Cancun 05/21/2018 - 05/27/2018

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My Itinerary:
No itinerary 😱

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Best pool ever!

Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm at Restaurant Buffet Maya Beach.

May 22 at 6:54pmIsla Mujeres, Mexico

Leo Mass is with Elena Kolm at Barceló Maya Grand Resort.

May 22 at 6:53pmPlaya del Carmen, Mexico

Music: La Bruja · Artistas Del Parque Xcaret · Los Cantores De Xcaret Getting Ready for the Trip Alright, got the itinerary for Hawaii ready. Plane tickets with Hawaiian Air, Marriott hotel, Hertz Rent-a-Car, and the helicopter ride all set and paid for. To make it more cost effective we planned a round trip to some other place but we would get off the plane in Kona, where we are staying, during the layovers. Weird how that way is cheaper than just a one way flight to Kona or even a flight with other layovers.Thanks to my friend Jessica, who I went to visit in Utah before, for hooking us up with the Marriott! No need for a passport or anything since this is an American state, so I have everything covered and can finally relax and not worry about a thing this time, right? Right!? I ask you, what can be worse than a country delaying a Visa to let you in? Or going to a territory where Kim Jung Un threatens to fire a missile on? Or a place where all of the Air BnBs cancel you at the last second? How about a whole God Damned island exploding from a volcano eruption!! That's right folks, we were supposed to go to Kona, Hawaii at the Big Island. Just a few weeks before we were supposed to take flight, boom a volcano decides to activate about 2 hours from the Marriott where we are supposed to stay. No worries, just one explosion, we are going to be 2 hours away from it anyway, no harm done. Boom another blast of lava comes out a few days later. Ok, a little worrisome but the air quality is just as bad as Los Angeles at this point we can hash it.... Boom another explosion! Ok, now this is getting ridiculous!! It was me, my girlfriend Yelena, and her 4 year old boy Kevin that were planning this trip. If it was just me and Yelena going, I may have convinced her to just keep the plans as they were, but since a child was involved, a poisonous cloud overhead doesn't sound too good anymore. Just a few days before our trip we start having to cancel everything that was booked so far and scrambling our way to make new plans and where we are going to go. Calling my friend Jessica to book another Marriott hotel maybe at Waikiki or another island. Since everything was the last second, it was a bit on the expensive side especially for the three of us. Yelena called her mom who called her travel agency which we found out that coincidentally her mom uses the same agency as my parents do. They get in contact and we are booked for Cancun in an all inclusive resort called Barcelo Maya. As you may have noticed from my previous travels, I'm not too keen on all inclusive resorts. They are expensive for the reason they are inclusive and because of that, it doesn't allow for you to go out of the resort and experience the actual culture and little gems that places have to provide. In my mind it's for the rich snobby people who like to drink whine and chill when they travel, basically things you can do at home. However, I also hate making plans last second and on such short notice especially with other people involved so, screw it we are going to Cancun and be spoiled in an all inclusive resort! 05/22/2018 Tuesday Our Way There Ready to go and be on our way to a grand adventure. My mom gives us a ride to the airport. Wait a minute, we aren't going to Hawaii anymore, so which flight are we taking? I ask Yelena. She responds with, of course, none other, my all time favorite, best airline ever... "United." NNnnnnooooo! It's unavoidable. I was so happy taking Hawaiian Airlines or any other flight other than United. We get to the airport and pass through no problem. Meet Yelena and Kevin

I thought Kevin would have his ears hurting going up and down in pressure on the plane but he was ok. My ears on the other hand hurt like always when we were going down. Of course there were no movie screens on the United Plane and you had to download the stupid app to watch something. I wasn't aware of this, so once again I couldn't download anything because there was no internet allowed, unless you paid for it, which you needed the app to do so! Didn't matter anyway, one of the stewardesses went onto the PA to let everyone know that their entertainment system is experiencing difficulties and isn't working. Why would anyone expect otherwise? They continued to tell us that we have 30 days to go on their website to let them know and there would be a $50 credit for next time you travel with United. Why would I want to do that? Just so I can have another terrible experience? No thank you, I already look for airlines that can be around $70 more expensive and choose it over United. Thank God I had Plants Vs. Zombies 2 on my phone so I played it the whole time I wasn't paying attention to Kevin. Great game by the way. We get to Cancun, pick up our bags, and we step outside. The doors slide open and oh the humidity again. Just as we step outside, it starts to pour rain. Thank you for welcoming us with rain Cancun! We go under the side of the roof and find our person who is in charge of setting up the shuttles to the hotels. We let him know that we already paid for a shuttle to get to our resort called Barcelo Maya Palace. He tells us that they will be here shortly and we continue to wait. The shuttle comes and people start piling in. It is a van so it only holds like 8 people. It was full, so I had to sit in the front. At first I thought, well this sucks, but turns out the seat was just like a normal car passenger seat. Which means that it can recline all the way back and there were no seats behind me which made it the more comfortable. I reclined that sucker all the way back and got about a 20 minute nap out of it. Nice! We dropped almost everyone off at their resorts. There was one more stop and then we were last to be dropped off. I looked around at the resort we were dropping these folks off. It was huge! We went inside the entrance and kept driving what seemed like for miles to drop them off. I look and think to myself, maybe one day I'll be rich enough to stay here for maybe a night and see how the elite resorts are. We drop the people off and head to ours which is another 20 minutes away so I lean back and relax. We finally get to our resort and just like the Hyatt where I went to the wedding in Cancun last time I was here, there was a gate outside with security guards asking for the drivers ID and such. I am very surprised that this resort is like that, I never thought I'd be staying at a place like this. We enter and keep driving. And driving. And driving some more! "Is this our whole resort?" I ask the driver, he says, "Yes, it's one of the biggest resorts in Cancun." I can't believe it but we finally get to our destination and it was already beautiful. This IS one of those elite resorts.

