7 Years ago I didn't have a blog, and for whatever reason didn't post our Honeymoon pictures on Facebook. I kind of thought they were lost forever, until I was cleaning off an old laptop the other day and I found them! Now it's time to post them online so they're here forever :)
We were married November 10, 2012. On November 12, we hopped on a plane and flew through Dallas to Playa Del Carmen, and spent 7 nights at the Royal Hideaway Playacar, a 5.5 start resort. I cannot wait to go again some day. Maybe for our 10th anniversary??? (Who wants to babysit 2+ kids for a week in November 3 years from now?)
These pictures are horribly out of order because I don't have the time to organize them properly. I tried to categorize them into groups anyway. They're also horribly out of focus and fuzzy for the most part. Goes to show how far phone cameras have come in 7 years!
Let's start off with the travel.
For some reason I JUST NOW realized what this is actually for. I don't know what I even thought the sign meant before haha.
Just a baby!!
Also just a baby!!
Moving on to the resort and grounds around the resort. I cannot begin to express how beautiful this place is. It is an adults only resort, and just so fancy. We were way out of place, but I bet if we went back now we'd fit right in. Not because we're fancy, but because we actually have a busy life to escape from! Haha
They gave us a top floor room with a vaulted ceiling. The floors were always cool and the rooms smelled like diffused oils. They always had some serene music playing and calming pictures going on the TV after they came to do the daily turndown.
We were so young haha. We thought the TP was so fancy...
Strange ladder from our balcony
One day we got a spot beside one of the hot tubs. There were 2 or three hot tubs below the infinity pool, with private little seating areas by them. Right behind (in front of?) the hot tub at the bottom of this picture is the beach!
Instead of being a traditional hotel, there were villas all throughout the property. This was our villa. Every villa has a concierge who is at your beck and call 24 hours a day. Obviously we didn't ask him for anything except to help find my water bottle one day.
And then the pool... Oh my goodness.
Jumping around. This was the French restaurant. There were 7 or 8 different restaurants featuring different cuisines. We ate at all of them I think, and ate twice at the sushi restaurant. You could also order room service instead, but we liked the idea of getting dressed up and going out for dinner every night. Of course, it is all inclusive, so you don't have to worry about paying for food, drinks, anything really.
I don't remember when/why they set our room up all pretty. It wasn't the first night. Maybe they just picked a night haha!
The resort entrance
Looking back from the beach
The grounds were so lush and beautiful
In the evenings they'd have live music here, followed by karaoke inside the martini bar there.
This is the walk to the "front desk" at the hotel. To the right when you go up those steps is a hall to the front desk. They bring you champagne and wet towlettes to dab yourself off(??) as you check in. We were (are) so not used to being doted on like that. I am sure we'd be borderline uncomfortable with it if/when we go back too. By the end of the week we got used to it though!
Okay! Now for some actual pictures of us and what our day to day looked like! (Again, out of order, but I'm just going to have to be okay with that).
I mean come on, right?
So many long island iced teas
On our first couple days we were dreaming about getting one of those cabanas. They always seemed to be snatched up before we could get to one. (Also, there is apparently a yoga class going on in the left of the photo haha)
There were SO many mid-day naps. Can't have anything to do with the amount of drinks we had though.
Scored one!! Well actually, someone else scored one for us. We were by far the youngest people at the resort (except for Adam Lamberg and his new wife on their mini-moon... Adam Lamberg is Gordo from Lizzie Macguire! Yup... that happened!). Anyway, we were the youngest, and lots of the older people sort of adopted us. One morning we went down to the pool and an older gentleman came up to us and told us he saved us a cabana in the morning. So nice of him!! Another couple went to town and bought us a beautiful fruit bowl that we still use to this day.
We spent most of the afternoon in this cabana
There were big lizards all over the place. The dorky animal lover that I am apparently crawled onto this other person's chair to get a picture. Awesome.
There was a poolside restaurant that you could go to for lunch, or you could order food to your seat, or cabana, or wherever you were basically. I guess this day we ordered some lime sorbet!
