Grand Sirenis, Mexico – a week of needed vacation
What a trip! Both relaxing and exhausting. Thank goodness I took an extra day off afterwards, because I am totally wiped. I need a vacation after my vacation. Teehee.
Overall, it was a good trip. Two weeks before I got a bad cold that laid me out for most of the week, which developed into a sinus infection, including an ear infection. So I left Edmonton on antibiotics, but amazingly between the drugs and the difference in air, I was feeling wonderful. I wish I could have gotten more sleep, but trying to satisfy plans and certain people’s sleep schedules is not easy.
I think I walked an average of 20,000 steps a day. According to the scale this morning, I was one pound heavier than when I left. So high five for me. I can chalk that up to being aware of my activity level, what I was eating, as well as the fact that I don’t drink. And for the most part I drank water – surprisingly I didn’t even use a single crystal light. I was in fact just drinking water. Shocking! I drank about 4 cans of pop over the week, had a glass of orange juice in the morning, and a glass of juice (mostly limonada, but once pineapple juice) after the spa.
Oh yes – the spa. Every day we went for hydrotherapy. If, like me a week ago, you have no idea what this is… oh my, let me tell you it is heaven. We need this in Edmonton. Essentially, there are four pools with different jets. In one there is a current for you to swim against; another has different height jets for your calves, knees, thighs/buttocks; the third has for the back of your thighs and then various flows for your shoulders, arms, and spine, and the final one has a set for your lower back and back of calves and then your feet. As well, there are 6 full body chairs. I have decided I want to own the shoulders and spine and the feet ones the most. Oh my goodness… I can’t tell you the rapture that comes from doing this. So you do the four pools, then you move to the hot tub for a while, and then if you are brave, like me, you dunk in the cold water (oh it’s a beautiful brisk temperature), and then you move to the saunas. I don’t remember doing a sauna before so this was fun! There are so many different ones and you move from cool shower to hot sauna to cool shower. There are steam saunas and dry saunas. I LOVE the steam saunas. They have eucalyptus and spearmint or something in the air that just opens the pores, the lungs, and the stress just goes away. I was worried because I am not a heat person, but I enjoyed those. You go from steam at 104F and 60% to 104F and 100% to 94F and 10%. Then there are two different hot dry saunas – since they aren’t my fave, I like the hottest one for five minutes, then there was a Turkish bath. The experience showers ranged from spray, to cool bucket (yes literally a bucket of cool water gets dumped on you), then essential oil shower, varying temperature spray, and finally a shower to wash it all off. Once you finish that, you get a glass of juice (orange, pineapple, grapefruit, or limonada (lemonade)) and then lay on the heating bed – a hard, tiled curved bed that is heated and is oooooh so warm and comfortable. It dries and relaxes you just perfectly after all that work. And we did this every day! I was completely in love. It’s been two days without it and my body is in mourning.
As for the resort, we were spoiled – my parents are members and you get quite spoiled as members. We had champagne, wine, and tequila on the dining room table. A fruit basket and some beautiful flowers to greet us. Then there is a fully stocked bar – baileys, vodka, more tequila, rum, scotch, etc. The fridge has beer, coke, coke zero, fanta, sprite, club soda, and water – all refilled daily. There was a snack basket that alas was not filled daily but had m&ms, Oreo cookies, prinkles, and peanuts.