We get to the lobby and the doormen take our luggage and we proceed to the desk. The person on the other side gets our information and tells us that the check-in time is at 3:00pm. Great, it's only 9:30 am and this is going to be another episode of last years trip where I couldn't get in by the check-in time. "Which part of the hotel would you like to stay?" The lobby man asks. Yelena quickly responded, the "Oaxaca part. I was told that that would be the best place for kids to stay at." He types into his computer and says, "ok we have a room available but it's not clean yet. Go to the inclusive buffet, eat some breakfast and check back in." It was that easy? Amazing. We get to the breakfast buffet and we get seated. They ask if we wanted anything to drink and after we ordered we went about getting our food. This place had everything breakfast had to offer and 2 cooks to make eggs and bacon and whatever you wanted. Very cool, and... All inclusive! It had everything except chocolate chip cookies. For some reason none of their buffets or any inclusive portions had chocolate chip cookies nor brownies. They had other desserts such as ice cream, sweet bread, but no real chocolate desserts which I found weird.

We had finished eating and went back to the lobby, they said that it will be ready in 15 more minutes. So we hung around in the lobby area. Yelena asked me to go and make reservations for Dinner. I went to the tourist area and asked how it worked. Apparently there are restaurants in the resort that we can have dinner at which are inclusive. Sweet! She hands me a list and I get to choose what kind I'd like. I chose Spanish for one day, Japanese for another and Argentinian for the next. The lady then stopped me and said I can only make reservations for 3 days in advance so I would have to come back. I made the reservations and we went to get our key and went to our hotel room. We walked through a beautiful walkway and what seemed to take eternity we finally got to our hotel room. Beautiful. If you walk in and look left there is the bathroom. You walk inside and look left again, there is a sliding blue door that goes into just the toilet. Look straight ahead there are two sinks. The cool part is when you look right, it goes into a shower and right away a bathtub after that. It was almost as cool as the bathroom in Australia. You can take a bath and splash all around because the water will go into the shower drain. It just would have been cooler if there was a sliding door separating the sink and the shower with the bath next to it. You keep walking and then you have the bed and after that are two sofa couches. Yelena moved the two sofa couches together and called it the kings bed for Kevin. She asked me to call room service and ask for more sheets, so I did. I forgot how to say sheets in Spanish but I think they understood me in English. After the couches you keep walking and there is a sliding door that leads to a balcony that has a chair and table.

We were dead tired so we went to sleep right away and woke up to go see the pool. This hotel had a huge pool and many other pools around it. Our first stop was the kiddy pool.

Kevin was having a blast going down the little slides. I asked him to come to the big slides with me, but for some reason he got too scared and stayed at the small ones. So I went a few times myself before being told that these slides are for kids only. Oops! Then we decided to go to the big pool. Ok, let's find a jacuzzi, this part has bubbles let's jump in. Nope, not a jacuzzi, just a regular pool that goes into a huge pool.

And I'm not kidding that this pool was huge! Definitely the biggest I have ever seen! The Hertz Castle has nothing on this pool.

The only gripe I have about this resort is that it didn't have a jacuzzi. It had so many pools around a big huge pool but no jacuzzi. I guess they don't need to have it maintained since it's pretty much always humid there, but it still would have been nice. Oh well. After we were done with the pool Yelena asks me to get towels from the towel stands assuming that they are inclusive. I go all the way around the huge pool and ask for a towel. They reply, "Necesita su toalla tarjeta." Translates to, "You need your towel card." So I go back and get our hotel card and try to show it to the towel stand. Again I get the same reply. Turns out, they need a special towel card that you can only get from the Lobby. I guess that the jacuzzi thing isn't the only grip I had after all. Why hadn't the lobby given us those cards in the very beginning? If I steal a towel lying around in a chair, can I turn it in and ask for another towel, or another card? The answer to that would have been yes if I had done it, but we decided to get back to our hotel wet and dry off inside. Our dinner reservation tickets said that people will not be allowed to enter without nice clothes on. We still had plenty of time so we didn't rush. We put on our nice clothes and we get to the buffet area and look for the Spanish restaurant called "La Fuentes." I keep wanting to say Las Fuentes because we have a Mexican restaurant with that name in Los Angeles but this is different. Long story short, we couldn't find it so we decided to ask where this restaurant is. "Oh this is on the other side of the resort, you have to take a shuttle to get there. They run every 20 minutes." Uhm… Ok, now we have to of course rush. At this point, every time I feel that we have time and don't have to rush for anything we end up rushing anyway! So we rush to the shuttle and wait for one to come for us. We have 5 minutes until our reservation time is up. 7 minutes later, our shuttle arrives, we hop on. It's a double decker shuttle where we climbed up to the top and to the front to pretend that Kevin is driving.

