Fantasy Island

This past week we felt like we were on Fantasy Island. We did a lot of thinking about what we were going to do for our 15th Anniversary, which is actually next year, and decided now would be a good time to take that trip. Also October is an off month for most of the resorts in the Caribbean so it was a time to go with less people and it is less expensive (big incentive there). We also heard about this place from some friends who absolutely loved this all inclusive resort that they went to. Another factor to add into the equation is my parents usually come and visit in October and they were happy to come and watch the kids for a week. We totally appreciated them doing that. The kids had a great time with them.
On Saturday (October 23) of last week we started our trip by going down to the temple and doing a session and then we stayed at the Doubletree Inn because our flight was at 6 am. We woke up at 3 on Sunday and made it to the airport by 4 am to get all ready for our flight. We had a lay over in Arizona and then we were on our way. We landed in Cancun and made it through immigration and customs in pretty good time. The ride to the hotel was a little long because we were dropping people off and their hotels and resorts. Some of them looked like they were in the middle of nowhere. We were the last to be dropped off and the service people at the hotel took great care of us by lining up dinner and getting our bags to our rooms. They resort is called the Royal Hideaway in Playa Del Carmen. It was absolutely gorgeous. Justin kept saying, "I feel like I am on Fantasy Island". We were just in awe with the beauty around us (living in the desert does that to a person). Anyway we ate at fabulous restaurants, played in the ocean (which is way warmer than the beaches we usually go to, and cleaner), swam and floated in the pool, drank lots of pina coladas and margaritas (no alcohol, of course), went on a tour of the Mayan ruins, and relaxed. It was fantastic. We even had some rain, a major down pour on Sunday night and Monday morning, it was great! The only thing we didn't like was coming home and how long the day was. We almost missed our flight because of all the the people going through customs and immigration at the same time. Our luggage didn't make it back with us so we had to schedule for them to be sent to our house. We felt like we were on The Amazing Race running through the airport to make our flight. Crazy. It was a fantastic week and we would do it all again, but not for a few years.

These pictures are of the tour we took to Chichen Itza. It was interesting to see these structures that were built about 1,500 years ago. It was also interesting to here some of the Mayan history. We also went to a underground cave where you could swim and to an old city, but our camera battery had died so we didn't get any pictures.
These are pictures of the grounds at the resort and near by.

The beautiful Caribbean Ocean. It was great swimming and boogie boarding in warm ocean water rather than super cold ocean water.