We ended this amazing summer with a family vacation! I know traveling with kids is not for everyone, but we adore taking ours along with us! We decided to check Mayakoba Mexico off our list of destinations. We have heard amazing things about this little lagoon resort 30 min outside of Cancun. Upon arrival we got some drinks and took their water taxi to our suite.
Kids could not believe we had our own pool! They immediately put on their suits and jumped in! My plan was to unpack the family and get us settled into our home for the next 5 days, but our butler said she would take care of that for us....so off to the beach we went!
The beach! The sand was so white and clean and soft!
Ryan quickly relaxed haha!
When we got back to our suite they had not only unpacked all four of us, they organized everything perfectly!
We showered and went to dinner at one of the many restaurants at our resort. The highlight was the guacamole and the crispy grasshoppers! We never used to the two bathrooms inside for showers. We took all our showers outside! The kids loved their cute robes!
Most mornings we ate at the main restaurant and stuck to the buffet.
We came up with the most amazing coffee- 3/4 regular coffee, 1/4 Mexican coffee(it has cinnamon and spices in it) and almond milk!
We swam and kayaked and enjoyed the beach area.
We put the kids in the kids club for 30 mins while we snuck to the adult area where they had a food truck and delicious cocktails. We have never used the kids club before and glad we did at least for a little bit. I will say they didn't love it and kept asking to not go again, but it was good for them to experience it!
"Sir would you like more DJ?"...."Oh I don't turn DJ down!"
We brought the kids some fresh coconut water and fed them lunch before nap time.
After naps we hit the beach again.
When we got back to our suite they had made the kids a huge bubble bath with balloons!
The Rosewood Mayakoba had daily activities and events and we tried to do as many as our schedule allowed. Some of our favorites were the cocktail hour at the chefs garden. When we arrived they asked the kids if they wanted soda and Ellie said "No thanks we would like a strawberry mocktail please". Minutes later they arrived with fresh drinks per her request.
After the cocktail hour we went to the grill party by the beach. They had live music and endless amounts of Mexican food and seafood!
One of my favorite moments from this dinner was when the band played a reggae version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Ellie danced.
The highlight of the trip was probably the day we went on a snorkeling and cave adventure.
I didn't take a ton of pictures of the first part because we were so busy taking underwater videos!
We saw iguanas everywhere. At first the kids were a little afraid, but after a few days they were chasing them!
After about an hour of snorkeling we headed below ground to check out the caves.
Pictures do not even begin to capture how cool this was!
I am still so proud of our kids this day. It was a long day and lots of dark caves to get to the open clear parts. They never whined or complained! Our private guide even said at the end she has 10 year olds get scared and she was so impressed by how brave and fun our kids were. PS how do you like our crocks?? You had to wear shoes and our flip flops didn't work so she brought these for us:)
One thing we like to do is try new food. When we travel we do not order off the kids menu. Kids menus are pretty much the same everywhere. Both our kids have always been great eaters and even if they don't like something we make them try it and get outside of their comfort zone. On the way back to the resort from the caves our driver stopped so we could buy some local fruit. We picked a local fruit mostly because it looked so crazy. Inside it was the texture of a grape, but tasted like a coconut.
One fail was this sailboat ride. The waters were so rough that it didn't last long haha!
We got dressed up one night for a lobster bake. Kids ordered the surf and turf and Ryan and I tried several different dishes where lobster was the featured ingredient. We left stuffed!
The kids slept in the next day and looked so cute in their pjs watching the lagoon.
Another day....another buffet!
The resort had several different pools and we loved checking them all out!
Champagne O'clock! Yes please!
During naptime Ryan would read the paper or bike around the resort while I worked on our family vacation movies.
For dinner our last night we went to a sushi place, but had it arranged to take the boat! So the boat came to our room and docked and we all climbed on. We had some cool drinks and took a tour around the lagoon.
The kids just loved our pool! It was seriously the perfect setting and the perfect size!
On our last morning we ordered room service for breakfast and ate by our pool.
We went to the pool and beach during the morning. The weather was awesome the entire time. It rained a few times, but never during the day (except during our cave adventure and we were underground when it did).
As I mentioned earlier I made videos everyday of all our favorite pictures and videos with music in the background. I used iMovie to edit the movies and the kids LOVE watching them. They are too long to upload, but I put together a small one with some of our favorite underwater moments!
I love this little family of mine and all our sweet memories made during these vacations.
Adios Mayakoba!
