The de Leon's Mayan Riviera vacation

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Monday, 9th of December, 2013..

After putting in a full day of work, my wife Nina and I were ready to go on our long awaited, much deserved vacation.. coincidentally, the timing was perfect, because the Portland area has been in below-freezing weather conditions sheesh! Time for some sunny and warm Carribean weather! :D

Our flight from PDX left close to midnight.. good thing because we were both soo tired and ready to sleep on the plane. Big thanks to my sister-in-law Ashley for taking us to the airport despite more snow falling! I myself was so tired that by the time the plane was in the air, I had already passed out lol. Unfortunately, our layover in IAH(Houston, TX) was 5 hours(I know, right?). The good thing was, we both got more Zs while waiting.. sort of lol. (We were in Houston from 5am-10am)

Immediately after steppin' out of the plane at Cancun Airport (around 130p), I saw, felt, heard, and smelled different things. The absence of TSA agents(lol), older earth-toned walls, much fewer bathroom access, the humidity, the different languages of the world, and the indescribable smells when you go to a foreign place. I don't know about Nina, but it was a pleasant experience for me.

After clearing Immigrations and Customs, we bee-lined straight to the Avis rental car kiosk and was shuttled directly to Avis' off-site car rental office a mile away. By doing this, Nina and I avoided the hustling and solicitations of countless (aggressive)people trying to sell you tours, transportation, etc. In Avis, we were not able to rent a car despite my rental reservation being pre-paid, because neither of us were carrying any credit cards, just our debit cards(my fault). We immediately got shuttled back to the terminal to face the inevitable.. the transportation hustlers lol, starting with our very own Avis shuttle driver ha ha! Before we even stopped at the terminal, he had already flagged a man by the curb who immediately greeted us and showed us options. All in all, after spending another 30 minutes at the airport,(standing in line at the ATM, withdrawing insuffucient amount of Pesos, standing in line again lol), we scored a taxi to our hotel in Puerto Aventuras. The taxi ride to our hotel was interesting and educational, thanks to our very social driver, Juan.

Arriving at our hotel around, Hotel Catalonia Riviera Maya in Puerto Aventuras(around 3pm), we were greeted by our bell boy who took our bags and gave us tropical juice concoctions in wine glasses.. 'was nice 😊 We checked in to our hotel(good thing they didn't ask for a credit card lol) and headed straight for our room. We dropped our bags and walked straight away to the nearest buffet, Bamboleo Snack and Grill(only 100ft away.. uh oh, we're in trouble lol), because we were starvin'! Afterwards, we went back to our room because we were so tired and rested a bit.

For dinner, we walked over to the next building where Alebrijes(Mexican cuisine) is located, one of the 6 or 7 gourmet restaurants in our resort. There, both Nina and I had steak and chicken fajitas for our entrees with chicken tacos and chicken tortilla soup as our appetizers.. muy delicioso 😊 After dinner, we took a nice little stroll and walked back to The Creperie', a dessert bar right next to Alebrijes. I had crepes and Nina had ice cream, of course lol.

After a super long day, we were exhausted.. mostly from eating! Haha!! So far, everything has been awesome.

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Photos

Goodbye Portland!
Off to a warmer place..

Houston Inter-continental Airport (IAH)
5 hour layover in Houston..

Cancun-bound!
On our final leg to Cancun..

Hotel Catalonia
Cheers to an amazing vacation!

Carribean
Our room view.. The Carribean Sea

Dessert
Perfect way to end the evening.. sweets at La Creperie :D

Comments

[Diego]

Hola Amigos!
Hey Guys, Nice to hear you made it there safe and have eaten like little piggy's! So much for T25! Haha, just kidding. Make sure you check out Playa Del Carmen. They have some cool shops there and a nice beach too. We also went to Akumal which is probably about 1 hour 20 min southwest off of the main highway. If you go there and swim in the bay you will swim with sea turtles. Have fun you guys. Remember to kiss. Diego

[MannyD]

Thanks bro! Eating like piggies is right.. we are on vacation after all lol. We won't be going farther thatn Tulum since we don't have a rental car but swimming with turtles in Akumal sounds awesome indeed. :)

[Heather]

Hola!
I am so excited for your blogs! And pictures! I hope you make it to Cozumel. Bummer about the car rental but now you see first hand how I got hustled!