A week ago we returned from that vacation I dearly felt I deserved!
Of course the timing seems to have been bad; I’m not sure if the recent
sequesters had an effect on the messes we encountered or if that’s just the way
it is these days for air travel! UGH! Over the past week we have spent well
over 6 hours standing in lines…with a 3 year old...which let me tell you was so
much fun we can’t wait to do it again! NOT!!!!
Memorable moment: Old lady eased her way all the way through
the line until she reached the front. Like myself, I believe everyone thought
she was meeting up with her husband…which never happened!
We arrived at DFW with plenty of time to sit down and have a
hot breakfast, given we had more than 1 ½ hours until our next flight departed.
At this point Bryce was bouncing off of the walls with excitement and could not
wait to get to Cozumel. He just couldn’t understand why we had to take two
airplanes. Though, he did pretty good playing on his Leappad while we sat at
our gate waiting to board the plane. Of course after we sat in our seats he
started kicking the seat in front of him and wouldn’t keep his seatbelt on.
Fortunately we got that under control and he fell asleep while we were taxiing
to take off…so essentially he became a perfect traveler on that flight. ; )
We arrived in Cozumel to the familiar blue waters and palm
trees for it to take us TWO hours to get through customs and immigration! For
the first time ever, in my TEN trips there, I got the RED light…which meant
additional time while they hand searched our luggage! Of course they found
nothing of interest besides Bryce’s watering can in his sand toys,
which for some reason they found to be funny. At that point it felt never
ending…
But we finally made it to the hotel. Immediately the front
desk handed over a bag of sand toys for Bryce to use during our stay…of course
it would have been nice to know they would do this so I wouldn’t have packed
some for him (and got laughed at by the guys at the airport, LOL!). Either way,
we were given a room on the bottom floor with easy access to the pool. This was
another first for us. All other trips I had booked an ocean view room and were
given a room on an upper floor with awesome views where most evenings I sat on
the balcony to watch the sunset; but this time I felt the gap between the
balcony railings was just too risky for my little monkey so I sacrificed the
amazing views and settled for a garden view with a partial ocean view.
For our first evening we had dinner at New Especias.
Especias (before the new) was our favorite restaurant on the island, but it
recently underwent an owner change and is now an Italian restaurant
(ristorante). The food was good, but I definitely missed the menu for the prior
Especias…I really liked the chimichurri sauce…and the crab surami fingers…and
the bacon wrapped shrimp…and the margaritas! Oh this was a bad idea to rehash
all those yummy things…
We returned back to the hotel in time to watch the Belly
Dancing/Black Light Show, which wasn’t too bad. It did get a little repetitive
and boring after about 30 minutes, but we definitely enjoyed it in the
beginning. Some of the comments I heard from my guys during this show were:
“I think Victoria is my favorite Mexican woman!” Nic in
reference to the belly dancer herself!
The next day was a lazy day of playing the sand, swimming in
the pool, and a round of mini golf…which of course Bryce won! Our routine for
after mini golf quickly became sitting at the nearest beach bar and having a
cold drink while we rested. I think this was also the day where 3 or 4 drinks
were spilled by our sweet little boy…I packed just about everything I could
imagine, but apparently a sippy cup wasn’t one of those imagined things!
Memorable moment: One day during our post mini-golf “rest” a
guy came up to the bar wearing a Speedo. Again I heard the curiosity when Bryce
started to ask “Mommy?” I knew what was coming and tried to interrupt Bryce or
distract him long enough for the guy to walk away. Again he started “Mommy…”
and I knew I couldn’t stop the words from coming out of his mouth, “where are
his pants?” At that point I couldn’t help but look at Nic and just laugh. Where
we are from you don’t see men wearing Speedos. We all know kids are so great at
saying and asking honest things, so I guess it’s just part of the territory.
Saturday we had a taxi take us to a few of our favorite
spots along the Eastside of the island. After a stop for refreshments in town,
we made our way to Mezcalito’s. Bryce wanted to sit/lay in the hammocks and
swung on some swings on the beach.
From there we went to the all famous Coconuts, where we had
lunch. Once again Nic’s fire department badge was still there, though it was
obvious it had been there a few years…I’m thinking maybe 7, I’d have to go back
and look to be sure!
