CANCUN

This wonderful arrangement of flowers greets you in the reception lobby of The Royal Cancun, a 5-star hotel. The main lobby has a soaring ceiling and contains over-sized furniture including armless chesterfields for two that make you look like a doll by comparison. Beyond that is the lobby bar. There are no doors at the entrance, but the bar is protected from the winds by massive glass sliding doors.

Above the flowers is this stained glass roof.

A similar stained glass roof covers what is known as the motor lobby.

Gulf side of The Royal hotel. Our room was way over to the left on the 7th floor.

Taken from the beach of our sister hotel.

Our balcony featured a hammock done up in a most intriguing knot.

Three views from our 7th floor balcony:

To the right, west

Straight ahead and south

To the left and east. In the bottom left hand corner you can see yet another swimming pool. Residents on the first floor can step out onto their balcony and go down several stairs to sit on their personal water level lounge chairs. This side of the hotel features many canopied beds complete with curtains.

These 2 photos were taken from the 7th floor open hallway just outside our room. On the first weekend, we could view the massive outdoor TV broadcasting the Superbowl game.

Same perspective showing the interior lagune and more resorts on the far side.

This is our room with king size bed. The glass in the head board is actually a window allowing a view of the ocean while showering in the bathroom behind.

The wedding pavillion is to the left. It is also used for 7:30am yoga classes.

All food is beautifully presented, the major effect being one of tall sculptures. Lettuce wound into a spiral and stood inside a cherry tomato was my favourite. These enchaladas feature chocolate in the sauce which I identified not by taste but by sight. Of course any Mexican dish features the traditional guacamole sauce. Many dishes had a sprig of rosemary for decoration.

[ASIDE: You may be wondering where the picture is. I managed to delete it while trying to remove excess space between pictures. I have yet to figure out how to place a picture in the middle of a blog entry as any inserted pictures automatically go to the top of the blog. So if there is anyone out there who can tell me the secret - other than deleting all that comes above, placing the picture and then recreating the deleted text & photos - I would appreciate hearing from you.]

Can you believe that this is the beach washroom?

Photo taken from our balcony on the 7th floor. We ate Pelicano's frequently for lunch or breakfast. You can see the life guard stand where the daily life guard rarely sat; instead he patrolled along both sides of the breakwater beach. His whistle was used to good effect in catching a swimmer's attention when s/he was considered too far from shore.

This is Raphael, the hotel's playordomo as indicated by the sign on his cart. He provided sun tan lotion, reading materials and eye glass cleaning amongst other things. Also featured are my travelling companions.

The oceanside of the 8 storey hotel features these wonderful welded steel sculptures including a waterfall backdrop.

Looking out to the ocean, this part of the pool ended at a wall overlooking the ocean.

To the left you can see a pavillion used for weddings and early morning yoga classes.

Gulf ocean waves are relentless so Mother Nature is constantly being improved upon. Sand is dug from the water's edge, put into a bucket and then carried to a location further up the beach where it is dumped and then raked.

Each day 4 men dressed in wet suits created this setup to help restore the sand beach. One man was the designated 'diver' who used a very long hose line connected to a compressor and his regulator to allow him the required underwater time to make the final connections.

Daily raking of yesterday's footprints provides employment for another group of local residents. Here you can see where our hotel's beach ends. Our hotel issued tan & white striped towels; our neighbours had pink and blue ones respectively.

The pick axe crew is breaking down the steep sand bank in front of our sister hotel which catered to families with young children. They had the better beach IMHO.

Two days during our stay were on the cool and windy side meaning large waves & fast moving clouds. Our hotel & the one to the east have 2 curved breakwaters to try and protect the beaches and also provide a calmer area for swimmers.

The waves hitting the rocks are quite spectacular.

I know these waves are nothing compared to those found in Hawaii, but they are pretty spectacular to me and made for great fun trying to body surf.

Bar owners are quite inventive in capturing poolside vacationers' attention.
Advertising is pulled by both boat and light airplane. We saw many in the day & hours preceeding the Superbowl game.
This sexy bikini event features 1000USD in prizes

Dady Rock (with two XX's) is having a wet body contest.













[Wednesday we went snorkelling. To start we took a local bus to the marina on the lagune side and from there a largish 2 diesel, aluminum hull boat out to the ocean. We transferred to a smaller boat which ferried us a short distance to another boat moored on the edges of a dordoned off Mexican heritage marine site.

I had borrowed Tyler's underwater 8megapixel camera so got to take pictures. I hope that Nicole, his sister, will send the pictures for posting here at a later date. I am certainly interested to see them as most of the time I felt I was shooting blind as the viewing screen was almost black underwater.]

Thursday we booked a bike trip before lunch. Pedro who hails from Mexico City was our guide despite having only started working at The Royal 4 weeks previously. Given his limited English he didn't understand the significance and reason why I took these 2 pictures.

Flying anywhere means arriving at the airport long before flight time. Hence window shopping is a popular activity.

Here you see a wonderful display of handpainted pottery.

Paper mache figurines

These figurines are all one-of-a-kind, handpainted & signed. I quite liked one of the cats (not shown), but was not inclined to purchase due to the price.

Last but not least, a sampling from Pineda Covalin, a fabulous Mexican designer's fabrics which IMHO are right up there with the likes of Hermes without the expensive price tag. I was enthralled with his silk fabric designs which, until closer inspection, appeared to be embroidered. He has developed a great product line of scarves, purses, capes, shoes, hair bows, eye glass frames, etc.

To view a fashion show of Pineda Covalin designs

http://cashak.tv/fashion-shows/scottsdale-fashion-week-pineda-covalin-2007-11-02/

To see a less frentic display

https://www.pinedacovalinaz.com/


If you would like to know/see more about the Mexican-owned resort in Cancun, please visit http://www.realresorts.com/The_Royal_Cancun/Video_Gallery/

where you can have a virtual tour showing much more of this hotel's grandeur. And FYI this place has just recently received a prestigous award, apparently a first first for Cancun.