June 11th 2018

I woke up this morning to the sound of Justin Bieber singing Despacito in my ear.
Haha just kidding, I wish.
I did however chuck it on Spotify and walked out onto my balcony to view the amazing ocean with the song playing – just so I could get that true Mexican feel ya know 😉

We all had to meet in the lobby by 9am so after getting ready, I headed down to the buffet to have some breakfast.
As I arrived, they were making Cinnamon buns out the front in this massive cooker – yummy!

I always find buffets funny. Just the fact that you’re shown to your table, you all sit down and then basically just get back up again to go and get food. Like there really is no point in sitting down because you’re not ordering from a menu. Everyone does that awkward 2 minute wait at the table and looks at their cutlery then gets up to go and get their meal once the waiter has left.

So anyways, that’s exactly what I did. Sat at my table with a few girls from the FAM, encased in some small talk then got up to go and get food.

 

Day 2 of feeling like the biggest fatty in the group. The other girls got fruit and cereals and I literally filled up my plate with an omelette, breakfast taco, toast and then had a separate plate for my pastries.
I think I chucked the piece of Pineapple on there just to make myself feel a little healthier because it definitely didn’t go with the arrangement of food I already had.

 

After a second helping of breakfast (I know! :'()
The girls and I met up with the rest of the group in the Hyatt Ziva Lobby.
It wasn’t all relaxing in the sun drinking mojitos on this trip! We actually had to do some ‘travel agent work’ such as taking a tour of the resort we were staying in, taking pictures of the views from the rooms, checking out the lead-in category rooms right up to the rooms with the swim-up pools and knowing the difference between the adults-only tower and the family suites.

Very gruelling work I know!
I won’t go into too much detail about the Hyatt Ziva Cancun, just because I’m going to do a whole separate blog post review on it.

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After exploring our all-inclusive heaven, we took the bus over to another resort that’s under the ‘Playa Resort’ chain called Panama Jack Cancun. Theres two Panama Jack properties (one in Cancun and one in Playa Del Carmen).

If the Hyatt Ziva Cancun is a bit out of your price range, Panama Jack Cancun is good 4-star option. I’d say it’s definitely great for families (especially one’s with younger children) as they have live music, mini-golf and even a castle with waterslides!
Sometimes they have a ‘kids stay free’ deal so check out their website to see what the latest promo’s they have going on!

Insider tip – If you do decide to stay here, I’d advise on upgrading your room type. The Standard & Junior Suites are both the same size and are considered a ‘lead-in’ category room, however if you’re traveling as a family, pay the extra amount for a Junior Family Suite or a Master One Bedroom Suite. The Family Suites have a king sized bed for the parents, along with twin bunk beds and a trundle for the kids whereas the One Bedroom Suites have a separate bedroom and living room, and a private balcony so you have ton’s more room!

When we’d finished checking out Panama Jack, we headed next door to one of the other Playa Resort properties – Hyatt Zilara Cancun. It’s the adults only version of the resort we’re currently staying at!
I could definitely tell a difference between the Hyatt Ziva and the Hyatt Zilara. The Hyatt Ziva is all ages and a much bigger resort with lots of pools, dolphins and a great big beach whereas the Zilara has more of an intimate feel to it.
The great thing about the Hyatt Zilara is everyone has a beautiful view no matter what room category you’re in.
The lead-in category room is a Junior Suite and it looks like this:

How nice is that!
You  get a double whirlpool tub, an ocean view and a beautiful modern bathroom. Another thing that was unique to this resort is they have this thing called a ‘Magic Box’ at the entrance of your room. Being an adults-only resort, they understand you’re not fully clothed all the time when you’re in your room so when you order room-service, they open this little door to put your food in and you can open it from the other side to collect it – how cute!