Next stop was Chen Rio beach where Bryce could play in some
calm ocean water. This is a spot that is typically very popular with the
locals, and although it wasn’t packed like it would have been if it were a
Sunday, there were still several local families. As soon as we got in the
water, one little girl brought her large dolphin inflatable over to share with
Bryce, which I thought was so kind. Of course Bryce was still a little unsure
of the ocean and didn’t want to play with it.
After a stop at the supermarket, where we bought Bryce a “snorkel” mask,
we returned to our hotel to rest before getting back in the pool.
This evening we finally caught a sunset.
Later that evening the hotel had an outdoor Mexican buffet
and show, and we felt we couldn’t go wrong with the buffet considering Mexican
food should be what they know best! We were right, anything and everything was on this buffet: tamales, taquitos, tacos, empanadas, fajitas, etc. It was really good!
The shows quickly got underway and the next thing I knew one of the staff were carrying Bryce up to the stage.
So I snuck up there to snap some photos and the next thing I know I'm up there on the stage with him!
We quickly found out we were participating in a hat game that is played similar to musical chairs, but in this game you put the hat on, spin around and hand it to the next person. Whoever has the hat when the music stops is eliminated. As luck would have it, I was the first one eliminated but Bryce continued playing.
It wasn't long before Bryce was eliminated, but since he was the smallest one up there on stage they offered to give him another shot but he quickly told them "NO" he wasn't interested.
He was such a good sport about the entire thing! I'm still surprised he even went up there without me to begin with!
Random memorable moment from this day: As I mentioned before we had a ground floor room and our patio was probably 10-15 feet from the stage and the area where some tables were set up for the buffet. After Bryce was washed and out of the shower, I was finishing up my shower enjoying a few minutes to myself. So my husband decided he would interupt my few minutes of peace and got in the shower while I was still in there. I immediately asked what Bryce was doing because he could easily open either door to the room and get out. Nic wasn't worried about him and said he was fine, so I hurried up and got out to find my child was buck naked between the glass door and the curtain where everyone eating could see him!
The next morning we woke up, had breakfast and decided to walk south along the beach towards the former Sol Cabanas del Caribe, which was destroyed by Hurricane Wilma. After 7 1/2 years they've finally began removing the destroyed hotel. On our way back Bryce did a little seashell searching.
We had dinner in town this evening and Bryce found a horse while Daddy was grabbing a rare Bud Light at Fat Tuesdays.
For our last full day we relaxed at the hotel along with hitting up the tennis courts. Bryce remembered playing last year and bugged us most of the week about playing tennis.
On the day of our departure our flight didn't leave until 1:35pm, so we spent a little time by walking out to the pier and fed the fish.
Loaded in the plane and headed to Dallas! Of course all I could get out of Bryce was a funny face.
During our flight to Dallas they informed us that we would be late arriving since we couldn't take a direct flight path due to weather. I immediately knew this wasn't good since we only had a 1 1/2 hour connection to begin with and we needed every minute we could get to get through customs, immigration, re-check our luggage, and go back through security.
We ended up landing 30 minutes late and as soon as we got off the plane we loaded Bryce up in his stroller and started hustling to immigration. As soon as we made it and we saw the line...our hearts sank...there was no way we were going to make our connection and be home by 7pm...
We were unable to see the end of the line and it seemed to go on and on and on. When we finally got to the end of the line I knew we were going miss our 6pm flight to Tulsa. While we were in line I went ahead and called the airline to reschedule us to another flight; fortunately they had already rescheduled us on the next flight to depart at 7:35pm...but given the line we were in that was going to be tight.
It took us over an hour to get through immigration. All along I thought customs would be a breeze, but BOY was I mistaken when we went to get our luggage. The line wrapped around several of the luggage carousals and took us another 45 minutes to get through this line.
We finally made it through and rechecked our luggage. Security probably took another 15-20 minutes and we made it to the gate for our flight about 15 minutes before takeoff! Geez! Talk about stressful!
We landed in Tulsa around 8:30pm...and headed home with only two of our three bags...apparently the other one was still in Dallas. Not sure how that happens but thankfully it arrived the next day!
Since we've returned it's been a whirlwind! If the long lines weren't so fresh on our mind I would almost be in the mood for another vacation...
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