When excellence really means excellent…
Kim and I had the pleasure of staying at the Excellence Cancun Resort on the Mayan Riviera for our honeymoon. Now I am normally wary when an organisation gives itself kudos in its name. And ironically our “minders”, that we barely saw from a tour firm, were called Best Day and were useless.
Once we got the hotel we waited a bit for our room as we arrived a tad earlier than planned. When we finally got our room, after a bit of time in the bar, we were presented with a room that was done up lovely with flower petals, a glass of bubby on ice and a towel sculpture on the bed. You can see a pic of it at our wedding blog. We ordered in from the extensive room service menu the first night as we could barely muster the energy to get to the door of the room.
The rest of our time there was spent drinking, eating, swimming and just enjoying the quite literally all inclusive nature of our package. The only time we reached in our pockets was to tip some of the excellent staff on hand. Everything from the Spa (which we visited twice) to the service by the pool was excellent. They seemed to have one staff for everyone there. The restaurants were very good, oddly the Mexican one was the weakest one, and the buffets for breakfast/lunch were extensive in extremis. Lets put it this way Kim & I had smoked salmon for breakfast every day and I had sushi as regularily.
As you will see on the wedding blog the weather was not sunny all the time. In fact the end of the stay was downright stormy. We even lost power for 5 hours on the Tuesday and the staff merely adapted to the lack of electricity. Instead of outside events it was all moved to the theatre in the middle of the complex. Power or no power, it was sporadic, the show went on, even if it had to be impromptu and include pissed members of the audience.
Events whether inside or out, rain affected or not, were well done and enjoyable not matter how daft. The bar staff was brilliant, helpful and knowledgable.
Futhermore I was able to practice my Spanish whenever I needed it. I was told that I spoke it with a Cuban accent but well. Kim learned several words including our room number.
I was stunned at how good the entire honeymoon was in the end. Despite nasty weather and sometimes, but mostly not, cantakerous guests they were professional, friendly and vigilant. I cannot promise that all their resorts are of the same caliber, but if you are going to the Mayan Riviera you would be a fool not to say at Excellence Cancun Resort.
1 commentBOMS of return
Sorry about the lack of posting this last week. I was off on honeymoon and banned from having my laptop by the wife. So this collection is off two weeks so it might have more than one post from the same person. After the BOMS selections I will post a few other interesting bits I have found in the last few days since my return.
Nickel presents Ask for Credit Card Fees to be Reversed posted at fivecentnickel.com.
mom & dad presents Ten Things That Ive Learned in Life posted at raising4boys.com.
Sundance presents Today’s Rant: Cell Phones posted at An Angry Rant.
Sundance presents Faith posted at A Girl Named Sundance.
Alwitt Xu presents CSS Tools Collection posted at Prosperity Achiever.
Plant Seeds will Grow… comes from Desire.
Nickel presents Minimizing Our Taxes with a SEP-IRA, 403(b) and 457(b) posted at fivecentnickel.com.
mom & dad presents Snake Birthday Party for our Seven Year Old posted at raising4boys.com.
Madeleine Begun Kane presents Open Sesame posted at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog.
Thanks for all those wonderful entries. Now here are a few other things you might want to see. A couple of Carnivals of the Dogs: here and here. Good edition of SNN last and this week. Guido is holding a haiku/limerick contest with prizes. Oh and speaking of writing there is a new Storyblogging Carnival up for your reading pleasure.
1 commentAccept CCs
Those of you who have sites and products you might want to sell might be considering ways to get credit card processing to raise your online business to the next level. You want to accept credit card online with as little hastle as possible for those of your customers who are Paypal averse. Good online payment processing is hard to find and one thing that you do not want to get wrong.
Comments are off for this postBook review: Zama Codex by Chen Tzu
This book caught my eye because of my fascination with the Mayan due to a prolonged exposure in my youth in Honduras as well as the fact that I was going to be sitting in the Yucatan by a pool for my honeymoon. The resort we were at had statues of Mayan warriors all over the place to emphasis our location. I can report that the Zama Codex did not let me down one bit. Not only did it have locations that I had visited but it clearly evoked the feeling and pathos of Mayan Latin America.
The flashbacks to the time of Zama were extremely well written evoking their cities and temples full of life and intrigue. The author’s description of all the environs contained therein were quite frankly breathtaking. One thing that struck me as interesting is that rather than the patronising slant of say Mel’s “epic” Apocalyptica, there was a clear balance here of all aspects of Mayan culture the good, bad and the downright nasty. There was no overemphasis on the brutal nature of the society, it was merely there in the right proportion.
It is quite obvious that they author did his research and has read the history of the people and their great books like the Popuh Vu. This is not a Hollywood fluff novel with a Mayan “theme”. There is passion and knowledge in there.
Many books that use dual time-lines that switch back and forth manage to end up with a confusing and frustrating muddle. In this book the author manages to do it so the reader knows what is going on all the time. The novel does not drag at any time as is the norm these days. Its quite a taught novel that never drags or fizzles.
The modern plot is not exactly unusual, being a tale of power, greed, vanity and treachery. But it is written in such a way to make it blend perfectly with the Mayan time plot. The characters are believable and well formed. I especially like the bimbo character who plays a central role. Written perfectly one has to wonder if they author has got burned by such a person.
I can highly recommend this book whether you are sitting beside a pool at a resort in the Mayan Riviera sipping Tecate or on your couch on a rainy night in Georgia.
NB: No hearts or other organs were sacrificed to the flames in the writing of this review.
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