So I have to say that when I think about kicking off a trip around the world to explore and create adventure, staying at an all-inclusive resort in Mexico was not my first thought. However, a good deal can't be ignored and when I got the Travelzoo email offering 7 days in Mazatlan including flight, hotel, and all food and drinks for $700, I jumped at it. Especially since that is the exact amount of money that my niece Hanna had saved from babysitting last summer. The downside is that you pay upfront for all of your food and drink for the week, and so you feel a financial obligation to eat every single meal at the resort. The hazard there is that it is very possible to get sick of the food, which isn't usually that great, and not leaving the resort isn't very 'cool' or 'adventurous' or whatever. But, after the two crazy whirlwind vacations I had this fall to Scandinavia and to South America with something going on every single day, and after the year I had at work with crazy long hours and after having quit that job and the stress of trying to sell every single thing that I own and find a renter for my house in an economy that calls for rent of about half of what I need to cover my mortgage, that All-Inclusive vacation was just what the doctor ordered. And let me tell you the resort got the short end of that stick. I layed around for 7 straight days, looking up from the pool or the ocean only briefly to order another pina colada or margarita. The only schedule to follow was the hotel activities board:
10am Stretching
10:30 Spanish Lesson
11am Ping Pong
11:30 Relaxing music
12pm Water Aerobics
12:30 Crazy Game
1pm Bingo
...this part I can't remember because we never really participated in any of it...
4pm Beach Volleyball
We usually slept through Stretching, and only woke up early enough one day to take a Spanish Lesson. We played Ping Pong pretty much every day, and did Water Aerobics twice. (We watched it 5 times from our pool chairs.) We played beach volleyball most days. All of the other time in Mexico was spent laying around. All day long. It was glorious and SO nice to relax. I hardly had time to think about craigslist and rent.com and what I should store and what I should throw away and how much money I have saved and how much it's going to cost for plane tickets and will I get murdered and will my plane crash...and...all the zillions of thoughts that are causing me to be very forgetful and flightly these past couple of months.
Every night we would discuss what to do the next day i.e. horseback riding, snorkeling, zip line jungle touring, and, every morning, we would decide instead to go back to the pool. p.s. we didn't even get so much as a hint of the slightest suggestion of a tan, thanks to our 70SPF sunblock, which we bathed in every morning before leaving the hotel room.
(I spent an additional $40 on tips, a magnet, and Dairy Queen...so, total cost for the trip: $740.)
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