Riviera Maya Vacation - Part Four

I absolutely love being away on vacation. I would be completely happy if the only thing to do was just sit on the beach............but for some reason everybody likes to eat as if they hadn't seen food for months and months. Indulgence at a high level.

If you are on a cruise, there will be plenty of food and plenty of drinks. If you are at an all-inclusive resort, such as the Grand Palladium, there is plenty of food and plenty of drinks. The difference?.............aside from being on solid ground as opposed to floating at sea..........you will be paying for the drinks on the cruise. All-inclusive resorts take eating to a higher level in that you are tended to by the staff at every turn. Furthermore, there are far more options to choose from.

There is always a buffet.........and the Grand Palladium Resort has more than one of those. There is a different theme for each night........Mexican.......Caribbean.........French.......American.......Italian..........Spanish........etc. If you can't find something that you like at the buffet, then there must be something wrong with you and you need a doctor to check it out. The buffet offers breakfast........lunch......and dinner.....every day.

As buffets go, I would not say that this was the very best that I have encountered.........but there was plenty of food.....plenty of options.....and plenty of space to move around. On a scale of one to ten, I would give it a seven. If you compare these pictures to those that I posted about the buffet at the Iberostar Bavaro Resort.......well........just visually you can see what a ten looks like.

This resort is kid friendly.............and thus.........there is PIZZA!

Very clean.

This was the first time I had ever seen uncooked lasagna noodles used as a food decoration.


The decor was rather minimal.......and not at all over the top.


I am not a very big dessert person, but the desserts here looked fantastic and well done. Supernurse seemed to enjoy the desserts........hehehe.


If a buffet does nothing for you, there are several different ala carte restaurants on the premises. One night we chose the Ribs And More ala carte. Another night we chose the Italian ala carte. Both were very good and the service was excellent. The ala carte restaurants are part of the all-inclusive package........you already paid for it.

Very.....very......nice presentation.

Enough about the food already. Sure......I probably could write alot more about it but I woulld be just echoing stuff that others have already written in various reviews on TripAdvisor and the Palladium Addicts website. I recommend both sites.

Stay tuned folks!

Part Five is coming next and there is so much more to tell you.

Riviera Maya Vacation - Part Three

So there I was......................at the beach................and there is nothing better that I can think of doing other than being right there..................and absorbing everything............the sun......the scent........the sound of the waves reaching the shore..........my eyes being filled with so many things to stimulate my brain...............the taste of the air..............the sand.................the sky.............and the assorted people from all walks of life. The bold.......the shy......the pleasant........the arrogant.............the beautiful and the ugly............all of these people were here.......right there on the beach...........and while I was there looking at all of them........they were there looking at me too.......................well....................I guess I stood out just a little............they couldn't miss me with the long ponytail, the ravens shirt, and those hideous sunglasses.

When we first hit the beach, I was a bit surprized to see as many people there as I did. For weeks and weeks I had been checking out the assorted pictures of the beach that were posted on the Palladium Addicts website........and from what I saw, it never looked to me that there were ever very many people on this beach or even at this resort for whatever reason.......particularly in November. I had even been frequently checking the four webcams that are on the website. The pool cams and the beach cam............same thing...........hardly any people to see. On this day.......different story. This day I am there in person to see things with my own eyes and I like it.

We positioned ourselves right about dead center of the entire coastline of the resort....located right up front where we could be seen easily by friends or family that might happen to be checking the webcam from that Palladium Addicts website. Right away, Supernurse and SmileyNurse began their mission to soak up the sun and relax. Me?...........think of me as the "eye-witness".........hehehe.
Wouldn't you want to do this everyday?..........Look at how calm the water is............simply fantabulous..............I felt like the camera being used in a Corona commercial.

While some people just relaxed on the beach, others joined the Palladium staff for water aerobics.

At he farthest point here in this picture is the area where the turtles lay eggs.

People of all shapes and sizes...............roaming about..........and having the time of their lives.

Sometimes you have to try to look away............but it is like when you are driving on the highway and there is an accident up ahead and you just gotta turn your head and look at it.............arrrrgghhhhh!............hehehehe.

