George Carlin is basically the patron saint of Freedom to Read Week as far as I’m concerned. I’m technically in Mexico right now but due to the magic of time-delayed posts, I’ll use his “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” as inspiration for this week’s posts.
Anyhow, at this time tomorrow night, we should be just nicely arrived at our resort so I thought I’d leave off with a few last thoughts as I’m not sure how much I’ll be online the next week (we’re in the basic rooms so likely won’t have Internet unless we’re fortunate enough to have a room close to the lobby or pools or other areas that have wifi.)
It’s weird that all of the anticipation of a trip, the research, the calendar moving closer actually sort of gives me a bit of a melancholy feeling when the trip finally arrives. Now, don’t get me wrong – this feeling will be gone with the adrenaline rush tomorrow of getting to the airport for what is always a long travel day but knowing it will be capped by humid tropical air and a margarita (or dos.)
I started using a Google Spreadsheet template to track my weight before our trip last January. It’s got a rolling 1o-day average so it helps you to not focus on day-to-day fluctuations but longer term trends. I’ve had periods where I was good about eating healthy and times where it was Christmas. But I’m going into this trip about 10 lbs over my goal weight and 3lbs over what I weighed for our trip last year. (I’ll blame that on basically throwing any “diet” out the window the past week or so – beer, junk food, etc.)
At the same time, even though I’m heavier than I hoped to be, I’m literally less than one pound over my all-time average weight for the past year plus that I’ve been tracking my weight and still 20-30 pounds less than I was at my all-time heaviest.
Did I ever mention that this is the first all-inclusive I’ve been to where a week doesn’t feel like it’ll be long enough? So much to do right on site.
That also means that, depending on how our week goes, this might be the first resort that I ever have any desire to go back to (but at the same time, there are more resorts than anyone could visit in a lifetime so it’s always nice to try somewhere new.)
I may or may not have taken screen caps of a bunch of tropical drink recipes and put them on my phone for ease of requesting from the bartenders! 😉
It’s hard to say what I’m most excited for on this trip but I think being in a resort where I’m likely to see *real* monkeys in the wild (as opposed to Sasha who’s a monkey of a different type) is right up there.
We overpack. Every. Single. Time. I mean, I’m taking like seven t-shirts and will likely end up making 2-3 stretch for most of the week.
Every night for pretty much the last month or more, one of the stories I’ve told Sasha (and occasionally Pace) at bedtime is a thinly-veiled retelling of “Home Alone” where Pace and Sasha get to Mexico and have various adventures while mommy and daddy accidentally get left behind. Fun stuff.
I don’t know if I’ve ever done this before (in a very serious way anyhow) but we’re already thinking about where we’ll go next year!
Shea likes to joke that I was the “best bride ever” when we were planning our destination wedding in the Mayan Riviera back in 2002.
And it’s true – my natural “anal retentive” librarian personality shone through as I pretty much handled all the arrangements from flowers to writing the entire script for the ceremony to picking the music including this song.
But perhaps I should’ve listened to the lyrics a bit more closely beyond the first verse?
According to Wikipedia…
In the lyrics, a man looks back with regret and pain for having lied to the woman he can’t forget (“…and now as I wander, my thoughts ever stray…”) and returned for too late, just as she was preparing for marriage. The lyric is in juxtaposition with the music, which swings with syncopated joy.
Bonus if you’ve read this far: Here’s a slideshow I created for our wedding reception in Shea’s hometown where many of the family and friends who couldn’t make our Mexican wedding came together on an August long weekend for a Mexican-themed fiesta. (I updated it at some point to include a couple other notable events in our life including our move to Ontario and the expected due date for Pace which replaced a joke slide we had in the original showing a picture of Shea with her cousin’s baby and a big question mark which got a big laugh at our reception! Oh, and sorry that some of the slide captions got cut off when I imported the original file to Google. I’ll fix that when I have time.)
For best effect, have Mary Chapin Carpenter’s version of John Lennon’s “Grow Old With Me” playing in the background as you watch.
As I mentioned in a recent post, as fun as they are, most all-inclusives basically feature the same type of amenities at their core – a handful of buffet and a la carte restaurants, pools and beaches, bars and night clubs, poolside games and nighttime shows.
