Back in August 2023, myself (Lucy) and Adam got married. As we’ve lived together for a while now, we asked for any wedding gifts to be money that we could put towards our honeymoon. As I had done most of the planning for the wedding, Adam was left in charge of organising the honeymoon, which he kept a complete surprise from me. Over the next five weeks, we’ll tell you all about the mystery Mexico honeymoon. We hope you enjoy!
Hotel Activities
Being as this was our honeymoon, I didn’t think I would want to do many activities during the holiday. We had however booked a resort that had activities on site each day so knew that if we changed our mind, there would be plenty to do.
During the first few days of the holiday, we spent time getting ourselves familiar with the resort, relaxing and soaking up the sun. We spent most of our days either laying on sun beds on the hotel’s private beach, swimming in the sea or in the pools. There were 5 pools across the hotel. These included two pools with swim up access to the villas and both had a swim up bar; the quiet pool next to the tequila bar; the activities pool and the premium pool which only premium guests had access to. These activities were punctuated by trips to the restaurants or the bars.
On the 5th day of the honeymoon, we happened to be at the bar getting a drink to take back to our sun beds as one of the hotel reps was setting up the blackjack table. Adam suggested that we hang around and join in and I reluctantly agreed. I have never really played blackjack before but this didn’t matter. The rep Louis explained all the rules and we even played three different ways (normal, poco loco and loco loco rounds). The poco loco (a little bit crazy) round included having one card dealt to you face up and one face down. The loco loco (crazy crazy) round meant you had both cards dealt to you face down. I was awful but this was all part of the fun! From then on, we joined in with a lot more of the activities.
Throughout the two weeks we participated in water polo, pool volleyball and aqua aerobics in the activities pool, beach volleyball on the beach, table tennis in the activities area, blackjack in the beach bar and massive Zumba in the sea.
One of my favourite activities across the two weeks was coconut painting. Around the paths in the resort, coconuts were placed around the edge. Some of these coconuts were painted and I enjoyed looking at the different designs as we went between bars, restaurants and the beach. Half way through the honeymoon, we got to paint our own coconuts. The coconuts were painted white and then you could paint your own design onto them. Here are our two coconuts.
Evening Activities
During the evenings, the bars were open with different singers and some shows such as magicians, circus acts and a silent disco. However we didn’t get to see any of these. We either were still out having tea and missed them or were too tired out from the day and so were already back in our room. We did however enjoy the Fire Show evening two times and the Mexican Fiesta evening once. These events started on the beach with a huge feast of BBQ food on the Fire Show evenings and Mexican food on the Mexican Fiesta evening. The Fire Show evenings then had a marimba player whilst food was served and eaten then the fire show started with artists twirling and breathing fire all set to music. The Mexican Fiesta evenings started with a Mariachi band whilst food was served and eaten and then a Folklore Dance for entertainment after.
As the second Fire Show evening fell on Halloween, they had added extra entertainment to the evening including people dressed in costumes celebrating the Day of the Dead and there was an additional show before the fire show which included music and puppets from Coco. They served Mexican food this evening instead of the BBQ food and the serving areas were set up like ofrendas.
On the 1st and 2nd November, the days which Mexicans celebrate the Day of the Dead, the staff at the resort had created different ofrendas and asked guests to vote for their favourite as part of a competition. These were able to view in the evening around the side and back of the spa.
Offsite Excursions
The final type of activity available during the holiday was the offsite excursions. These were bookable prior to our arrival, via the Tui Blue app, or with the Tui reps in the hotel. There were over 100 different excursions to book from historical visits to Chichen Itza, to adventurous trips to Xcaret water park, to nightlife trips to Coco Bongo. Adam had pre-booked us an excursion which I then paid for as part of his birthday present. This was a half day trip out snorkelling with turtles. We had an amazing trip to Akumal (which means Place of the Turtle in Mayan) and saw lots of different sea life including a handful of turtles. We then visited a cenotes which is a natural pit, or sinkhole, resulting when a collapse of limestone bedrock exposes groundwater. We swam in these and saw quite a few fish here as well. We had a fantastic day and would recommend this to anyone visiting Mexico!
Check back next week to hear all about our experience with the food and drink at the hotel! Catch you soon!
