Playa Del Carmen for a Mexico Beginner

Along Fifth Avenue in Playa Del Carmen there are plenty of restaurants to choose from and our mission for the evening was to find one of the better ones. We finally decided to eat our dinner at Los Rancheros which serves Mexican cuisine, steaks and seafood.

As we entered their building we climbed a bunch of stairs to their main floor, and then when I thought I was there they had us climb some more stairs to their rooftop view. The rooftop was poorly lit we could barely see our menus but it wasn’t as crowded as the lower levels so it probably wasn’t as hot. The first thing that happened here was that a guy came around with a camera and took pictures of our group in tacky sombreros and used tricky wording to make it sound like the restaurant was giving us these pictures. We all knew that was too good to be true then he finally implied that we would have to buy them at the end of our meal if we wanted them which sounded more like it. Then to top it off a mariachi band came over and played a song for us, not even a very long song and then they hung around until we paid them.

Dinner came and it was good but not impressive. I ordered prime rib and it was a grilled piece of steak, my fiancé ordered the rib eye and it was tasty but not great quality like they boasted on their menu. I think we all finished our whole meals so there wasn’t an abundance of food. We all ordered a bar drink considering we knew better than to drink the water and I have to admit all of the bar drinks were nicely done.

Going to a Mexican restaurant I should have ordered Mexican food then I may have enjoyed it more. I was a little turned off by the touristy things they wanted to rip us off for. At the end of the evening they showed us the pictures they took and they offered it to us in a custom frame and I think they wanted thirty US dollars for the picture; needless to say none of us were interested. All in all we had a good evening but it left allot to be desired for satisfying food.

Tulum sits on the breathtaking Caribbean Sea coastline and is an archaeological Mayan ruin site that is open to visitors. Visitors are able to wander the grounds of the ruins but all of the buildings are roped off and are not able to be viewed from the insides.

When we arrived at Tulum we were accosted by merchants trying to sell us everything from water to bug spray which I have to say are both definite essentials on this trip. Then we rode the $2.00 tractor ride to the actual ruins.

Arriving at the ruins we paid for our tickets and went inside to be amazed at the resemblance of a village that was still left for us to see. The one thing that seemed to be very common at this ruin site was iguanas. Luckily they all seemed very docile and some even looked like they were enjoying the coastal scenery from the rooftops and the cliffs overlooking the ocean.

The Tulum ruins are very small compared to some of the other Mayan ruins in the state of Quintana Roo but the Tulum site definitely has the most beautiful setting. There is one large temple at Tulum but most of the ruins are fairly small in size. The most interesting ruins to me were the large temple and the temple of frescoes which had niched carvings on the outside of the building. The doorways were also interesting also because they are all extremely low because the Mayan people were shorter than most people today.

While visiting Tulum in the summertime you should bring your swim suit because they do have beach access and when we were there it was crazy hot and would have loved to have taken a dip to cool off.

We did a self guided tour like most of the tourists chose to do and the ruins took us a little over an hour to explore. I was exceptionally glad we weren’t on a tour in that heat, considering the number of shaded areas were very far and few in between.

This is a definite must see if you’re staying nearby in Mexico. The history and the breathtaking beauty of this walled ruin city will leave you full of amazement.

One evening we visited Fifth Avenue in Playa Del Carmen which is a pedestrian walkway filled with shops, hotels and restaurants that’s close to the Ocean. Walking up to Fifth Avenue with a stroller was quite interesting considering we couldn’t use their sidewalks because of drop offs and trees taking up the whole walkway. Once we finally got to Fifth Avenue we were fine because the street was blocked off from vehicles except for at intersections.
This is definitely one of those tourist traps where all of the local merchants try to get you to come into their store and restaurants and buy their merchandise. This is the kind of place where the owners stand outside and tell you that you want to come into their store because they’ll make you a good deal on everything.
Fifth Avenue was definitely worth seeing and they had some neat looking restaurants but so many of their stores were over priced and full of sterling jewelry and hideous looking sombreros and unless you were looking for a souvenir it wasn’t a great place to find a deal on anything.

I’ve been told to never drive a car in Mexico and now I completely understand why, besides the fact that if you are in a serious accident they arrest you until they can sort out the situation but their roads are crazy. Most of their roads (hi-ways) don’t have lines for lanes, its kind of a make it up as you drive situation. Then they have these awful speed bumps in the middle of their hi-ways that have road signs right at the bump but they don’t give any warnings about upcoming speed bumps. Then there really aren’t turn lanes there are openings in the middle of the hi-way for turn arounds but not enough room really to even be used as that. The speed laws don’t seem to be enforced and cars seem to be everywhere.
From the Cancun airport we rode in a van that was driven by a travel/tour company and I was amazed even at how recklessly these drivers drove. In my amazement I never did see an accident while I was down there despite how crazy and hectic everything was.
I have to say I did like one thing about their traffic lights in Mexico, when it was about to turn from green to yellow the light flashed a few times to give a little warning.

Imagine not having to do a thing for a week. That pretty much describes what this hotel expects from you while you stay at their property, except in Mexico the proper word is siesta but it normally happens in the afternoon.

Our trip to Mexico was kind of a last minute excursion. An acquaintance of ours invited us to go along with them on their trip to Playa Del Carmen and they offered to let us stay at their timeshare at the Royal Haciendas. How could we resist, it sounded just heavenly. And heavenly it definitely was.
The resort is located right on the Caribbean Sea with a view of Cozumel Island. The grounds are beautifully landscaped with tropical flowers and colorful vegetation. They have two adult pools which each have their own swim up bar, what more could a person possibly ask for. Besides the adult pools they offered a kiddy pool, a playground area, shaded hammock areas, kayak rentals and a lap pool. This resort definitely was the ultimate place to relax. Along their stretch of beach they had chairs set beside a tropical thatched umbrella to serve as shading to those who wanted to enjoy the beach without the extreme heat from the sun. They had a designated swimming area but allot of their beach had warning signs for rocks and spiny sea urchins. I did see several people snorkeling close to our hotel so the beachfront wasn’t completely useless.

The hotel as of right now has one main restaurant although they do offer room service and have a couple of places that serve fast food items. The main restaurant is located right next to the Ocean in a building that has a thatched roof and has sliding windows that remain open most of the time. This restaurant normally has a buffet for breakfast, lunch and dinner and it serves very nice food. The food is very Americanized with a few Mexican items thrown into the mix. The water at this whole hotel is purified and this is why I preferred to eat my meals at the resort.

The rooms are huge at this resort. Ours had a common area which was in the middle of the two bedrooms. Our side of the room had a separate outside door and had its own bathroom so we definitely were set. Our room even had a small balcony that overlooked the common grounds of the resort and the ocean was in the distant view.

Overall the staff at this resort was extremely accommodating and very friendly, the grounds were kept immaculate, they had staff overlooking the beach all day long, the place felt very safe and secure and I thought they did a great job of managing their property. All in all this was a wonderful place to stay, especially if you wanted to get away from it all for a few days.