Also as members, we had dinner at five of the seven restaurants – we started with Italian which was good as expected, then followed by Mediterranean where I had the best steak, followed by the steak house which was alright. Then we dined at the French restaurant where I was pleasantly surprised by what I had. We had the Brazilian, which is like Pampas here – so several different iterations of meat with the final being the Brazilian steak – you MUST leave room for this. It was to die for steak. This was followed by slow cooked pineapples covered in cinnamon. That was utterly heavenly. The first night we ate at the buffet, which was a selection of wonder. One night was a beach party which due to rain was inside – D and the other couples with us gorged on lobster and shrimp/prawns. We didn’t eat lunch the first few days and the last day there was a taco bar on the beach – wow! - and I had a burger with grilled pineapple. Breakfast was always in the main cafeteria/buffet where the options are endless but I essentially had the same thing – cookie (my treat), scrambled eggs covered in sautéed mushrooms and onions, bacon, French toast and waffle with peanut butter and caramel, some kind of quesadilla (yum!), yogurt (mango, peach, and plain) with cinnamon granola, and then pineapple. Finish off with orange juice and agua (lots of agua). Oh yes, I ate well.
But then we walked. A lot. We were in the latest buildings so pretty much the farthest points from the spa, the main buffet, the theatre, etc. My parents were not happy with this since last time they were in building 19 which is very close to the spa, the gym, and the main buffet. As members, we could call special ‘limos’ (golf carts) to drive us around if need be and get driven directly where we wanted to go. Or we could take the shuttle that consistently drove around the property. But Grand Sirenis also has some paths that they suggest people walk or bike. D and I walked all of them. Supposedly there are guided tours where you bike out and then walk them, but my suggestion to them was to set up walking tours – walk to the locations or at worst, use a golf cart, but don’t assume everyone wants to bike.
What is cool is that there are a variety of signs and sights to see. The Nursery talks about Mayan legends and plants. The Jungle and mangrove has a cenote in the middle of it and shows the way water affects the area. The Jungle and Scrub path talks about the different animals and plants of the jungle. The coast walks you through the different plants and how each set of plants sets up to move from coast to jungle. And the botanical is pretty in the middle of the first set of buildings and is quite pretty, but needs more signage – to be fair we did that one at night.
And the animals – there are iguanas everywhere. The raccoons look so sad and forlorn but are so cute as they do their rounds. There was a baby one – too cute! There was one that was trying to climb into a garbage can but a big drunk man was yelling at from a cart. When he left the raccoon just kind of sat there looking so sad. Oh my goodness, I wanted to give it a hug. I told it that it was a good raccoon and it could go into the garbage can all it wanted; it should not listen to the bad drunk man. The coatis are sneaky and there are so many. Just when you think you saw them all, another group of 3-6 pops out. They work very well together in scavenging. Then there are the Sereque – these tailless rodents have large butts and are just the cutest. They are shyer than the coati and raccoons. Then there are so many birds – so many pretty ones with interesting songs. And some interesting insects - though my legs and ankles would like the mosquitoes to stay the heck away. So itchy!!!! There are turtles but we only saw one in a grotto. The resort is a preservation site and a lot of the animals are protected as they are endangered. The rule is no feeding the animals as it upsets the eco-system. You so want to feed - the raccoons especially, but I was good and respected the rules. There are spider monkeys, which we did not see. And they have dolphins. We got to see them do their show and play with guests. They are amazing creatures. Supposedly, there are deer, boar, and other animals around, but we did not see those either.
Shockingly – I now own a couple bathing suits and I wore them in public. I went into the ocean up to mid-thigh to look at the fish and check out the stones. I did the lazy river – twice. That is so much fun though for some reason whatever tube I was in kept spinning, which D and my mom laughed at. I did not go into the pool, but none of them are deep – most are 3 feet 7 inches with the deepest being 4 feet and a few inches deep. And they are cool water. These are not heated pools other than by the sun. And of course, at the hydrotherapy you have to wear a bathing suit.
As members, you get a concierge who helps you plan and arranges things. Ours was Alan and he was very friendly and personable. He’s been with the company for five years and he is quite good at his job. The concern I mentioned was that we were traveling with my parents and I felt like everyone assumed they would tell us everything, but if you won’t know what to ask, how will you find out things. It would have been nice if he had shared a bit more of the info and perhaps treated us as separate.
