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5 Days in Cancún: Part 1

Challis Hackley
Jun 19, 2017
4 min read

Cancún is an amazing place. I spent five days and four nights down in Mexico with my family. We stayed at an all-inclusive resort, GR Solaris Cancún, which was a first for me. I am convinced now that everyone should try it at least once. When everything is included you don't have to worry about anything. You don't have to pack drinks for the beach or snacks at the pool because they'll have it there; they'll bring it to you. You don't have to plan out all your activities because they'll have events and game nights and performances all throughout your stay. It's relaxation at a new level that I wasn't used to but quickly got accustomed to. Everyone deserved to be pampered now and again.

Anyway, here's the breakdown of my time there with my family and what we did each day. This post just goes over my first two days. Next week, I'll post on what I did my last three.

We flew out early Tuesday morning and after a layover in Houston we got to our hotel in Cancún by early evening. Our hotel was amazing. I hadn't looked at pictures or anything because my mom did all the planning for this trip, but we were right next to the ocean, technically the Caribbean Sea, with our own private beach. It wasn't crowded at all and the sound! The sound of the waves followed you whenever you were outside. We ate our evening meal overlooking the beach and that was the beginning of a great week of food.

It was an all-inclusive resort and the food was sublime. I had a hard time coming back the the real world and normal food. Our hotel had a bunch of restaurants varying from formal (where there was a dress code) to buffets and all the food was great. I, however, really liked ordering room service at all hours of the day because we didn't have to pay anything extra for it, it was included. It was also really cool.

Wednesday was our first full day and we spent it well. I slept in while my parents went to a time-share presentation for our resort. After I got up and got ready we went down to the beach. I had forgotten how extraordinary the ocean is. It goes on into the horizon and makes you feel so small but free at the same time. It was a beautiful day with a little cloud cover but I still got a little burned. We played in the waves and sand for a couple of hours and it awesome and fun and relaxing and there really isn't much more that I can tell you about that.

After the beach we had gotten our fill of sand but not our fill of water so we headed up to the pool to hang out before going kayaking. The pool-side was also really nice. They had a buffet with really good Hawaiian pizza and a drink bar that made some awesome coconut daiquiris (non-alcoholic for me even though the drinking age there is eighteen). They were also playing poolside bingo which I thought was kind of funny.

Before I get to Kayaking, let me tell you about Cancún. The area that we traditionally think of as Cancún is actually the Zona Hotelera “Hotel Zone” adjacent to the city proper. The Zona Hotelera is the L-shaped island resort area of Isla Cancún "Cancún Island." So the thing about Cancún is is is this little strip of land/island that surrounds a lagoon and juts out into the Caribbean Sea and it is seriously skinny, only like a quarter of a mile wide. Although you can't usually tell how skinny it is because there are all sorts of buildings and trees blocking your view.

Anyway, my point in telling you all this was to give you a frame of reference for the Nichupte lagoon on the western, inland side. That's where we went kayaking and that's were the crocodiles are. So we walked across the street from our hotel to this little bungalow on the Lagoon side and got our paddles and life jackets and got a few pointers: how to go and stop, don't go too far into the lagoon (for obvious reasons), and to be back by 4:00 because that's when the crocodiles start getting active. And with that, away we went. I wish I had pictures because the water was still really clear on that side of the island and you could see down to all the cool plants and little fishes. We didn't see any crocodiles thought (sad day) but we did see a few iguanas climbing on the rocks and water birds on the old docks. So that was really fun and cool too.

After Kayaking, we went back to our room to get cleaned up before dinner. We went to this cool Brazilian BBQ place within our resort. They have a great salad bar and buffet-like set up and then waiters come around to your tables and offer you meat from these big skewers. So they carve it up right there at your table and put it on your plate. At one point, the wait staff also danced through the restaurant in a very Carnival-like fashion. It was way cool and I had a great time.

After dinner, we had a show. Our hotel had a stage and hired performers that but on shows each night. The entertainers were mostly dancers so it wasn't like a play or anything but they would do dance performances of popular things. The first night it was Disney Princesses and Superheroes. So they had dance numbers for Belle, Tiana, Rapunzel etc. and then there were dancing stormtroopers and a whole fight dance scene between Ultron and the Avengers. It was way fun and the dancers were really cool about taking pictures and talking to the little kids afterwards.