The lifeguard tower is where the beach webcam is located. The sign marks the ideal spot to wave at the camera. This was our view to the south from our spot on the beach.

A picture worth a thousand words.............and yet none of those words can even describe being there. There was trouble brewing to the south and we didn't know it at the time...........as beautiful a sight the clouds are as they dump a curtain of water to our south.

There is more to tell and more pictures to show you.
Stay tuned for Part Four!

Riviera Maya Vacation - Part Two

After we got ourselves assimilated and ready.........as if we weren't ready....hehehe.....we proceeded to roam about and begin baking in the hot sun of Quintana Roo, Mexico. It didn't take me very long to ditch my black Ravens cap.......which was baking the gray matter inside my head......so I went to one of the shops located in one of the lobbies and bought a white cap. I also had forgotten a pair of sunglasses when we left Baltimore..........how stupid was that?.......so I bought a pair of cheesy purple and white sunglasses as well. Now I was ready for the business at hand........hehehe.

The first thing I took note of is the hugeness of this resort. There is a ton of walking to get here and there.......which is good cardio.....not a bad thing for me since I need that kind of thing.......but when I walk any kind of distance.....even a short distance.......my upper right leg and hip starts killing me. Oh well......I just had to suffer through it........and what a place to suffer, eh? I would rather suffer here than in Baltimore.

Iguanas were pretty much everywhere..........well........not everywhere.........but they were around throughout the resort.......especially along walkways and near the pools. Iguanas do not bother anyone........they just hope for something to eat and they love to sit in the sun.......just like alot of people do.

It seems like there was a pool everywhere I looked. Huge pools, smaller pools for kid and even an adult pool which was a bit more secluded in that it was surrounded by bushes for privacy. The small pool in the picture above was one of those for kids. To the left was one of the huge pools.

The huge pools have, of course, pool bars.

Around the outer edges of the huge pool are lounge chairs. In the picture above, you can see that the pool has built-in loungers so you can lay right there in the pool.

I realize that it appears that there aren't many people here. This was not their busy season and the resort was not even half-full. Even if this had been their busiest season, it would still seem like it wasn't very busy because of the huge expanse of the property. I cannot write words to describe it and the pictures only go so far with telling the story........this place is the largest I had ever seen.

We spent some time at the adult pool. You can see that the jacuzzi is surrounded by large white columns. As you can see in the picture, I was fighting for my life and reaching for help so I wouldn't drown.........hehehe.

The adult pool area was very nice and the only shenanigans that I saw was a few exposed breasts.........one pair of which would float above the water.....hehehe. The other entertainment in that regard was an interacial couple that played in the pool. The woman was huge..........let's put it this way..........when she got the the pool, the water level rose at least several inches.......hehehe. As it happened, she and her husband frolicked in the pool and I couldn't help but watch as he attempted to lift her out of the water and body slam her back into the water......it was hilarious to watch......but a bit sickening to see her exposed extremely huge sagging breasts flapping around in the water..........then again.......there are some people that enjoy such a thing. No harm was done and it was obvious that the couple was simply enjoying themselves and having a great time.

Don't you wish you could have been there?

Supernurse was soaking up the sun as she listened to music on her mp3 player. One of my favorite things to do is to sit next to her and watch her enjoy the music that I put on her mp3 player. I could do that all day. She was happy, happy, happy.......and I was delighted.

The pools alone would be more than enough for some folks..........but I am not really a pool person since I cannot swim. Somehow, along the way, in my life, I had acquired a love of the beach. There is something about the beach that is good for the soul.........and for me, it is a necessity. The problem is that I might only get to a beach only a few times in a year. Needless to say.........I was here for the beach and hit the beach i did.

In this picture, I am looking south towards the rocky reef area. This area is prime for snorkeling, which I didn't do this time. The salt water pool is located just on the other side of the point......but more on that later. Our suite was located in the 3-story villas that you can see in the distance.

What do you do when you are at the beach and the sun is going down behind you?........well.........you sit right there and enjoy that which is right before your eyes. It was like being in a Corona commercial.

One day at the beach, we spotted a cloud that was forming a water spout. It was interesting to watch it form and unform and eventually it made it to a complete funnel down to the water. While this was happening..........I was in the water with Captain Morgan. Supernurse took the opportunity to snap off a couple pictures of the event.