I was very shocked and surprised that not only did our resort have its very own shuttle to get from one place to another, but it was a nice double decker bus! I asked Yelena to maybe call the restaurant since my Metro PCS cannot handle calls outside of the continental US. She says that on the reservation ticket it says that we can be 15 minutes late. After a bit less than 15 minutes, we find the Restaurant and get seated after taking some pictures.

They give us a menu, and at first it's hard to tell what the menu is saying because it has many pages but then you realize that it's only one page of the menu and the rest of them are the same thing just in different languages. Yelena asked me to ask the waiter if alcohol was included in the all inclusive part, they said no, but they gave us a wine list. This is where my Spanish came in handy. I took Spanish for 4 years in high school and a year in college so I am pretty fluent in it if spoken despacito. I found out if the wine was in a cup or bottle, how much it was and if there were any discounts. Yelena wasn't interested and we proceeded to order. It is one of those 4 course meals. Soup or salad first, appetizer, dinner, then dessert. They did not disappoint, it was clearly a fancy restaurant and the food and service was amazing.

After we had our fill, we went walking around and took pictures at interesting spots.

We were in a whole mall with a casino inside. We were with Kevin, so I couldn't go at this time but we continued to walk around some more. I was still amazed that we took a shuttle inside the resort to get to another place which had a mall and a Casino inside the very resort still. Here is a map of the whole place.

Our hotel is located all the way at the left side. The mall is smack dab in the middle big circle. You would think that the oval blue things are Jacuzzis? Unfortunately they are not. Just more pools. After we were done walking, we took the shuttle back home and walked again for a while to get to our hotel. We get in and there are no sheets but instead an apple with a note saying "Thank you for staying with us." Thank you for that, but we need sheets for the couch. I call them again and they finally bring the actual sheets. 05/23/2018 Wednesday We have a winner! Next morning we woke up and went to eat breakfast at our hotel again. It was different food this time and everything was still good. Still no chocolate anything however, besides chocolate milk. After we had our fill again we went right to our hotels beach. I love swimming in humid weather where the ocean water is actually warmer than the pool. It was so nice. I looked at the pole with a red flag on it. Just like last time I was in Cancun, it meant that I couldn't swim there, however over here everyone was swimming anyway. I wasn't sure why there was a red flag because there wasn't any huge currents like last time I went to Cancun and the waves were calm. It was raining off and on, maybe that's why? Oh well, no one followed the instruction of the red flag and swam anyway.

It felt so refreshing and nice. I grabbed Kevin by the hand and we went wave jumping.

Yelena went swimming for a bit and after Kevin and I went wave jumping, he went to explore. He found little fish and decided to feed them with dry seaweed. After the beach we went back to our hotel room to get ready for our next fancy dinner. This time Japanese. We get ready and head out. We find the bus stop near our room this time and wait for our bus there. The bus took a while so we decided to take silly pictures of Kevin dancing in the rain.

The bus had finally arrived and we made it to Kyoto Restaurant and it was just as amazing as the Spanish restaurant. They had a show like they do at Benihana. We were afraid that there would be nothing to eat for Kevin, but the restaurant was prepared and had hamburgers and hotdogs for the children. It was a 4 course meal again and everything was fantastic. The food was great, but not as good as La Fuente. Now, in America everyone knows that Mexicans are the cooks pretty much in all the restaurants even the Asisan ones. However, they make the waiters and the staff the identity of the restaurant. For instance if you go to an Indian restaurant, you'll be seated and served by an Indian staff. The cooks in the back will still be Mexican. Here everyone is Mexican. I'm not sure where I'm going with this but I just wanted to note the observation.The restaurant reservation was at around 5:00pm so we had time to do things afterwards.

We came back to our hotel and decided to check out the Kids club. It was really neat. They had all of these kinds of events and at this time they were in the concert hall on stage doing competing events. Kevin was shy at first so I had to go up with him. They had the kids repeat the dances after the host and those who did the best wins a ticket. Then they put on the Xbox Kinect and had kids dance while the game was showing the dance moves. Kevin won a ticket! After he won, he didn't seem shy anymore, but it was 9:00pm and the kids club was over. The ticket that he won gives you a frisbee. If you win two tickets, you get a ball. Three tickets, you get a game. 4 I forgot, and the 5th one was a shirt. Yelena said that we need 5 so he can get a shirt because that is the most expensive product on there. Kevin agreed and was determined to get as many as he could. At 9:00pm performers started to come out on stage, so we decided to stay and watch the show. They were Mexican performance that were covering English songs. It was actually pretty horrible. I couldn't help but to giggle at the terrible accents and the total mispronunciations of words, that's if they even got the words right. We stayed maybe for a half an hour and we went home to sleep. 05/24/2018 Thursday Old Man Dance We wake up to amazing weather. Before it was just rainy, this time it's windy and rainy! Whatever, still won't stop us from enjoying our time. We eat our usual breakfast buffet, still no chocolate, and decide to go to a Pirate themed water park which we saw on our way to Kyoto. We wait at the bus and we see another family waiting there with a child as well. We make small talk and they say they want to go to the beach. I tell them that there is a Pirate themed pool we want to check out and then the beach is on the way afterwards, and I invited them to come along. They agreed and we all went together. They were Armenian and unfortunately I already forgot the parents names but their son was named Alec. We get to our stop and head to the Pirate Water Park. We see that there are people heading in with wrist bands. We ask where we can get them and a worker replied that you need to go to the stand and it will be $20/person USD to go in. I was aghast that it wasn't inclusive and that it was so expensive! We decide not to go in since Kevin was a bit scared of slides at this point anyway. The boys of course were extremely disappointed but as we walked on toward the beach, they got over it. We get to Riviera Maya Beach, which is still part of our resort.

