Mar 22, 2009 - Hotel Riu Caribé, Cancún - TO

Sunday, March 22, 2009

I hadn’t yet taken a sunset pic despite being awake every day at its rising (~ 0600), so I had a special objective this morning to get some. Unfortunately, as was the case yesterday, its rising was obscured by low level cloud, which later burned off.

Our hotel departure for the airport was 1135, so we were at poolside by 0745, Lynda leaving at 1000 and I at 1030 to clean up and pack.


I had also not taken elevated pics into the main hotel lobby area, so took some from the 4th & 5th floors.



The Hotel Riu Caribé was fabulous in all respects, most particularly the quality, knowledge and friendliness of its staff, along with its beautiful and clean site.

We had a little bit of drama at the airport. While queuing for maybe ½ hr for boarding passes and luggage checking, Lynda learned that I had thrown out that morning a customs form from our inbound trip that I had place in my passport. She said we’d been told that it would be needed to exit (or, otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to leave - imagine hysteria by Lynda). The ticket agent sent me to the customs office for a new form, which probably chewed up another ½ hr, after which I had to requeue in a now longer check-in line, after which time I got my boarding passes. For some reason, we were together on the leg from Mtl, but not on the longer leg to Mtl. Fortunately, Lynda had someone seated beside her whom we’d met in the line, and he was quite happy to change seats with me.

At Mtl, we had to pick up our luggage, clear customs and recheck luggage during our 2 hr layover. We had shelled out for a couple of sandwiches on the flight, and went to Timmy’s for a couple of sandwich combos. I was still wearing shorts and wanted to change in the adjacent airport washroom into nylon track pants for the TO exit. I was kinda surprised that there were no urinals, but it made sense after exiting when I confirmed that I’d been in the Ladies!

The flight departure was delayed ½ hr for inbound passengers; nonetheless, we landed TO as scheduled at midnight. Lynda’s brother, Rob, dutifully arrived with our car to pick us up, drop him off, and speed away home.

Mar 21, 2009 - Riu Caribé, Cancún

Saturday, March 21, 2009

This was a lazy day for us. We had achieved a balance between developing a tan in the short time available while avoiding burns, and were able to handle more time in the sun, albeit always lathered in SPF30.

I took a few more pics of the hotel interior and the sunrise, which wasn’t that great, as it’s earlier rising had been obscured by low lying cloud (should have taken it in earlier days when the opportunity presented).

We spent our time poolside from 0800 - 1200 and 1330 - 1630. I hadn’t really been tanning my back and flipped over for maybe 30 minutes, which resulted in a manageable burn, also probably because the sunscreen that Lynda had lathered on my back had worn off.


Here are some pics from the lagoon side of our hotel, visible through the many window portals that punctuate the hallway corridor that runs the entire back (from the sea view) of the hotel, including its wings, and providing access to rooms (none of which are on the lagoon side). The front (from Kukulcan Boulevard view/lagoon) of the hotel.

As usual, we had a nice buffet supper in the Albatross restaurant, this time remembering to take some pics of the fruit carvings that are displayed every day.


With all the sun we took in that day, we were pretty bushed and passed on the evening’s “Mr. Riu Show” (whatever that was), as we had on the “Miss Riu Show” earlier in the week (I’m reasonably sure that it’s audience members that are dressed up and performing on stage).

We closed our week not having touched a single drop of the booze dispensers in our room.

Mar 20, 2009 - Riu Palace Las Americas & Riu Cancún, Cancún

Friday, Mar 20, 2009

Since learning, after the fact, that the equinox of March 20-21 would present the feathered serpent undulating down Chichén Itzá’s El Castillo at the recommended time of 0610, I was wrestling with whether we should have gone on one of those days. To my relief, the morning started quite obscured by cloud, which quickly burned off.

We had completed our out of town stints and decided against a planned day at Xcaret Eco Theme Park in Playa del Carmen (decision made easier by the pickpocket team), which would likely have been fabulous in that the package included water tubing and snorkelling down its underground river beside the sea and what was reported as a fabulous evening show.

http://www.xcaret.com/

Instead, our plan was to spend the morning at the pool and then take the bus up a couple of km to Riu Palace Las Americas & Riu Cancún, located beside each other where the road through the hotel zone turns south toward the airport. We had the same all-included privileges at Riu Cancún, except for the reservation restaurants (which is no big limitation), so decided to have lunch there and do some pool time.


We were poolside from 0800 - 1100 at our hotel before cleaning up and hopping the bus.

I had wanted to do a little walking and check out the beach that runs south, but Lynda had chosen her “fashionable” sandals and not walking wear, plus was having some old lady leg trouble, so that option quickly went by the boards; however, one of the staff at the Riu Cancún later told me that there wouldn’t have been the white uninterrupted beach I sought until several km further south, it still not having recovered from the 2005 hurricane damage.

Our 1st stop was at the Riu Palace Las Americas. It reportedly is a higher standard hotel than the other 2; however, one of the people we met said that few of the rooms have ocean views. Nonetheless, it had a pretty infinity pool (and probably others), with bathers on 2 levels and access to the beach.


We then went next door to the Riu Cancún, which has 3 pools and is party central, with lots of college and 20s types to be seen - no doubt because all-included entertainment bars like Coco Bongo and Señor Frog's are right around the corner.

http://www.cocobongo.com.mx/home.php?Lenguaje=en
http://www.senorfrogs.com/cancun/

With its several pools and what appeared to our eyes, we assumed the hotel was considerably larger than ours; however, it has something like 569 rooms (X 10 students hidden per room).

We had lunch at its main Don Juan buffet-style restaurant, seated outside in a sheltered patio section, with a view of the pool and ocean. I wouldn’t say that the restaurant interior was as pretty as our hotel, but it seemed to have a wider selection (including a station that made sandwiches to order) and its mushroom pasta that day was certainly flavourful.

The beach of each of the Rius is continuous and quite nice, with a beautiful view.

We then selected the quieter pool, which is at the east side of the complex and so partly in shade at that time of day, which was fine with us because we’d already had a good bit of sun.

We returned to our hotel for a drink and cleaned up for supper before attending the evening entertainment - Mexican night - in the theatre complex, during which time there was an horrendous downpour.