Perhaps the water spout was an omen. Maybe it was a sign of things to come. At the time.......I had no idea what could be heading our way.

Stay tuned..........there is plenty more to tell and there are plenty more pictures to show you.

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Riviera Maya Vacation - Part One

And there I was............at the Cancun airport, waiting for AGI, the transportation company, to pick us up and take us to the Grand Palladium Resort, which was about an hour down the highway from the airport.

The first thing you notice when you exit the building at the airport is the humidity..........but it wasn't all that bad.........after all......it is November.

First off........let me say right here that if you travel to the Riviera Maya, you absolutely need to book AGI for transportation before you get there.........you won't regret it. Not only are they very prompt and courteous, they have excellent vehicles and even offer to take the picture for you......hehehe. Seriously...........we only paid 75 bucks per couple for round-trip transportation to and from the airport and we stopped nowhere in between unless we wanted to. The driver took us directly to the hotel. He offered to stop at a store for a drink..........which we declined.........and later, we spoke with some other vacationers at the resort who booked transportation with another company and they were disgusted after finding out what we paid. They had paid 100 bucks per person and were crammed onto a huge packed bus and proceeded to stop at every hotel along the way.........it took them about two and a half hours to get from the airport to the hotel. I can't blame them for being pissed. Needless to say, we made the right choice and you would do well to take note of this if you plan to travel to the Riviera Maya. I will write more about the ride to and from the airport but first I have some more important stuff to tell you about.

I shall write about the hotel, the grounds, the beach, the pools, the suites, the staff, the wildlife, and entertainment..........in no particular order.........and not necessarily in any chronological order. I will be writing all of this through impulse and as I think of it. I spent a small bit of time sorting out the pictures and choosing what I thought would be the best representation of our visit to the Grand Palladium in the Riviera Maya.

First..........I must tell about our suite. We stayed at the Riviera section of the resort. The other sections are called White Sand, Colonial, Kantenah, and Royal Suites. As it was, we were originally booked for the Colonial section but we were told that we were upgraded to the Riviera section. At first we were disappointed to hear that but we felt alot better when we saw the suites that we were assigned to.

No........the suites were not gilded in gold and silver..........but they were very nice..............and lots of room. I have been at other resorts and I gotta say that this was a whole lot nicer than alot of other places. Would I say it was the best?.........well............no.............but then again, I haven't been everywhere............yet.

I could go through a list of all the ameneties...........but you can get all of that info off of the Palladium Addicts website........just Google it. I will tell you that it was very roomy and clean and cool...........and there was water, sodas, and beer stocked in the fridge located inside the entertainment cabinet.

The picture should be able to say more than I can.

Of course, everybody would want a room with a view of the ocean............me included.........unfortunately our balcony faced the resort instead of the waterfront. All in all, it was still good because we had a nice vantage point over the resort and could see far into the distance eastward. Our balcony also was on the end of the building and I could easily look out towards the west and see some of the beach.

Supernurse smiled really big when she saw this.

It was a very nice bathroom and very roomy and clean.

Pretty large shower too.
The couch can become a bed.

We liked the suite a whole lot and it was our home away from home from November 1st through the 10th.

There is a lot I will be writing about the grounds of the resort.......but here is a little look at what you would see as you walk to the lobby or the buffet for some food.

We were heading to the beach and the pool..............and that's all we did on the first day while there was sunlight.

After dark, we headed to the lobby area for food and drinks and entertainment..........hey.......is that a bass guitar?.........let me have it!

Happy..........happy..........happy!

They still had some Halloween decorations up for a couple of days.

Supernurse and Smiley enjoyed drinks at the bar while me and Captain Morgan were winning bottles of tequila at the blackjack table.

Happy........happy........happy!

Well........you can't do everything in one day.........eventually.......the sun sets on the parade. As I looked east from the balcony I thought about the history of this area and the Mayans that not only lived here........but still live and work here to this very day. Hmmmmmmmmm......2012 is not very far away..........will this be all gone?

Stay tuned for the answer to that question in another part of this trip report.

More to come.