We go swimming and this time I go to the towel station with towel cards we got from the lobby. Kevin and I jumped waves a bit more, swam, and walked around. We then went to the kiddy pool in this location. It was a lot smaller than the one we went to before but the kids still had fun. Then it started really pouring down so we decided to go take a bite to eat. Another inclusive buffet but this time it was lunch. I like lunch better than breakfast so the food was still pretty good. As for chocolate this time? Still none. Same dessert as the breakfast buffet disappointingly enough. After we ate way too much again, we decided to checkout the kids club in this area. This one had a ball pit! Kevin went in the ball pit. Yelena decided to go and lounge around and I wanted to check out the casino. I decided to walk there and completely went the wrong way at first. After finding my bearings I was walking and had to walk through an arcade, mini golf, and bowling. I went through the back entrance where a gate that probably should have been locked was open. I went up the stairs and entered in through the second floor of the building. Two people were playing pool soccer. I didn't have a camera with me nor my phone but this is what it looks like.

It was pretty awesome and wish I would have played but I had a mission to get to the casino so I moved on. Entered the mall and walked toward the casino. Tried to go in, but the door is locked, weird, I try another door also locked. I see that it opens up at 5:00pm until 2:00am. It is only 3:30pm. Kind of bummed out, this is actually the first casino I've seen that wasn't 24 hours. I didn't think those existed! So I decided to go back through the second floor of the arcade in which I came in. Came back to the kids club where Yelena was with Kevin drawing something. Alec and his family were gone at this point and we left soon after. Kevin asked the kids club worker if she had anymore of those tickets, and she told him that there are events he can attend and win them. Couldn't hurt to ask I guess. We left and went to take a nap at our hotel. After the nap, we woke up and were supposed to go to an Italian restaurant for dinner but we were still so full from lunch we decided to not go. We went swimming again at our pool. Kevin and I went inside the big pool and floated about while Yelena was sun bathing. We then got hungry again and went to our buffet spot to have dinner. It wasn't a 4 course meal restaurant worthy but it was still pretty amazing and a lot to choose from. All kinds of meats, burgers, pizza and so on. On our way to sit down, we see Alec and family. They also decided to skip dinner because of the lunch we had so we asked them to join us, and we all ate together. Not sure why we didn't take pictures. We told them about the kids club and kids going on stage to compete and win tickets. They were excited about it, so after dinner we went and the kids played more games. This time they played a game that had you hold a type of a Hawaiian lei, do a twist and hand it over. When the music stops and you still have the lei you lose, and Kevin got second place! After that they played another game. When they say Batman, you have to put your fingers like binoculars around your eyes. If they say Spiderman, you have to pretend to shoot web from your wrists, and when they say Hulk you have to touch your fist together, flex and say grr. Kevin won that one! The Mexicans pronounced Hulk as Hoolik. So now when I ask Kevin to show me The Hulk, he yells at me and says it's pronounced Hoolik! After the kids club was over, we stayed and watched another performance. This time it was traditional Mexican music and dances. Much better than the set the night before. The most memorable performance to me was when the dancers in old guy masks came as if they were old and wobbly with their canes. As the music went faster, they danced faster and became more sturdy. It was neat, then the music slowed down and they were once again old men. However, this wasn't the main event. Kevin and Alec decided to grab the fake light candles and go underneath the stage to make their own performance. They definitely stole the show. 05/25/2018 Friday Furthest Beach The next morning, we did our usual buffet. Chocolate? What's that? Yelena talked me into going to the excursions office and get something so we can enjoy something outside of the resort. I was very hesitant because we have already spent so much for the resort and we are with a 4 year old who will either not enjoy what we will be doing, not remember it, or would be too small to go on most things anyway. Still the sales lady convinced us that X-caret would be the best to go for the family where Kevin can enjoy everything and it was free for him. I wanted to do this anyway from my last trip so it didn't take too much convincing, but it was there. We got the tickets for Saturday. We then went swimming in our hotel pool and this time Kevin met a Russian girl. I swear he couldn't take his eyes off of her and instantly made friends with her. After they played for a bit we decided to go to another beach. Alec and family joined us and we took the shuttle to the furthest beach away from our hotel this time and went to the beach there. We had to walk through the hotel there to get to the beach and we hit a dead end and were stuck with a fountain ahead of us. I'm not sure if I was allowed to but I decided to go through the fountain. After getting scorned by the group, they decided to also follow me. We found the beach and It was pretty much the same beach as any other that was over there. The waves, not too big. Nice and humid for warm water. Still nowhere near as warm as Guam, but still very comfortable. Red flags on poles still hanging. Kevin got a little more brave so after we went jumping on waves we swam a bit and I held him while we went deeper and deeper. Afterwards we went to the kiddy pool, which was basically the same as our hotel, just different animals for slides. This time Kevin was a trooper and went on the big slides. At first he asked me to catch him as he was sliding down, but after a while he went himself without any help. All the pools seemed to be the same shape and size with what we had, so still no jacuzzi. After swimming we went to the lunch buffet and this time I made sure I had a very light snack to save room for tonight's Argentinian dinner. We ate, swam a bit more, then decided to go back to our hotel to take another nap. We woke up and were on our way to the Argentinian Dinner at Santa Fe Restaurant. This time it was in our part of the resort. This time, after the salad bar, you can order skewers where they come by with with them different times serving different meats and you eat whichever you want. I tried a little bit of everything and then dessert. A few of the meats were really good but I still think the Spanish Restaurant was still the best one. I'm not sure why we didn't take any pictures for the past few moments. Savoring the moment I suppose. 05/26/2018 Saturday X-Caret X-caret day! We wake up bright and early and go to eat breakfast. We wait at the bus stop for our X-Caret bus. We didn't wait long until it got there and we get on. It's about a 30 minute ride and they explain to us where to go first and where we would end up at the park, so we can skip lines and enjoy our day the best way possible. We were pretty excited about this and couldn't wait to get in on the action. They also told us that there are buses that will come to pick people up at 5pm or at 10pm. They were trying to convince everyone at the bus to stay for the show because it would be worth it. Yelena and I thought that if we were tired we would leave by 5, but if we still had it in us then watch the show and stay till 10. The guide kept calling us "Familia" as the guide did before when I went to Cancun on our way to cenotes. It gave me all great flashbacks of that amazing time. I still think it was probably the most adventurous guided tour I've ever had. The guide continues, "the park will be empty anyway because it's a weekend." I did a double take and maybe she meant to say weekday? Because there is no way it's more empty on a weekend than a weekday is there? We finally get there and get out of the bus. As we walk out of the bus, I ask the lady how it can be less people on the weekends? She looked at me and said, "Most tourists that come to Mexico come actually during their vacation on weekdays and leave during the weekend mainly Saturdays - Sundays." Everything made sense once she explained it that way. Many people that come to Cancun or any other touristy city far away don't only come for the weekend as Los Angeles people would with Vegas. They would come for the whole week. Book the flight on Saturday, takes a few days to land and adjust and do everything Monday through Friday and finally pack on Saturday and leave Sunday. I have never thought about that until now, interesting. Back at the bus, the guide was telling everyone to exchange sun block at the front of the park for a more natural sun block so it doesn't ruin the natural water and stone walls inside the park. She said it wasn't necessary but they made us feel bad enough where we were pretty obligated to do so. We turned in our sunblock, got a ticket to pick it up while we leave and they gave us little sample packs. One of the packs, they said, was enough for two people, so they gave us two packs. We walk inside and it already looks like a jungle. The first thing we see are parrots.