One thing you have to do is attend a session where they talk to you about joining the membership. My parents got an excellent deal about five years ago and they were coming up to the end of their membership. So the company was trying to get them to extend. Usually it is a lifetime of 25 weeks or something – depends on the level you buy in at for cost and details. You can even will these weeks or transfer them to other people. Or rent them out. It was very interesting. With it you get a reduced price on the nightly fee (like significant discount like 80%) and you get the all-inclusive, the bar in your room, the special access to the limos and restaurants, the concierge, discounts at the shops and for excursions, etc. It was sounding really interesting, but there is nothing they give you. Alan was nice and took us on a private tour of the jr presidential, presidential, and grand presidential rooms, but then you get taken into the noisiest room ever where everyone is seated at tables that are too close together to talk prices and interest. Note, they only had one questionnaire, so I did suggest that they have more than one if there is more than one couple at the table. After all my travel plans are not the same as my parents who are nearing retirement. If you say no, then the ‘honcho’ shows up and gives her spiel and give you a reduced price and if you still say no, then another person comes in with a different price (honestly – hold out for the last person). The room treats you like a used car salesman – it is hard core sales – limit written info, lots of numbers pulled out of the air and written down on blank pieces of paper, and really it breaks a lot of soft sale skills. The head honcho is Carol and she was nasty. I was very put off by her attitude – I can’t even say if she smiled, but she took offense when my parents said no and when I said that I would need the info in writing so I could think it over, she pretty much blew me off.
The sad thing was there were a few things mentioned that I might have been interested in. The membership also gets you deals with RCI and DAE which are international. I’ve been to Mexico twice now. It is not high on my list of places to go back to. I have lots of places I want to go that I haven’t been. I tried talking to Alan afterwards about it, but honestly, I didn’t get the info I needed to consider the sale. They don’t have cards or brochures. Honestly, they lost a possible sale and when I tried to say that, they didn’t get it. Their loss I guess.
Anyway, there is a bonus to going to this – you get money that you can then spend. Because we had been saving up for this trip for four years and celebrating a few things, we got a little extra money. Most of the money we brought went to tips. We used the money from that session to get trinkets. All my nieces and nephew will be happy – they got fun stuff. Teehee. Funny story – I went to Mexico with a specific shopping list – partly based on previous purchases (the vanilla is divine in Mexico) and what others mentioned. I mentioned to Alan what I wanted and he offered to pick it up for me. It would be cheaper in town than in the hotel. To be fair – the hotel had two things I wanted. So after prodding him a few times, he dropped off the stuff in my room. What I wanted was dry chiles, vanilla, cinnamon, and oregano. He forgot about the oregano - no biggie. He brought me cinnamon sticks and powder. He got me hot sauce and then he brought me artificial vanilla. I laughed when I saw that. Luckily I had bought some at the hotel which was real. I then found some at the airport that was semi-clear. The last trip had three different kinds – clear, semi-clear, and dark. I loved the different flavors. Alas, they didn’t have this kit this time, but I got semi-clear and dark and a website to buy more at. Yay!
Would I recommend the resort? Yes – especially as a member or going with a member. I saw the price of the spa and being able to go for free everyday was totally worth it. I honestly think my parents got their money’s worth in just all of us going for 6 days. Add in food and drinks and oh yes, you can make your money back in just a few trips. The other cool thing about the membership is that your money can be used as a down payment for land and you can build a house on site. There are a few already built and they are prepped for more. I thought it was a cool idea. You don’t get exclusive access to the site, but you could pay for access – I think it was $20 a day. So for $20 a day you could eat and drink as much as you like, and use the beach, pools, activities, events, etc. It’s not a bad deal.
Anyway, that was my week of holidays in Mexico. It was very fun and relaxing, though I am now tired. I came back with mosquito bites, a slight rash (which could be due to heat, the Zika virus, or a reaction to the antibiotics), only a slight sunburn to my scalp (the rest of me being still pale) and one pound heavier. But I also came back with some fun trinkets, good memories, and love for a good hydrotherapy. All things considered - a good vacation.
