Mexico 2020 – The Last Post

I like to finish off vacations with one final summary post. Most people don’t have time to read my entire 2 weeks of rambling, so I bring together the best moments and photos into one.

Scroll to the bottom if you just want a bunch of photos!

Miranda and I usually do this, but this time we’re including Ava. She can’t give an explicit opinion, so we’re making educated guesses based on her behavior.

Best Restaurant

For Miranda, it was the Indigo Beach Club, which was no surprise to me. She liked that it had consistently good food, the location was fantastic and the service was great.

She says her runner up was Aldea Corazon, the somewhat expensive restaurant with a freaking cenote built into it. The food was fantastic, the drinks were good, and…you got transported from the middle of a bustling city street to a jungle, within minutes. Super cool place.

My favourite restaurant was Aay Chabela. I liked every meal I had there (including both of Miranda’s :P), the price was right where I wanted it, and it was 2 blocks away. With so much decent food available, location is pretty key for me.

But having said that, Zitla was my runner up. I really enjoyed my conversation about Mexican craft beer with Justin, our server at our first visit, and I thought the food showed some real promise. Much of the food we ate was good. Zitla’s was really good.

Ava’s favourite restaurant was 100% Natural. The fruit platter came in a larger mason jar, and she loved the mix of fruit so much she ate 90% of it every time.

And with that, I think we’ve covered all of the notable restaurants we ate at. Everything else was either bad, or just…ok? Adequate, in the most positive sense of the word.

Best “For Pay” Experience

Miranda’s was Xcaret. She says you wouldn’t have known that we’d been before (we went 6 years ago, pre-child), with how much we saw that felt new and fresh.

Mine was Kantun Chi. I loved (eventually) having the place to ourselves, I loved just snorkeling around the most stunning natural scenery in the world while my family kayaking around me. It was peaceful and serene and amazing.

Ava’s was Xcaret. She loved the aquarium, and the monkeys (we visited each twice) as well as the rope course in the kids area (which she and I did 4 times, back and forth, making 8 times total).

Best Free Experience

Although not strictly free, mine was getting money out of the HSBC ATM. We had assumed we could take money out of any ATM kicking around (and there are lots), so when several of them declined us we got worried. I went on a walking adventure alone to try as many different ones as I could, and as soon as I saw the HSBC I knew it was going to work. HSBC always works.

Ava’s was the water fountain at Calle 14 and Av. 5th. She loved it so much she got soaked several times, and also encouraged other children to get soaked. Her runner up was the advertising display/TV at Oakley aka, her dance platform.

Miranda’s best free experience was a tough one, but ultimately she decided it was the beach at Fundadores Park. She enjoyed sitting and watching me and Ava play in the sand and build a moat.

Unexpectedly Best Item Brought

It’s easy to say your clothes were the best item you brought, this category is something that was better than you thought it would be.

Mine was the Tula. I use it about once a week at home to carry Ava to the pool, and I love it as a method of moving us both quickly. We bring it whenever we go places, but I’ve never used it as much as we did this time. I used it literally every day. I love how easy it is to get around, I love that I don’t have to feel encumbered by a stroller, and that we just get up and start walking.

I also thought it was funny whenever we’d walk into a restaurant and ask for a table for 3, and I’d turned sideways and then they’d see Ava on my back for the first time and laugh. It happened so often!

Ava’s was the swim ring. It’s a plastic yellow ring that we have, that I’ve seen at our local pool for kids to swim down and get from the bottom of the pool. We used it a lot, although Ava can’t swim down yet, she loved playing “fetch” with it with Miranda.

Ava’s runner up was Skye and Dog. Dog is Marshall. Both are small figures of animals from PAW Patrol, a popular show for kids. Miranda questioned whether this was unexpected, but for me it was unexpected that we managed to get Ynnub out of Ava’s hands in exchange for these two figures. We didn’t want Ynnub (a fuzzy bunny) out and about on the streets, and the plastic toys were easier to manage.

Favourite Thing Bought

Miranda’s was her headband, her hair was really bugging her by mid-trip.