We continue to walk toward the lockers so we can put away our things and start swimming through a Cenote as we were told to do in the beginning. The lockers were pretty far away but we found them. The park is painted with colored lines so you don't get lost. Pretty genius idea except they didn't have many signs on where the lines led. We had to keep opening the map to see if we missed the places or just completely went the wrong way. We put our stuff away at the lockers. They gave bags for you to put other things you may need after the cenote. They put those things in the truck and drive it up for you so you can pick them up. We decided just to put our shoes in the bags so we don't walk on our feet all the time. We get into the Cenote and it is nothing less than beautiful. We take out our natural sunblock and attempt to put it on. It is first powder like and you have to wet yourself to put it on. It turns into a sticky goo and yeah, it wasn't near as good as the regular sun block. Still, I didn't get a sunburn so I guess it worked.

It made it one hundred times cooler because the guide was right when she said that no one would be there. We were pretty much alone, just seeing a handful of people through this Cenote.

It was underground so it was pretty cold but nothing too bad. The coldest water I think I've experienced was in Catalina Island just about a month ago getting my scuba certification. The cold chill was unbearable. So this was very nice comparably. The Cenote was pretty deep so we wore life jackets, and at no time you can stand on the ground. They had ropes that you can hold onto at certain points. Also they had exits that you can go and get out of it. We decide to rest a bit at the first exit and get some sun on our bodies. It felt nice.

We start heading back in and Kevin doesn't want to anymore because he is already tired. We still have to hold him while swimming because he is scared to go alone even with the life jacket on which made us tired also. But we convince him to keep going and he agrees.

We pass the second exit and keep going all the way until the 3rd one. Here is an exit before a fork in the river where it can go two ways.

We rest and again Kevin says he is tired, cold and wants to walk the rest of the way. We tell him a white lie and convince him that the only way to go is through the river. He bit his lip and decided to be brave and kept on going. We took the left path, because the left is the best and on the way we saw a local.

Pretty scary as you approach, but really cool. We went around the bend and to Kevin's delight we were finally back on our feet. We get to our things and get our shoes. The Cenote went from the beginning of the park all the way to the end of it, it stopped right near the beach. We decided to relax a bit on the beach chairs and take a few pictures.