That made me think about what some resorts have done or could do to make themselves unique…
Create a theme for your resort. Some already do this in fairly generic ways – “Adults Only” or “Family Focused” or even partner with media companies like Hanna-Barbera or Hard Rock. But I’m thinking more like what the resort we’re going to in a couple days has done by embracing the “Eco-Friendly” theme in a variety of ways – from having rescue animals on site to having solar panels on buildings to not giving bottled water. There are tons of other ways that resorts could embrace a theme – related to the local culture or targeting book lovers or yoga/holistic lifestyles or pretty much any sub-group – to differentiate themselves (although the risk is that resorts need to be “all things to all people” by default so having too narrow of a theme could backfire or get old.)
Be a true all-inclusive. Many resorts have a few things that they still charge for – most spa services, most motorized water sports, non-house wines in the a la carte restaurants. Since we’re already (over) paying for everything we get “for free”, why not raise the price of the package by a hundred bucks and let customers pick one free massage or one free ride on a jet ski or one free bottle of wine at an a la carte?
Relating to spa services, a resort could probably buy a few mid-grade massage chairs to offer to clients free of charge for those who are unwilling to pay for spa services.
You see this increasingly at some resorts but have a kid-friendly, non-alcoholic bar specifically for the young ones, either in the kids club or near the pools.
Most resorts have a mini-fridge with pop, beer and water. Why not throw a few other edible snacks in there – cookies or peanuts or whatever? (I know some resorts to offer this as a bonus for people paying for higher level service/memberships.)
There are all kinds of sports-related options that all-inclusives haven’t embraced much beyond beach volleyball and zumba by the pool (possibly for liability reasons.) But why not have options for those who love skateboarding? Parkour? Zipline over the pool? Trampolines? Even a deeper pool with a diving board? Or, if those things are too dangerous – why not an on-site bowling alley? A small race track with mini-race cars? A batting cage?
Many do this already (everyone in the Dominican Republic plays it up as “Punta Canada” instead of “Punta Cana”) but they could do even more to appeal to the Canadians that swarm the resorts – have real Caesars on the drink menu instead of telling us that a Bloody Mary is the same thing, make sure you have at least 1-2 Canadian channels in the hotel rooms (and show a hockey game in the sports bar!), have maple syrup and poutine on the menu. 😉
I’ve only heard of one resort in Jamaica that does this but why not have a staff member assigned to you for the week in the role of child care giver and light housekeeping for those who want to take their kids but also who want some mommy and daddy time. (Again, for those willing to pay more, many resorts do offer a concierge service.)
Especially for resorts located in or near cities, have an option that only includes breakfast but allows clients to go off-resort for their lunches and/or dinner to enjoy local cuisine.
Formally partner with local schools or charities for guests who want to help those beyond the hotel workers. Many all-inclusive guests take gifts/tips but the majority of these go to the workers at the resorts and may or may not get shared more widely. Something like www.packforapurpose.org and knowing you can leave gifts right at the front desk, is a big help.
One fun thing about being on holidays is that Pace and I spontaneously decided to go grab some late night snacks tonight after both Sasha and mom were in bed.
He likes regular Doritos but decided to try a flavour that’s mostly regular Doritos but also has some super-hot ones mixed in (even though he’s not a big fan of spicy food.)
I did the recording but the editing and other choices are all him – it’s amazing how much he absorbs from YouTube videos – having an intro, the “hey guys” line that all YouTubers say, having his own logo, working in a dab, sound effects and music, even having a funny “outtake” at the end.
One thing I didn’t mention but which is a strong memory was our decision to see a bullfight.
I’m not sure what I expected but I was surprised by a lot of it – not just that the matador killed the bull (part of me thought he just danced around it for a while then both man and beast would leave the arena unharmed) but all that led-up to that point – guys on padded horses stalking the bull and weakening it by stabbing in its shoulders first, “pre-matadors” coming out to do some more damage before the main guy came out.
So yeah, the take away, at least for me, is that I’m glad I did it for the experience (even as distasteful as I ultimately found it) but I’d probably never want to do it again.
