You might have noticed that I’ve been MIA for a couple of weeks… That’s because our little family of four took a vacation to Mexico! We stayed at a resort called Vidanta Mayan Palace Riviera Maya. Our vacation was only a week long, but it’s taking me a while to get back into the swing of things, especially with a migraine slamming me when I got home. Today, I want to share a bit of our vacation with you, and then we’ll get back to interior design and DIY talk as usual next week.
Just FYI, this is not a sponsored post, just our family’s experience! Also, I apologize in advance for the photo quality… I didn’t want to lug all of my gear to Mexico, so these were all taken with my iphone 6S+. Old school.
The Mayan Palace Riviera Maya is a time share resort, but you can purchase nights on VRBO for a fraction of the stated price on the Vidanta website. You all know how much I love getting a deal on things… Paying full price is painful!
The resort is HUGE. I mean absolutely ginormous, basically a mini city in and of itself. Even though I’d read about the size online, I was still surprised by the sheer enormity of the Mayan Palace Riviera Maya when we arrived. Multiple other Vidanta time share resorts share the same property, so they are essentially the same resort, just different levels of luxury available at each one. The Mayan Palace Riviera Maya is lowest on the luxury totem pole.
When we checked in, I knew to request a room close to the pool, in buildings 1 or 2. Unfortunately, there were none available, and we ended up in building 13 (third building back just to the left of “The Bliss” in the above picture). Many reviews online stated that the resort was so big that you had to wait for shuttles because it was too far to walk. Maybe the age or health of those people is significantly different than ours, but even being farther away from the pool, we had no issue with the 10-12 minute walk it took to get to the beach and pool areas. We only used the shuttle on the first night because we didn’t know where we were going, plus it was raining!
Compared to the MN weather we were coming from, any opportunity to be outside in 80-85 degree weather sounded great to us. Also, the grounds of the resort are stunning. It felt like walking through a tropical rain forest. What some people viewed as a negative, we quickly deemed a positive, and even the five and eight year olds said they would miss the walk on our last night there.
We stayed in a spacious one bedroom suite, which was perfect for our family. The two sofas in the living room converted to beds for the kids, and Adam and I took the bedroom, which had an attached bathroom that also opened into the living room. The suite also had a small kitchenette and a dining table. I forgot to take a picture of the room, but it looks pretty much like this.
The first few days at Mayan Palace Riviera Maya we ate all of our meals out, but a few days in we discovered that the Jade Deli and Creperie also had a reasonably priced mini grocery store, so we purchased cereal for breakfast in our room, and peanut butter and jelly supplies for lunch. The kids would rather eat that anyway, so it made more sense to save our money and just do dinners out.
Our favorite restaurant was Havana Moon, although to be fair, we didn’t go to most of the nicer ones. When you’re dining out with fairly picky eaters in tow, you don’t splurge on the expensive French restaurants. 😉 Havana Moon served food we all loved, was right on the beach, and had teal and fuchsia decor. That’s my kind of restaurant.
Even the menus were cute!
Arabella’s favorite thing about Havana Moon was the ice cream. If you know this girl, you know that she loves her ice cream. And watching her eat it is a treat in and of itself!
Our plan for the week was to hang out as a family, relax by the beach and pool, and sleep in. And that is exactly what we did! The beach wasn’t the best for swimming due to a ton of coral right past the shoreline, but the kids still had a great time playing on the shore.
I just like the feel of the sand between my toes, so I was fine skipping swimming too. Adam is really the only one who would have gone in had there not been so much coral.
Adam and I would have been perfectly content to relax at the beach every day and listen to the ocean, but the kids don’t exactly love chilling in lawn chairs… We were pleasantly surprised by all of the activities the Mayan Palace Riviera Maya had to keep them entertained. As if playing by the beach isn’t enough. 😉
There was a little enclosed gazebo by the pool where there were supervised activities every hour, such as face painting, gaga ball, pinata making (and hitting), and crafts.
The beach area also had a variety of activities, such as ping pong, volleyball (18+), a giant chess board, extra large Jenga style blocks, supervised soccer games (3+), and kite flying.
One day at the pool, there was a very G rated foam party. It was a bit cool that day, so Adam and I watched from afar as Kaden dove in, and Arabella sat on the side of the pool with a little buddy she had made. Of course, eventually Bells joined her brother!
On our last night, we took a long walk as a family along the beach.
All in all, our favorite part of the week was making lifelong memories with our kids. Unplugging from everything provides such a unique bonding experience. Adam didn’t even check his work email once! I’m really thankful that these kiddos are great travelers and that we had a beautiful family vacation in a tropical locale!
Where is your favorite place to vacation? Are you into the beach like me, or is something else more up your alley?
Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions about Vidanta Mayan Palace Riviera Maya! I’d love to hear from you.