The sun was beaming and it was nice and warm at first, but now it's becoming to scorch us. We go inside a store to buy a hat for Yelena but then realizing that we left everything essential, including money, in the lockers. We wish we would have brought towels and our shirts so we wouldn't burn. So we decided to just slowly go back toward the lockers at the beginning of the park to get our gear. We were following the lines and the map as the guide told us to do so. We first get to some sort of swimming rest area. I wanted to keep going, wanting to make sure to have enough time to do everything but Yelena and Kevin insisted to go inside.

I'm not alone in these trips anymore, need to be patient. I can't wait for Kevin to grow up a little and understand the concept of time so we can both gang up on Yelena to hurry and do anything and everything as possible before things close instead of them teaming up on me to relax! After they did some unnecessary swimming for what seemed like hours to me but was probably more just like 5 painful minutes, we continued on. We saw my old iguana friends from last time I was in Cancun, of course they were all over the place.

Then we went snorkeling. The workers hand out free snorkeling gear to rent which was cool. As we were putting it on, a snake falls from the air onto the ground. Right away I felt Gods wrath and started to repent for my sins. Turns out birds were trying to eat this snake and were coming down to pick it up, but then the snake slivers out and falls down. This happened about three times, poor snake. The first time it landed right behind Kevin and he got really startled. No one there even flinched, it was as if we were the only ones that had seen it. The people that gave us our snorkeling gear told us that it would be too small for Kevin and they don't have his size. We took ours and let him borrow ours when we weren't using it, he was doing just fine.

The snorkel was a bit big where it took him some time to put in his mouth, but he wasn't used to at all to breathing with just his mouth. So every time he put his goggles on, he took them right off because he wanted to breathe from his nose. After a while he got a little used to it and looked under the water for a few seconds then popped his mask back off to come up and breath through his nose again. We left and returned our gear. They gave us back our snorkels and told us to keep them as souvenirs. I guess for sanitary reasons they let everyone keep them, but still, really cool. Then we saw some of the biggest turtles I have ever seen. We wanted to go swimming with the stingrays but we later learned that that cost extra so we decided to skip it. Continuing on our way, I saw a big stone structure which me and Kevin had to climb.

I went all the way up and the steps were very narrow. Coming down was a challenge because you are only walking down on your heels hoping that your heel doesn't slip.

Then we saw this big guy. This is called a Tapir. He reminds me of Yelenas dog, Knopa. A lazy Shiatzu who just lounges all day and barely moves unless there is food involved. Even on walks, Knopa wants to go back home after leaving the driveway. We also saw sharks and people going in with them. The trainers were showing people on how to not to handle sharks. Never ever put your hand in front of the sharks mouth, they will snap it shut. They show the audience by flipping the shark over and drop something right in front of the shark so they can snap their jaw shut. It was pretty scary, loud, and awesome how quick they were. Unfortunately it also cost extra to go in with the sharks. Then we get to one of the coolest parts of the park. The butterfly sanctuary. We walk in and it's a circle that goes around. At first, it's nothing too spectacular until you go upstairs. The music was in the background and the huge very colorful butterflies just fly around you and all over the place. It was very majestic. We exit the sanctuary and kept walking toward the lockers.

I saw that you can go inside the pictured structure and inside there were a whole bunch of candles lit with wax running down. It looked really cool.

I think it was to commemorate everyone that had died because a little bit after there was a cemetery. We weren't sure if it was an actual real cemetery because it's weird that it would be located in a theme park but hey, if I were ever to get buried and it was at Disneyland... I wouldn't mind. We finally get to our lockers, get our wallets and go straight to eat. We went to the first restaurant and this one doesn't open on weekends because hardly any people are at the park, still feels weird and backwards for it to be a weekend right now. We go to another restaurant and of course another buffet. No need for the wallet because this was included with our price which is pretty cool because Kevin got in for free, and with food included? The tickets to this place was definitely worth it. This one had chocolate ice cream, but I was way too full when I discovered it. No other chocolate though. Once again we had our fill and proceeded to go to the kids water park. Before that, we saw a schedule that teaches you how to make chocolate out of beans. They make chocolate in this very location and don't even have chocolate cookies!? Maybe cookie dough is hard to come by or something, I'm sure something is going on. We try to get in, but it also cost extra and it wouldn't start in another hour, same thing with a pottery class they had. I wouldn't have minded too much if we didn't have to wait for an hour. So we kept going on our way to the kids section. We get to the park and it was also fun. There were a few ways to go and Kevin was really brave. At some points he had to go inside where adults weren't allowed and he was so careful. Watched every step he took and thought about the next thing to do. At some points, he called us to help him but we told him we couldn't come up and to figure it out himself, he figured it out. At some point there were two other kids, a brother and sister. They asked if they can help Kevin and we said sure. They did and Kevin was excited, so were we. After the course is over, there is a slide to go down. Kevin demanded that we go to the bottom of the slide and catch him. Yelena goes down and is holding the camera to take a video. "Put the camera down and catch me mommy." Yelena insists that she will catch him, but he makes her put it down anyway before attempting to slide down. This is the most cautious child I have ever met. The slide led to the beginning of the park and you can go two other ways. So we did.