Ava’s was snakey, a glittery stuffed snake we bought at Xcaret. She’d come home from a long day and see it and grab it and say “oh snakey!” and give it a big hug and just seem so happy.

Mine was Ava’s Xcaret swim top. We somehow forgot Ava’s swimwear when we went to Xcaret, such bad parents. So Miranda ran off to get something for Ava to swim in, and picked up a great teal long-sleeve swim shirt .

Best Dollar Spent

Miranda’s was on the Cancun Cheap Transfer, a company that picked us up and brought us from the airport to our condo. It was super nice to walk out of the airport into hot chaos (Cancun airport is a extreme chaos), to see a man standing there with a sign with your name on it. You get into his van, and he offers you water and a beer and drives you directly to where you want to be. It was so comforting and let us relax immediately.

For this one, my mind goes to the fruit vendors at Fundadores Park. Fruit is cheap, and they just stand there with cut up papaya and mango and sell it to you and it’s delicious and you don’t have to exert any effort in enjoying the most amazing fruit you’ve ever tasted.

Ava’s was snakey, as above.

Best Place To Stay

We only stayed in 2 places this trip, so this one is a bit of a gimme, but we’re including it because we really liked our accommodations and want to spread the word.

El Taj Oceanside and Beachfront is a hotel, but is a group of condos. So you get multiple bedrooms, and a kitchen and a living room and couch and space. We stayed at the El Taj Beachfront, and we’d do it again. Some of the Oceanside condos had stunning views, but most of them looked into the courtyard. While our view wasn’t great, it was close to the best (of 4) pools in the complex, which was exactly what we wanted.

Worst Restaurant

We don’t love being negative, but here it is.

Mine and Miranda’s worst restaurant was Blue Lobster. It was expensive, the service was “ok” and the food was “ok”. Our second trip was what gave it this award, with the food being kind of bad and the servers (initially) ignoring our child and then ignoring that we needed more space with the kid than 2 adults at a 2 adult table.

Ava’s was the restaurant at Kantun Chi, as the only thing she could eat there was chips. Ava ate a lot of chips on this trip, but usually she could have something from our plates. This place that was really hard.

Favourite Animal

My favourite animal was the very large iguana at the parking lot to Dos Ojos. I was standing there, waiting out my decompression timer and I saw just this giant lizard sunning itself in the middle of the parking lot. That’s some confidence, lizard.

Ava’s favourite animal was the monkeys at Xcaret. She loved them so much she was giggling at their antics, and I’m pretty sure she said “monkey!” for the first time here.

Miranda’s was collectively all of the birds at Xcaret, particularly the tucan because they are so cool to see.

Best Body of Water

Miranda’s was Uch Ben Ha at Kantun Chi. We had it entirely to ourselves, it was gorgeous, and she got to kayak above the thing that she finds very frightening.

Ava’s was pool #2, the “hot tub”, aka, the “slightly warmer than the regular pool” tub. She spent a lot of time in that tub, and loved that she could jump from a ledge and swim across quickly to the other ledge. She also loved that it was slightly warmer than the main pool, because she got a little cold at times.

I choose our Zacil Ha cenote at Kantun Chi, although my answer is really the same as Miranda’s. Zacil Ha was a super cool hole in the ground with amazing stalagmites and stalactites and was just beautiful.

Worst Item Brought

Unfortunately, for me it has to be my scuba camera. I usually get such good use of it, even if I only scuba once, that I don’t even consider leaving it behind. But it’s a large item and needs a lot of management, and…I don’t feel like I got any “stand out” photos with it. I got some good ones, but ultimately, it felt like a waste of space.

Miranda’s was her conditioner. I had bought her Lush conditioner for Christmas and it was in a conveniently sized container compared to her regular stuff. Unfortunately, it didn’t do what it needed to do – make her hair feel nice.

Ava’s item was a list of small things:

Her white noise machine. Because, oddly, this suite came with them. Probably because of the night clubs surrounding it. >.>
Her hair de-tangler, which we didn’t use once.