We just got home from an amazing week in Playa Del Carmen. Ryan's company, inContact has an awards club called Champion's Club that Ryan earned this year. Along with the award, he won an all-expenses paid trip to Mexico for him and a lucky guest. And that lucky guest happened to be yours truly. We feel very blessed that we won the trip and that Ryan works for such a great company that rewards their employees for hard work.
We stayed at the Iberostar Playa Paraiso Resort in Playa Del Carmen. It was a HUGE resort complex, with 4 seperate Iberostar Hotels and a Shopping Center.
DIA UNO
We flew in fairly early in the day on Saturday, so we were able to walk around and explore the huge resort and hit up the buffet for some dinner. We were exhausted from the flight and having to get up at 4:30am, so we went to bed pretty early.
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| Ryan made us all wear our Champion's Club shirts to make sure the entire airport knew who we were |
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| I love this picture |
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| The jungle |
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| an awesome sandcastle on the beach |
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| Out of all the things we could find on our resort in Mexico, we ran across this Star Wars themed night club. It was meant to be. |
DIA DOS
Sunday we spent the entire day at the beach. I made the mistake of not re-applying sunscreen enough and the sun scorched me pretty bad. Lesson learned. We got some good laughs hanging out with some of Ryan's crazy co-workers on the beach. That night, the entire inContact group met up for dinner.
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Part of the beach crew our first day there
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| Baywatch |
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| Ryan loves selfies |
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| Beach shenanigans |
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| The perfectly blue Caribbean water |
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| I had about a hundred of this yummy drink |
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| I found some pink animals |
DIA TRES
On Monday, we rode the bus to downtown Playa Del Carmen with a few friends. We walked around the city and had some fun bartering with the locals for some sunglasses. Ryan is good at bartering and getting good deals, but I am way too impatient for that. We all stuffed ourselves into a taxi on the way back to the hotel and then Ryan and I did a little shopping at the Iberostar Shopping Center. Ryan bought some sexy white linen pants (apparently he's always wanted some..who knew?).
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| Downtown Playa Del Carmen |
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| A crazy abandoned building in downtown Playa |
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| All of us jammed in a taxi |
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| Dinner at the Mexican Restaurant |
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| This was our view most of the week |
DIA CUATRO
We got up extra early for our adventure to Xel-Ha on Tuesday. We went to Xel-Ha on our honeymoon, but loved it so much we decided to go back and take some friends this time. We had an awesome day snorkeling, cliff jumping and exploring the park! It's amazing how beautiful everything is there. We didn't get many pictures because we were in the water practically the entire day.
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| We loved Xel-Ha. |
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| Ryan's jump |
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| Yes I plug my nose :) |
DIA CINCO
Wednesday was a relaxing beach and golf day. We hit the beach and spent a couple hours working on our tan and then Ryan left to play golf at the Playa Paraiso Golf Club. I wandered around the resort for a bit and then met up with him and rode along for the last few holes he played. Wow, that golf course was so beautiful! It's surrounded by jungle and everything is green green green. And dang, Ryan looks good doing his thing.
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| Hangin' at the beach |
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| Soakin' up the sunshine |
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| Gettin' in a hit on the beautiful Playa Paraiso golf course |
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| My golfer man |
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| I had fun watching him golf |
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Golf magazine photo?
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DIA SEIS
Thursday we rented a car, got up before dawn and set out on our adventure. Our first stop was Chichenitza. Chichenitza is one of the 7 Wonders of the World, and as much as I didn't want to sit in the car for 3 hours and drive AWAY from the beach, it was one of those cool places we can check off of our bucket list, so we went for it. It was really cool to see it up close and imagine how the Mayan's built such a huge structure back in the day. We spent a few hours there checking out the ruins and the Cenote and then ventured to the ancient city of Valladolid. Valladolid was the Mexico that I always imagined... very poor, dirty and definitely not a 5 star resort that I was used to. It was really sad to see the people living in poor conditions in such HOT weather. But anyhoo, we stopped for some traditional Mexican food and went to Cenote Zaci. It's a huge cenote in the middle of the city, and I think it was the highlight of Ryan's day. Ryan and the other guys we were with did a little cliff jumping into the Cenote and had some fun for a bit there while I took lots of pics of that beautiful place. We drove through Cancun on our way back and it was fun to remember where we were for our Honeymoon. Great memories. We finally made it back to the hotel and after a LONG adventurous day, we were exhausted! We ate at a delicious Japanese style restaurant and went to bed.
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| Chichen Itza main temple |
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| The Stadium |
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| The main temple at Chichen Itza.. it was HUGE |