They have lots of activities for you to participate in if you want. Dance classes, yoga, tastings, cooking class, etc. We didn't do many of them, but they were doing chocolate dipped strawberries once, so we jumped at that opportunity!
A frequent mid-day snack for us. By the end of the week the man who worked at the pool restaurant knew us well. He would see us take our nap, and then we'd wake up to margaritas beside us (on the rocks, no salt of course), and a plate of chips and guac rushed over before we could think about asking for it. Paradise. This is my Eden haha!
The restaurants were all 4 diamond and served delicious, beautiful dishes.
David's duck salad? Or something. This was 7 years ago. I don't really remember the details haha!
On our last full day we somehow got this cabana right on the beach. It was conveniently located right in front of the restaurant. I'm pretty sure we were there from morning into the late afternoon, savouring every moment of our last day.
We also were likely in a permanent state of tipsy-ness that day. We would turn around to a new drink waiting for us every time we finished ours.
Just wake up from a morning nap? Here, have this chocolate martini!
Finish your margarita? Well here's two more! The staff really take the time to get to know you and your tendencies and preferences. We were so impressed. They would also show up with bottles of water right as you start to feel you could use some.
The lunch spot. I think this was from our first day
I had my rings soldered together while we were away, so I picked up this cheap one at Claire's or something to wear for the week. Probably better than bringing real diamonds anyway! Haha
Take me back!
One night we were walking around and stumbled upon a hot tub in the bushes. Very strange, but also deserted! We went and got changed and grabbed a drink and sat around in this quiet tub of warmth for a while
Why was nobody else here?!
Everything was so grand and beautiful
Right before the ocean knocked me over and stole my sunglasses
At the sushi restaurant.
Everywhere we went, it was noted we were on our honeymoon. We got some special treatment like at the Asian restaurant they seated us in a private room in the back instead of in the main restaurant area.
Another poolside lunch time favorite
This photo was taken by Gordo. I mean Adam... and his wife. They brought us these coconuts too!
More event participation by us! I think this was tequila tasting... That's the only reason I can think of that I'd be drinking something so blue and probably sweet.
I really loved this haircut on me. Maybe I should do it again... CHOP CHOP!
Not once the whole week do I recall feeling drunk or hungover. These pictures make it look like we drank a lot of alcohol, but we must have balanced it out well, or stopped early or something... We definitely didn't stay up late any of the nights. I think if/when we go back it will be the same. We're always early to bed early to rise people haha!
Coffee with Bailey's for breakfast please! The breakfast buffet was always a win, too. Up on the floor above the poolside restaurant, they had a buffet with all the breakfast food you could imagine.
Our breakfast table one day
Not a bad breakfast view!
Haha two times in the whole week we had someone take a picture of us.
Bad picture, but that little creature was one of many roaming the property. I asked the man bringing us to our villa the first day what it was, and he said it was sort of like a squirrel. No sir. A squirrels defining feature is its big fluffy tail. This animal has no tail to speak of. I'm still confused. It's like a hare without the ears.
The resort faces East, so we didn't get to see any spectacular ocean sunsets. Only downside I can think of to being on the east side of Mexico.
That is the poolside restaurant with the breakfast buffet restaurant above it. At night the downstairs restaurant turns into the fancy steak house, where we had the best french onion soup of our lives at that point.
The Royal Hideaway was about a 30-45 minute walk on the beach to the town of Playa Del Carmen. We walked there a few times to do some shopping and site seeing. Most of the time though, we just stuck at the resort.
We could have booked excursions, gone snorkeling, rented Sea-doos, etc. We chose to relax and spend time together. We paid all this money to be at the resort. I'm going to make the most of our time at the resort! Also, we're just not very adventurous and I'm quite okay with that haha!
Alright. Now I'm sufficiently bummed that we won't be going back in the foreseeable future, but I'm so grateful we did this as a newly married couple. I do think we'd appreciate aspects of this particular resort a lot more now with our increased life experience, so David... start saving!! We actually only booked this hotel in the first place because Marta's dad religiously watches the travel sites and saw a ridiculous deal. I think the whole trip (flights included) ran us $3300? Or something like that.
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