Everything else about the resort was amazing (again, not going to write too much as I will do a separate review) Even though I wasn’t staying there, everyone we talked to who was there on holiday kept telling us how great it was!
One lady said it was the best resort she’d ever stayed at, another couple raved about the service and how relaxing it was and someone else complimented how the staff went out of their way to make sure their allergies and food preferences were taken care of.
That’s another thing I forgot to mention, at any of the Panama Jack or Hyatt Resorts, the staff always ask if you have any allergies before you sit down to eat so they can make sure to tell the chef or give you some alternatives – like I say, it’s the little things that count!

Even though it was after lunch time by the time we finished viewing the Hyatt Zilara, I still wasn’t that hungry because of the big breakfast I had consumed this morning.
Unfortunately, we were scheduled for a lunch with the management team of the Hyatt Zilara at their buffet restaurant ‘Spice’ which after looking at all the food that was on offer, it wasn’t so unfortunate…

After we had all finished eating, it was time to head back to Hyatt Ziva and enjoy the rest of the afternoon doing whatever we liked!
It was so hot and humid I was just dying to go and hop in the pool and that’s exactly what I did when we got back!

I don’t have many pictures to show for the rest of my afternoon in Cancun. When we got back to our rooms, I chucked my phone on charge as it was nearly dead (I did take about 500 photo’s after all) and popped into my bikini before heading down to the pool area.

I grabbed a drink from the swim-up bar and got chatting to a few others from the FAM. We drunk cocktails, yarned about our jobs and swum around the pool for a bit before heading out to the beach for a swim in the Caribbean sea. We originally wanted to go and climb up this inflatable climbing thing the resort had in the water but the staff were fixing it so we kind of just paddled around with our drinks and talked about life and all our hopes and dreams (as you do over tequila and vodka)
We must have been out there for hours!
We kept running back and forth between the beach bar and the sea so we definitely had our fair share of drinks before the sun set.
It was so much fun though! The people I was with were so good to talk to and it was finally nice to have a good group of people to talk to that weren’t so ‘cliquey’ (I have a bit of a problem finding people in Canada to make friends with who don’t already have their ‘group of friends’ or just aren’t interested in getting to know you)
The group were all pretty much from Toronto so maybe I’ve moved to the wrong city!

We decided it was probably time for us to all freshen up for dinner so we headed back to our individual rooms, got ready and then met in Bruce’s room to take some pictures and decide on what one of the restaurants we wanted to eat at.

As you can eat at however many restaurants you wish and you don’t need to make reservations, we headed to Habaneros which is their Mexican restaurant right on the beach. They serve everything from mouthwatering tacos, fresh seafood ceviches to zesty aguachiles. We only ordered appetizers  and a few drinks before heading to Lorenzo’s for a feast of Italian Food.
Lorenzo’s Restaurant was pretty popular that night so we wrote our name down on the list and headed off to watch some of the nightly entertainment before going back to the restaurant when a table was available (they give you one of those buzzing disc things when a table is free so you don’t need to keep going back to check)

Dinner was great!
I live a life of brokeness living in Vancouver so it was nice to read the menu and just pick an entree and whatever else I felt like and not have to worry about paying for it afterwards haha.
I actually ordered what I thought was bruschetta for my entree – you should have seen my face when a Salad got put in front of me!
Lauren couldn’t stop laughing when we looked at the menu and realised that i’d pretty much ordered a salad that begun with the letters “bru” and immediately thought it was bruschetta.
When you’re really feeling like carbs, you have no idea how disappointing it is when lettuce is served to you.
In the restaurants defence, it was actually pretty good. It went well with my lasagna and pear pizza haha.

To end the night, we had a few drinks at the brewery (yes this resort has it’s own brewery) and then a few of us headed off to bed!
You’d think with the unlimited alcohol we get I’d be drunk off my face every night but with the heat, all the food and the long days of walking around in the humidity – it really makes you tired haha!
Thankfully, I was so full from dinner I didn’t feel the need to order room service like I did last night hehe 🙂

Tomorrow, off to Playa Del Carmen!