Head Tale

1. Parasailing
We went parasailing on the Cancun beach in front of the Moon Palace’s sister resort, Beach Palace.  Three people. Twenty Minutes. $270 USD.  Amazing Experience = Priceless. 😉

2. Break Dance Show Surprise 
The break dance show at Sunrise was one of the best evening shows we saw, made even better at the end during the audience participation part where they got a bunch of people out of the audience to (try to) copy some of the break dancers’ best moves.  Most were hilarious(ly bad) until one breakdancer did some moves and a few flips and his audience member partner…busts out a few backflips and twists of his own!  Turns out that Andrew (?) from Michigan is a gymnast!  Needless to say he won that night’s free t-shirt! 🙂  (The picture below is one of the actual break dancers, not Andrew, but otherwise you wouldn’t know!)

3. Birthday/Anniversary Suppers
I’d arranged ahead of time to have reservations for my mom’s 70th Birthday supper and Shea’s and my 15th Anniversary supper on two of our first nights at the resort.  The staff at both restaurants – Brazilian and Mexican – went all out at both meals – Mayan coffee, “Happy Birthday” sung to mom and “Besame Mucho” to Shea and I, tableside guac/desserts made in front of us, staff even taking pictures and emailing them to us on their own cameras, etc.

4. Beach Palace Sunset
We did a day trip to the Moon Palace’s sister resort, Beach Palace, which is right in Cancun and it was one of our best days.  Great beach, meeting interesting people, playing pool games, Pace even got given a free boogie board from someone who was leaving that day!  I’d read online about the Beach Palace’s rooftop bar and pool and so I made sure to go up early to get a nice sunbed to watch the sunset over the water.

5. The Omaha Newlyweds
Shea and I were sitting at the swing bar in Sunrise on our first day when this couple ran up to us.  “Do you want our leftover sunscreen?  We’re leaving today and can’t take it on the plane!”  I didn’t bother ask why they weren’t taking it in their checked luggage but instead, started making small talk about other things. Turns out they’d just been married, it was their last day at the resort and they were having a few last drinks before going to the lobby to leave.  I took their picture for them, reminisced about Shea’s and my own wedding fifteen years ago, and even generously helped the bride finish the champagne bottle she was trying to chug before going to the airport! 😉 
6. FlowRider
Definitely the most unique aspect of the Moon Palace’s many offerings, the FlowRider Surf Simulator (one side for standing up, one side for body boarding) was pretty fun though the first time I rode it, I had a sore neck for a day and the second time, I got a rope burn (?) across my belly.

7. Speaking of Gushing Water…
Each room has a jetted tub in it which is a nice feature (unless the fact that you’re using a tub in the middle of your hotel room is going to cause issues because your kids are older or whatever) but we ran into one problem.  Ours was draining slowly and we forgot that it does an automatic “cleaning cycle” of air a while after the tub has (theoretically) drained.  So we were sitting in our room twenty minutes or so after our kids had gotten out of the tub and since it wasn’t fully drained, when the tub started “cleaning”, it ended up spraying water all over the room including Sasha’s cot which was wedged in by the end of one tub.  Shea and I both raced to the tub to turn it off (Shea hitting water on the floor and falling into the tub leaving some bad bruises on her leg!) and then we had to clean up the mess.  Sasha ended up sleeping in her brother’s bed, everything dried out overnight and all was well but it was a very memorable (but scary!) moment.  (Luckily the night this happened, the kids just had a regular bath and not a bubble bath like in the photo below or the mess would’ve been a lot worse!)

8. Grand Kid’s Race Track
We paid for day passes to the more exclusive Grand resort a couple times during our holiday as it had many special features and services we didn’t have at our resort. One that we stumbled on, almost by accident, was a race track for kids where they could take out bikes, scooters and even an electric race car (which was only working the first time we went, not the second.)  But Sasha *loved* driving this car and we could barely get her off it!

9. One Final Drink?  
Especially because we were on a two week holiday instead of one, it’s hard to believe but by the end of the trip, I was getting tired of all the usual drinks – Pina Colada, Blue Hawaiian, Mojito, Cerveza, etc.  So for the last day, I stopped ordering many of my usual drinks and just started asking bartenders to make something unique.  That introduced me to The Mexican Butterfly (not sure if link is the same recipe as I was served at Moon Palace – doesn’t look like it though) which became one of my favourite drinks I had all trip.

10. Isla Mujeres Day Trip
Fourteen years ago, we visited Cancun but it was a day trip to Isla Mujeres was the best part of our week.  This trip, we were at a Cancun area resort again but once again, it was a day trip to Isla Mujeres that was possibly the single best part of our trip.  Instead of using Resort Credits to get a less expensive but more structured trip, we paid our own way so we got to set our own agenda for the day – taking a cab, booking our own ferry tickets, finding our way to Playa Norte (regularly rated as one of the 10 Best Beaches in the World), renting our own beach chairs and staying until they were taking the beach chairs from under us.  Even getting ripped off by the cabbie who drove us home from the ferry terminal wasn’t enough to ruin our day! 😉