Overall, it was a good trip. Two weeks before I got a bad cold that laid me out for most of the week, which developed into a sinus infection, including an ear infection. So I left Edmonton on antibiotics, but amazingly between the drugs and the difference in air, I was feeling wonderful. I wish I could have gotten more sleep, but trying to satisfy plans and certain people’s sleep schedules is not easy.
I think I walked an average of 20,000 steps a day. According to the scale this morning, I was one pound heavier than when I left. So high five for me. I can chalk that up to being aware of my activity level, what I was eating, as well as the fact that I don’t drink. And for the most part I drank water – surprisingly I didn’t even use a single crystal light. I was in fact just drinking water. Shocking! I drank about 4 cans of pop over the week, had a glass of orange juice in the morning, and a glass of juice (mostly limonada, but once pineapple juice) after the spa.
Oh yes – the spa. Every day we went for hydrotherapy. If, like me a week ago, you have no idea what this is… oh my, let me tell you it is heaven. We need this in Edmonton. Essentially, there are four pools with different jets. In one there is a current for you to swim against; another has different height jets for your calves, knees, thighs/buttocks; the third has for the back of your thighs and then various flows for your shoulders, arms, and spine, and the final one has a set for your lower back and back of calves and then your feet. As well, there are 6 full body chairs. I have decided I want to own the shoulders and spine and the feet ones the most. Oh my goodness… I can’t tell you the rapture that comes from doing this. So you do the four pools, then you move to the hot tub for a while, and then if you are brave, like me, you dunk in the cold water (oh it’s a beautiful brisk temperature), and then you move to the saunas. I don’t remember doing a sauna before so this was fun! There are so many different ones and you move from cool shower to hot sauna to cool shower. There are steam saunas and dry saunas. I LOVE the steam saunas. They have eucalyptus and spearmint or something in the air that just opens the pores, the lungs, and the stress just goes away. I was worried because I am not a heat person, but I enjoyed those. You go from steam at 104F and 60% to 104F and 100% to 94F and 10%. Then there are two different hot dry saunas – since they aren’t my fave, I like the hottest one for five minutes, then there was a Turkish bath. The experience showers ranged from spray, to cool bucket (yes literally a bucket of cool water gets dumped on you), then essential oil shower, varying temperature spray, and finally a shower to wash it all off. Once you finish that, you get a glass of juice (orange, pineapple, grapefruit, or limonada (lemonade)) and then lay on the heating bed – a hard, tiled curved bed that is heated and is oooooh so warm and comfortable. It dries and relaxes you just perfectly after all that work. And we did this every day! I was completely in love. It’s been two days without it and my body is in mourning.
As for the resort, we were spoiled – my parents are members and you get quite spoiled as members. We had champagne, wine, and tequila on the dining room table. A fruit basket and some beautiful flowers to greet us. Then there is a fully stocked bar – baileys, vodka, more tequila, rum, scotch, etc. The fridge has beer, coke, coke zero, fanta, sprite, club soda, and water – all refilled daily. There was a snack basket that alas was not filled daily but had m&ms, Oreo cookies, prinkles, and peanuts.
Also as members, we had dinner at five of the seven restaurants – we started with Italian which was good as expected, then followed by Mediterranean where I had the best steak, followed by the steak house which was alright. Then we dined at the French restaurant where I was pleasantly surprised by what I had. We had the Brazilian, which is like Pampas here – so several different iterations of meat with the final being the Brazilian steak – you MUST leave room for this. It was to die for steak. This was followed by slow cooked pineapples covered in cinnamon. That was utterly heavenly. The first night we ate at the buffet, which was a selection of wonder. One night was a beach party which due to rain was inside – D and the other couples with us gorged on lobster and shrimp/prawns. We didn’t eat lunch the first few days and the last day there was a taco bar on the beach – wow! - and I had a burger with grilled pineapple. Breakfast was always in the main cafeteria/buffet where the options are endless but I essentially had the same thing – cookie (my treat), scrambled eggs covered in sautéed mushrooms and onions, bacon, French toast and waffle with peanut butter and caramel, some kind of quesadilla (yum!), yogurt (mango, peach, and plain) with cinnamon granola, and then pineapple. Finish off with orange juice and agua (lots of agua). Oh yes, I ate well.
