We just returned from a delightful week away to Playa del Carmen, Mexico. I have traveled to this part of Mexico for years and feel that I know it well. I’ve always enjoyed the relatively quick flight (3.5 hours out of O’hare International), and I only travel over one time zone. It’s inexpensive compared to many other international destinations, and it has a beach with unlimited sun, drinks, and food. While I have stayed in small boutique hotels in the middle of the city, I have to admit I enjoy the resorts’ all-inclusive worry-free atmosphere. This time, we elected to return to an old standby on the northern edge of the city.
Our resort is called The Paradisus Reserve, and it caters to providing an adult-only getaway within the larger resort, which allows for children of all ages. We had several pools and a secluded beachfront to ourselves but could still gain access to the rest of the resort’s family-friendly portions. The 35% capacity at our resort only amplified our seclusion due to COVID, which made it feel like we had the place to ourselves, especially while on the beach or pool. It was truly perfect for us and fulfilled our overwhelming desires to get away from it all and focus on nothing more than relaxation.
We both read several books while there. Natalie even took my Kindle and downloaded additional reading material for herself during our stay. She liked my Kindle so much that I was relegated to reading off my phone or iPad and told that I would need to buy another Kindle for future trips. My books were the typical adventure/action/mystery genres, and hers were romance novels. We certainly have a different taste in reading!
We tried our best to cut ourselves off from the rest of the world, choosing not to connect to any cellular service and forgoing any calls or texts from the “real” world while we were away, and it worked for the most part! Natalie even shut off her work email account, so she wouldn’t get sucked back into the stressful situations that can often accompany them.
Dinners were entertaining, not because of any specifically enjoyable venue, but because we were mixed in with the families with young children due to COVID causing shutdowns of several premier restaurants. We always seemed to enjoy watching the kids do whatever kids do, thankful they weren’t ours at the time. We are reasonably sure that the resort as a whole had more children than adults.
We planned to take the ferry over to Cozumel one day. Unfortunately, we realized that the ferry only operated every other day due to reduced passenger volumes. We decided to skip the trip this time around and enjoyed walking around Playa del Carmen for the afternoon instead. We thought of doing some offsite excursions but finally decided against them because of the virus’s imposed limitations. In the end, we were both more than happy with the extra time we had just lounging around at the resort, reading books, swimming, drinking, and watching people.
Watching people is especially fun for me, and I brought along my 70-200mm zoom lens to shoot some candid pictures of people from the vantage point of my lounge chair on the beach. Without trying to be too much of a “creeper,” I was able to get some very nice shots. As you know, I love photography, and any opportunity I can get to shoot a few pictures is very satisfying to me.
The only stressful time was for us happened near the end of our stay when we mistakenly arrived for our COVID tests on Friday instead of the planned Thursday. Currently, the USA requires all inbound international travelers to have a negative test within three days of arrival. Having already endured the infection and vaccinations, we felt there was little chance of us testing positive on this trip. Our biggest concern was ensuring that we got our result back in time for our departure on the following morning. Thankfully, the lab could fit us in on Friday, and we got our negative results 4 hours later.
Our flight home was uneventful and we were greeted with snow and ice. We could have stayed a few days longer, but are looking forward to the next trip away soon. Until then…..