After a bit, they told us that they were closing this section of the park down. Kevin got a bit disappointed, but we pretty much did everything there is to do anyway so it was fine. We went to change out of our bathing suits and slowly head toward the show since it was already 6pm and the show starts at 8pm. On our way, we see people putting their feet into aquariums where fish then nibble on the dead skin of your feet. It also cost extra but we decided to try because none of us have ever done it before.

Oh man, was it so weird! I am already ticklish in my feet, so I'm trying to breath it out and not to make a fool of myself. Although me squirming so much probably didn't make me look less of a fool. I can't even describe the feeling. But I'll try. Imagine someone who didn't cut their nails on their fingers and they are pinching you with their nails. Now imagine hundreds of those nail pinchers doing that at the same time on your feet. It was a half hour "massage" and I got pretty used to it after like 10 minutes but when the fish start nibbling in between the toes? Forget about it. I was still going crazy. There were so many more fish on my feet compared to Yelena and Kevin. I guess that I need to Ped Egg my feet more often, and by more often, I mean I should probably start doing it. Kevin had the least fish on his feet and after the initial laughing and yelling like I did, he started to complain after a while. "Why aren't the fish coming to my feet?" We tried to explain to him that his feet are pretty much brand new and there really isn't anything for the fish to nibble on. He didn't accept that and still continued to complain. 30 minutes I feel is too long because at some point maybe a few fish were still there nibbling while the rest were already full I guess. We decided to leave before the time was up, I think 15 minutes is plenty of time. We continue to the show and pass more of these guys.

Everyone was escorted to the show. We go with the crowd and the get to our seats. The stage is shaped like an oval and you sit around it, kind of like a circus de ole shows. At our seats there were candles. We figured that when the show started that they would ask us to light them but as a little time went by people were starting to light them before the show had even started. Looked pretty cool on the other end, seeing people passing the flame to one another and more and more candles being lit up. Someone passed the flame to us and we passed it along as well.

The show finally had started. Again no mention of the candles. I decided to put out the flame, because I wanted to enjoy the show and not accidentally catch on fire. The show starts with the soccer like game called Pitz. Last time I went to Chiche nitza I learned about the game, but I never saw it in real time. This wasn't choreographed. It was actually performers on two different teams playing against each other. It was pretty cool watching the sport being played and how they have to score in a tiny circle using their hips. The ball was rubber like a hand ball. I always thought it was harder like a soccer ball. At least that's how it was portrayed in the El Dorado cartoon. The next thing they did was play fire hockey. I haven't heard of this game ever. It was almost exactly like hockey except they set the puck on fire which was actually a rubber ball on fire. They had to hit it up and pass it and keep passing it to keep it up as long as they could until they can shoot it into a fire pit. Very interesting. People oo'd and awed as the fire puck almost flew into the crowd sometimes. After the games were over, they went to the next period of the Mayans, how the bad evil white man has fought and taken over. During of which, they burned things and took the Mayan women. After a bit, they took out a big piece of cloth to later reveal Nuestra senora de Guadalupe. Everyone clapped and cheered which was very surprising to me actually. Because of the Catholics, the Mayans just died and went extinct in the name of their God. I understand that there are a lot of Catholics in Mexico and I appreciate it. But after a massacre has happened in the show, I just don't think it's an appropriate time to holler at the sight of the Virgin Mary appearing. I can't, however, deny that it was beautiful. Then the show proceeded to be just like the show we watched at our hotel except much higher production value. It went through all the music and dances all over Mexico. It was really neat, and even the old guys came out in masks like they did in the hotel and performed. The current mood music listed on top of this story was one of the songs which I quickly fell in love with. Hopefully you're youtubing and listening to it while reading this. After the show had finished a swarm of people went outside to a point where we couldn't even move anymore. Kevin was fast asleep so me and Yelena were swapping him while waiting for people to move. We finally start moving little by little and at the front of the line there is just one guy directing people to let them know where their bus is by looking up your destination. I can't imagine this place during the weekdays. We finally get to the bus and the driver says that we will leave in 5 minutes. Yelena and I are hoping that we would get to our hotel in time before the buffet dinner ends. The driver starts talking to another bus driver and after a good 20 minutes he finally comes back inside the bus and we start going. We get to the hotel and of course, the buffet had just closed right before we got there. We get back to our room and have some energy bars with the apple they brought before when we asked for sheets. Thanks again for the apple, we didn't even know we needed it until now! 05/27/2018 Sunday Time to Go We wake up pretty early so we can hit the pool and beach before take off. We eat our final breakfast buffet, jump our final waves. The sun was bright and finally there was no cloud in the sky. This is the first of our trip where it wasn't so gloomy. Of course it would be perfect when it's time to go. No coulds in the sky, very small waved in the water, and no wind or current whatsoever. I checked the flags and by God they actually changed them to yellow! What the hell does the weather have to be for the flags to be green!? While we were in the beach, Kevin sees the Russian girl he has met last time, she was swimming and tells me to go swimming. He loses sight of her and asks me to start swimming with him. We swim (I'm still holding him, but he is pedaling.) He finally sees her and asks me to go over there. Wow, I now know what motivates this child. We meet with her and he asks her to come over to the shore. She goes to the shore, and right at the shore Kevin tells her that he will show her something. He takes some sand and throws it her legs while laughing. "Slimey," he shouts. She doesn't seem to appreciate it, but then he starts throwing the sand on my legs and she joins in. Oh to be a child. After they got bored of that, they started to dig holes. I knew that if we would leave without swimming in the pool the last time, Kevin will not stop crying about it. So I suggested we go and Kevin asked for the girl to come. She asked her mom and got the approval. We went to the pool where they were enjoying themselves, while I enjoyed lounging around one last time. Finally it was time to go and of course Kevin didn't want to get out. After playing the let's go and a little bit more game. A game where you say let's go and the child says, let's stay a little bit more. We get him out crying and start changing him into dry clothes. "Believe me Kevin, I'll miss this place too. If it was ok for me to cry, I'd do it too." I tell him. "But it's not fair, she gets to stay!" He protests while pointing to the Russian girl having fun in the kiddie pool. I try to tell him that she came here after us and it's time for us to leave thinking that logic will prevail. It does not. We reluctantly leave and get back to the airport. But wait! We almost forgot about the tickets that Kevin had collected. Yelena makes the last pit stop to turn them in for the prize at the convenience store in our hotel. She comes back to tell us that we were supposed to turn them in at a special store at the mall inside the resort. We won't be able to catch our ride if we do that. Boo, sorry again Kevin! We get to the airport about 3 hours early. For some reason that's the only time we can book a ride. We hang out at the airport. Yelena goes to see some stores while Kevin and I play cars on the floor and look at every airplane coming in and lifting off. After a long while, our airplane gets there and we get seated. We were seated in different seats and before we tried asking the baggage claims if they can have us sit in the same row, like I did in Australia, but they said to ask the people letting us in the airplane. We did this on the way to Cancun, and they let us have it, but this time they said the plane was so full that they couldn't budge. So we decided to ask the passengers there. As we walk in, a stewardess welcoming everyone in looks at us and says, "Would this little guy want to see the cockpit?" I look at her and smile, "yes he would." I have never seen the cockpit myself, so Kevin and I go in. The pilots introduce themselves and have him sit on the drivers seat and all of a sudden he knew what to do and flew us all the way there!

