Travel: Ola Mexico! ~~~~

A 4 day/3 night stay at the vibrant Cancun resort

Grand Bahia Principe, Cancun, Mexico

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Day 1 :

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Took off from SFO late evening on a Friday. It took us around 5.5-6hrs in the flight without transits. Mexico is 2hrs ahead of California. So, without wasting the precious morning hours, we were there at Cancun at around 8:00am in the morning.

The immigration was very simple. Since the passengers are from US probably; only needed to show our legality document for stay in the US. If you have a valid visiting visa for US or a permanent residence document for US, you don’t need any documents to enter Mexico. This can be verified via the mexico immigration in SF.

As we walked out, we were held for some marketing by one of the airport staffs. I am sure some of it is a scam, but our checking in time to the Grand Bahia Principe(our resort for the stay in Cancun) was only at 3:00PM and we had enough time. He proposed a breakfast visit to another resort nearby, which will reward us with $600/- discount for our overall tickets(3adults n 2 kids) for XCARET, which is a definite visiting spot in this trip. We took up the info and went with the flow.

We had our resort pick us up from the airport. The check-in was pretty good.

Grand Bahia has 4 connected resorts:

Coba(kids friendly)
Tulum(genetic-where we hosteled)
Akumal(adults only,with specific areas only suitable for 18+ strictly)
Shan e ..?? (Forgot the name - golf specific resort)

Resorts in Cancun are usually the ‘all-inclusive’ types. Meaning, pay for per day/per adult stay that includes all of the below: this is true for most good resorts in Cancun. Well worth the money.

1)all day food, snacks, drinks(hot n cold, beverages n alcohols, etc)

2)hotel rooms

3)visits to pools & beaches across Bahia resorts mentioned above

4)Transport across popular attractions in Cancun

5)Events in the resorts such as music bands, magic show, cultural theatrical shows,etc.. of course there are exceptions such as Dolphin time, snorkeling, parasailing, etc

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So, with all info said n explained, let’s dive in to the adventure

Between, the whole point of the trip was to celebrate mom's 60th Birthday. Here she is relaxing her gift :)

Since our check-in time was 3:00pm, we had nothing to do till then as we had reached there early morning, but we were still treated to free breakfast and had access to their pools and all facilities in the resort.

We took advantage of the opportunity as expected and changed to explore all the water sources in Coba. Treated ourselves with lunch and unlimited drinks in Coba(of course no extra money

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Then bk to our lobby(Tulum). Checked in to our rooms and changed to explore Tulum pools n beaches. Was crazy exhausted by the end of day. We spotted loads of Iguanas and raccoons all around the resort and they were amidst us like they don’t care. Was sooper cool to see them soo free.

Had an awesome dinner with all you can eat buffet to choose from, included ( japanese, Mexican, American, Italian, Chinese,..)

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Day 2

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As promised, next morning, we visited the resort that promised us XCARET discounted tickets; didn’t fall for any of their Marketing coupons and walked out with discounted XcXCARET tickets. Appreciate that they did stick to their word. This was ‘Hard Rick Cafe resort’. We decided that if we visit Cancun again, we will honor their promise by staying in one of their resorts.

Bk to our resort, enjoyed the Dolphinaries. It’s a restricted area where we need to pay and spend time with the dolphins. These amazinf creatures had a story of their own. We had 2 sibling dolphin brothers. One was naughtier and cute. They gave an awesome show by flipping higher n showing off their skills. Felt awesome to have experienced it soo close. The dolphins took us on their back for a ride.

With this, we spent the rest of the day in the pools in Tulum n the nearby Resort beaches. The beaches are slightly piloted with weeds, but they r doing their best by cleaning them up ever so often. So we cd definitely get in with no issues. Leaving the kids with mom, we walked to the adjacent Akumal beaches(18+). Was fun

The kids enjoyed an awesome magic shows in the evening right after dinner. It lasted for an hour.

We called it a day.

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Day 3

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Got up early, took a walk early in the beaches to witness sunrise. Was beautiful n serene.

We then. Packed and got ready for XCARET. Was way excited. Hopped on from the lobby n got our free ride to XCARET.

The black river in XCARET was quite an experience with around an hour of swimming and floating in the underwater caves surrounded by surreal roots. Was an incredibly beautiful feeling. Spent the whole day in Xcaret. Nearby are also other attractions for more adventurous people( zip lining, hiking, etc.. XPLORE; we stuck to XCARET as it was suitable for mom(celebrating her 60th birthday )).