Topes Y Cenotes - Tulum, Mexico, Part 10 - A Quiet Afternoon

After we got home from the Mexican ruins we were totally and utterly exhausted.  And it was only 11:30 a.m.  We ate lunch and since it was too late in the day to get chairs by the pool, we decided to hit up the beach, where there were always a plethora of available beach chairs.

The breeze on the beach was much nicer so we didn't sweat nearly as much as we did by the pool.  The views were always waaaay better.

Dave spent some time reading, and I attempting to read but was constantly distracted by my desire to be incredibly nosy and watch all of the interactions at the snorkeling hut.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this year already or not, but I was terribly disappointed by the snorkeling hut at Dreams Tulum. It's a third party vendor and not actually associated with the resort.  Snorkeling is one of the activities that is supposed to be included in your "all-inclusive" vacation.  But it is not.  You have to pay five dollars just to snorkel on your own around the shoreline.  It was $50 USD for a boat ride out to a reef, and $40 to go to a cenote.  Totally not worth it (as you will hear later on in my cenote post.)

That night we decided to try out the Italian restaurant, Portofino.  I ordered a pasta dish as an appetizer, and chicken as my main entree.  The past was good although a little bland, and the chicken - as always - was pretty chewy.  I didn't love this meal, but our waiter was great and we left him a nice tip.  This was also the sickest night of the week for DH.  And this meal is why I think it was dairy that left him feeling so ill.

DH started with a cheese appetizer dish.  He also ordered the chicken, which had cheese in it (I didn't eat that), and then topped off the meal with a tiramisu cheescake dessert (I took a small taste - it was yummy.)

This not a picture of cheescake. Obviously. 

After dinner we spent some time wandering around the resort. This was the first time that we had ventured over to the "new" side of the resort.  I was like, "Ooooh.... this is where we could have been staying." 

It really was a lot nicer.  Like, a LOT nicer.  I was jealous, but at the same time glad that we didn't spend the extra money.  I was extremely torn over the "nice room versus save money" debate after seeing this side of the resort. 

The is the lobby, which I believe is newer and was part of the renovations.  As you can see in the picture, there were guest rooms on either side of the lobby, which I thought was a little strange at first, but in retrospect decided was a great idea - these rooms were right next to the lobby bar!!! We had to walk a mile to get to any of the bars from our room.  If we were in one of these rooms we wouldn't even have to go outside!!!

We took a few pictures around the grand entrance to the lobby (which was really under utilized for how nice it was), including this one of the two of us. It's one of the only pictures of both of us together that wasn't taken with my left hand, which is a rare thing for us!

Then DH's sickness kicked in again (remember? cheese ravioli and cheescake???) and we had to call it a night before it was even dark outside.  I stayed all dressed up for a solid hour sitting in the room hoping he would feel better enough to go back out, but sadly that was not to be.   "There's always tomorrow, right?" I could only cross my fingers and hope....


Coming Up....
We finally get the "cenotes" part of the Topes Y Cenotes experience, also known as "swimming in a Mexican man's pond."