Just kidding of course. The pilot asked Kevin if he wants to welcome the passengers inside through the PA system, but Kevin was way too shy. I should have done it myself, but I'm pretty shy too when it comes to those things, so I feel you Kevin, I feel you. We thank them so much and proceed to our seats. A man was sitting down and I asked him if I can switch seats with him and he told me that he had asked someone that was supposed to sit here already because he didn't like the middle or window seat. So if I really wanted to sit there, I had to find someone else to switch with me and they also were looking to switch with someone else to be with their family. So everyone was playing musical chairs. Whatever, it would only be a 5 hours, I'll just sit wherever. Found my seat, made sure to download the stupid United App pre-flight. Opened up the app to watch a movie and the stupid thing wouldn't work. I ask the people seated next to me if it was working for them, they said that the movies were very slow to load and was skipping.

United! Thank God Plants vs. Zombies 2 is an amazing game and doesn't need an internet connection. You think maybe the story would be over but the trip just seemed so amazing that something has to go wrong. We made sure to get insurance for our flights to Hawaii so now it's time to have them pay up for the cancelled trips. Hawaiian airlines had us file a claim with their insurance and they paid us almost right away. United, however, uses AIG insurance. I filed a claim, and they didn't seem to read it because I said that we couldn't come because of the Volcano going off in Hawaii and the Vog was bad for the child, and they gave me a reply to send them a doctors note. For what!? I emailed them a pretty nasty email stating that they didn't read the claim and we shouldn't be going through this mess since we paid extra for insurance. They gave us a list of what the insurance would pay for. One of the items is bad weather, so I marked that one off and replied. Then they asked me to email them the cancellation stating that it was due to weather. I looked at the cancellation and there isn't anything stating on why we cancelled out. I called United to cancel, and they asked why, I gave them the reason, and they did. I have no control on where they put it on the cancellation verification. I explained and emailed them the cancellation verification. I asked AIG if they got it, after a few days they respond with, we will need to call United to see the reason of the cancellation. Unbelievable. I mean, the volcano explosion is all over the news and that is exactly where we were supposed to travel too. This shouldn't be so impossible! I'll wait another week and see what they say. United, you never cease to amaze me on how terrible your service is and now AIG is getting to your level. For shame. Also, Hertz tried to keep the money because no matter when you cancel even before 72 hours, they keep $50 but refund the rest. Which is total BS so I had to call my chase credit card to do a chargeback. They said that the terms state that, but I asked to speak to a supervisor anyway and they claimed the chargeback, he told me that they won't be able to do much if Hertz replies back with a counter claim which they didn't. Thank God for Hertz' incompetence I got my money back. All and all we had a great time even though it was rainy 70% of the trip. Not my usual elite vacation that I'm used to but I'll take it from time to time. Thank you Yelena and Kevin for accompanying me and making it a blast. Cheers to our next trip.

Portland, I know you don't like Angelinos but too bad! To see all the pictures click here! <<Previous Journal Next Journal>>

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