But then we walked. A lot. We were in the latest buildings so pretty much the farthest points from the spa, the main buffet, the theatre, etc. My parents were not happy with this since last time they were in building 19 which is very close to the spa, the gym, and the main buffet. As members, we could call special ‘limos’ (golf carts) to drive us around if need be and get driven directly where we wanted to go. Or we could take the shuttle that consistently drove around the property. But Grand Sirenis also has some paths that they suggest people walk or bike. D and I walked all of them. Supposedly there are guided tours where you bike out and then walk them, but my suggestion to them was to set up walking tours – walk to the locations or at worst, use a golf cart, but don’t assume everyone wants to bike.
What is cool is that there are a variety of signs and sights to see. The Nursery talks about Mayan legends and plants. The Jungle and mangrove has a cenote in the middle of it and shows the way water affects the area. The Jungle and Scrub path talks about the different animals and plants of the jungle. The coast walks you through the different plants and how each set of plants sets up to move from coast to jungle. And the botanical is pretty in the middle of the first set of buildings and is quite pretty, but needs more signage – to be fair we did that one at night.
And the animals – there are iguanas everywhere. The raccoons look so sad and forlorn but are so cute as they do their rounds. There was a baby one – too cute! There was one that was trying to climb into a garbage can but a big drunk man was yelling at from a cart. When he left the raccoon just kind of sat there looking so sad. Oh my goodness, I wanted to give it a hug. I told it that it was a good raccoon and it could go into the garbage can all it wanted; it should not listen to the bad drunk man. The coatis are sneaky and there are so many. Just when you think you saw them all, another group of 3-6 pops out. They work very well together in scavenging. Then there are the Sereque – these tailless rodents have large butts and are just the cutest. They are shyer than the coati and raccoons. Then there are so many birds – so many pretty ones with interesting songs. And some interesting insects - though my legs and ankles would like the mosquitoes to stay the heck away. So itchy!!!! There are turtles but we only saw one in a grotto. The resort is a preservation site and a lot of the animals are protected as they are endangered. The rule is no feeding the animals as it upsets the eco-system. You so want to feed - the raccoons especially, but I was good and respected the rules. There are spider monkeys, which we did not see. And they have dolphins. We got to see them do their show and play with guests. They are amazing creatures. Supposedly, there are deer, boar, and other animals around, but we did not see those either.
Shockingly – I now own a couple bathing suits and I wore them in public. I went into the ocean up to mid-thigh to look at the fish and check out the stones. I did the lazy river – twice. That is so much fun though for some reason whatever tube I was in kept spinning, which D and my mom laughed at. I did not go into the pool, but none of them are deep – most are 3 feet 7 inches with the deepest being 4 feet and a few inches deep. And they are cool water. These are not heated pools other than by the sun. And of course, at the hydrotherapy you have to wear a bathing suit.
As members, you get a concierge who helps you plan and arranges things. Ours was Alan and he was very friendly and personable. He’s been with the company for five years and he is quite good at his job. The concern I mentioned was that we were traveling with my parents and I felt like everyone assumed they would tell us everything, but if you won’t know what to ask, how will you find out things. It would have been nice if he had shared a bit more of the info and perhaps treated us as separate.
