accidents and has a hyperbaric chamber. So, he gets me on the phone and is very direct that of course nothing I am doing is working because I’m only treating the symptoms not the cause and oh, with this strong of a bug only a cold shower for 30 minutes (timed) will work and not 25 if he’s complaining, he will complain because it will be cold, but 30 timed minutes. AND he’d better have that shower over by the time he arrives at 10:30. Okay then. So, dad gets him in the shower, poor kid was so hot and just sleeping and his back was hurting badly (that’s the fever mam). The fever is now down, because of the shower mam and he gives him 3 prescriptions. So, this is SO NICE Dedrie sends her husband to get the medicine. Paul begins that about noon. He is feeling better by that evening, but not good enough to get in the pool as the doctor told him to.
The doctor needs paid, in cash. Did I mention I don't use cash? Never have, I buy soda's with a credit card. I have always used a credit card or a room key for everything, NEVER cash. Well, I used every peso I had. Smartly the Ashley's brought peso's, we used all of theirs too for the doctor and medicine. I don't even have a pin for the atm. Another lesson I had to learn. Ashley's however, had a pin. Kindly they used their vacation budget on OUR medicine! The main point of this whole excursion was for us to have some wonderful guests, fun people to chat with, our children have fun. I was hoping that they had fun while with the exception of the last day and 1/2 after Paul started to feel better, I didn't. I think I was too focused on being hostess, making people happy and comfortable and to top it off, this place being what I had thought and said it was. I needed the extra 5 day's for MY vacation :) it would have been fun to stay.
In the meantime. Ashley’s are having fun. Tonnie is talking to everyone on the beach and making friends, (she's really good at that), Tyler is sad that Paul isn’t able to be with him, but he’s playing nicely with George. Sam is wandering around the property, snorkeling now and then, but seems to be enjoying. Sara gets her hair braided with beads on the ends. I got to swim and snorkel with dad for a bit and then he was back to work. Tonnie and Sam got some calls from home, but then things began to get worked out there. Tonnie took about a thousand pictures. That was Thursday. Friday Paul was feeling well enough in the afternoon to come down and play a bit of volley ball. A girl seemed to like him. We went snorkeling and the current pulled in a school of little jelly fish. We all received stings (Sara and I got one each the day before), but dad was being amazing. He was trying not to get pulled by the current under the rope and keep George from being pulled and then he was batting Jellies out of the way so they wouldn’t sting George, but he still received 3 small ones. Dad got about 16 and one huge one on the back of his leg and silly man touched fire coral with his leg. I got 7, only one was really painful for hours and welted up badly. Dad’s was huge and Sam got a nice one on his stomach. Tyler had some and Sara had a few small ones too.
Dad and Paul dived down seriously about 15 feet to touch an anchor it was part of some wreckage that is now reef. We saw star fish, sea urchins, anemones, hundreds of different kinds of fish. Sponges, sting ray, sea horses, corals, conch shell snails it was amazing and beautiful. Quite the little gem and turns out a nice little secret. The building is old and the accommodations are lacking a bit. We had the penthouse and it was really nice but I think some of the others are a bit lacking. Who cares?! You have a private beach area (no shore breaks) but amazing easily accessible reef. We have decided to return. It was so stressful for me on many levels, missing my husband, worrying over a very sick boy, worrying that our guests were not having the time of their lives. I was so worried that they weren’t happy with food; worried over my lost bag, sad that my nice husband who provided all of this was still working away in an un-air-conditioned lobby still working away to keep our family fed and a roof over our heads.
Now, keep in mind, the view from the balconies was spectacular. There were over-the-top sunrises and sunsets. The largest cruise vessel pulled up Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas, it was enormous and quite beautiful for a man-made thing. The sun was hot, the pool cool, the staff nice, the food pretty good, the people were all really fun, it was safe and comfortable and then I can’t even begin to describe the beauty, variety and wonder of this reef. It was in the truest sense of the word utterly amazing. We will return. I will be more careful with bags, and be more prepared for the events maybe carry a little bit of cash. But, I will take the children that didn’t get to go there and I know my two youngest son’s will want to return as well.
Tonnie did much better coming home, if we keep her in the air she might get this conquered. However, did I mention hubby has a problem now too? He has to have his air on full blast, eyes shut etc., so developing a phobia after years of flying is kind of weird.
Think I’ll make this a blog post as well as a Journal Entry.