One thing you have to do is attend a session where they talk to you about joining the membership. My parents got an excellent deal about five years ago and they were coming up to the end of their membership. So the company was trying to get them to extend. Usually it is a lifetime of 25 weeks or something – depends on the level you buy in at for cost and details. You can even will these weeks or transfer them to other people. Or rent them out. It was very interesting. With it you get a reduced price on the nightly fee (like significant discount like 80%) and you get the all-inclusive, the bar in your room, the special access to the limos and restaurants, the concierge, discounts at the shops and for excursions, etc. It was sounding really interesting, but there is nothing they give you. Alan was nice and took us on a private tour of the jr presidential, presidential, and grand presidential rooms, but then you get taken into the noisiest room ever where everyone is seated at tables that are too close together to talk prices and interest. Note, they only had one questionnaire, so I did suggest that they have more than one if there is more than one couple at the table. After all my travel plans are not the same as my parents who are nearing retirement. If you say no, then the ‘honcho’ shows up and gives her spiel and give you a reduced price and if you still say no, then another person comes in with a different price (honestly – hold out for the last person). The room treats you like a used car salesman – it is hard core sales – limit written info, lots of numbers pulled out of the air and written down on blank pieces of paper, and really it breaks a lot of soft sale skills. The head honcho is Carol and she was nasty. I was very put off by her attitude – I can’t even say if she smiled, but she took offense when my parents said no and when I said that I would need the info in writing so I could think it over, she pretty much blew me off.
The sad thing was there were a few things mentioned that I might have been interested in. The membership also gets you deals with RCI and DAE which are international. I’ve been to Mexico twice now. It is not high on my list of places to go back to. I have lots of places I want to go that I haven’t been. I tried talking to Alan afterwards about it, but honestly, I didn’t get the info I needed to consider the sale. They don’t have cards or brochures. Honestly, they lost a possible sale and when I tried to say that, they didn’t get it. Their loss I guess.
Anyway, there is a bonus to going to this – you get money that you can then spend. Because we had been saving up for this trip for four years and celebrating a few things, we got a little extra money. Most of the money we brought went to tips. We used the money from that session to get trinkets. All my nieces and nephew will be happy – they got fun stuff. Teehee. Funny story – I went to Mexico with a specific shopping list – partly based on previous purchases (the vanilla is divine in Mexico) and what others mentioned. I mentioned to Alan what I wanted and he offered to pick it up for me. It would be cheaper in town than in the hotel. To be fair – the hotel had two things I wanted. So after prodding him a few times, he dropped off the stuff in my room. What I wanted was dry chiles, vanilla, cinnamon, and oregano. He forgot about the oregano - no biggie. He brought me cinnamon sticks and powder. He got me hot sauce and then he brought me artificial vanilla. I laughed when I saw that. Luckily I had bought some at the hotel which was real. I then found some at the airport that was semi-clear. The last trip had three different kinds – clear, semi-clear, and dark. I loved the different flavors. Alas, they didn’t have this kit this time, but I got semi-clear and dark and a website to buy more at. Yay!
Would I recommend the resort? Yes – especially as a member or going with a member. I saw the price of the spa and being able to go for free everyday was totally worth it. I honestly think my parents got their money’s worth in just all of us going for 6 days. Add in food and drinks and oh yes, you can make your money back in just a few trips. The other cool thing about the membership is that your money can be used as a down payment for land and you can build a house on site. There are a few already built and they are prepped for more. I thought it was a cool idea. You don’t get exclusive access to the site, but you could pay for access – I think it was $20 a day. So for $20 a day you could eat and drink as much as you like, and use the beach, pools, activities, events, etc. It’s not a bad deal.
Anyway, that was my week of holidays in Mexico. It was very fun and relaxing, though I am now tired. I came back with mosquito bites, a slight rash (which could be due to heat, the Zika virus, or a reaction to the antibiotics), only a slight sunburn to my scalp (the rest of me being still pale) and one pound heavier. But I also came back with some fun trinkets, good memories, and love for a good hydrotherapy. All things considered - a good vacation.
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posted by Taryn at 5:15 pm
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