This morning started with a trip to see the crocodiles and flamingos that they have here at the Grand Mayan/Mayan Palace Riviera Maya.

Then we hit breakfast at Balche again. Then we laid by the pool all day again.  It was very relaxing and the mudslide for lunch was a real treat.

Then we ate at Green Break for dinner.  They do mostly Mexican cuisine for dinner and we tried the tacos.  They were great.  You could get 3 or 5 tacos and I got 5 and was stuffed when I was done.  The service was prompt and the dining was all open air (by that I mean covered, but no walls).  I definitely recommend trying this place at least once on your visit as it is fairly economical!

Our third day we decided to try one of the other restaurants for breakfast.  We found Balche (which I mentioned yesterday in my Day 2 review) which is the restaurant by the pool.  For breakfast they also do a buffet (just like Del Lago).  The different is that this one is $14 instead of $19 and we couldn’t find anything that was missing.  So definitely try this one if you want to save a little money.  The food and service were nearly identical.  The only difference was that Del Lago is a bit more secluded where Balche is right by the pool.  It was great for us, but I suppose everyone is different.

The pool that Balche is by is right by the beach as well which is where Brio is located.  Brio is the fitness center on the Grand Mayan and Mayan Palace grounds.  This is a great place to work out if you want to while on vacation.  Unless you are an owner or a guest of an owner it will cost you $8/person/day.

Our day was filled with more laying by the pool and we also enjoyed a little liquid lunch.  From 11 am – 1 pm each day the bartenders walk around each pool and take drink orders for happy hour.  That’s right happy hour from 11 am – 1 pm.  Almost all of the drinks are buy one get one free.  The only catch is that in order to get one free it has to be the same as your paid drink.  That usually wasn’t a problem for us, but just be warned that if you order 2 different drinks and ask for the happy hour special you will get 4 drinks!

We finished our day with a nice dinner at Tramanto, the Italian restaurant on the property.  We set up a reservation since we were told they were required and also dressed in business casual.  When we arrived we found that they don’t stick to either of those too much.  However, just to be safe I would recommend both!

Day 2 was epic.  It started at 3:30 am when the entire coast of Riviera Maya lost power including the Grand Mayan.  It ended up being OK though since we slept until about 8 am.  Then I went to the front desk which was running on generator and they were both very kind and helpful.  They told us it would be about an hour until the power was back.

Since we had time to kill, we decided to go to Del Lago for breakfast.  For 240 pesos (about $18.87 as of this writing) we got a delicious and very filling breakfast.  In fact it was the start of a trend that lasted most of our trip.  We ate breakfast and then didn’t eat again until dinner.  The food was a combination of Mexican/American breakfast foods in a buffet style.  It was spectacular.

After breakfast we went back to our room and the power was restored so we got ready for the day and went out to lay by the pool.  There were three totally separate pool areas.  The 2 smaller were reserved for Grand Mayan guests and the largest one (at least 10 times bigger than both Grand Mayan pools combined) for Mayan Palace.  Tons of available chairs and lots of sun to be soaked up.  The weather was about 80 degrees Fahrenheit each day and the the resort employees kept telling us it was a cold streak for them.

After a day by the pool we decided to go check out the restaurants:

• Gong – Asian American  (reservations and business casual dress required)
• Tramanto – Italian (reservations and business casual dress required)
• Havana Moon – A little of everything
• Del Lago – Buffet style with a different dinner theme each night
• Balche – A bit of everything by the pool
• Green Break – Mexican by the golf course

We decided to eat at Havana Moon for our first night.  It was excellent.  Great food overlooking the ocean with great, prompt service.  So ended a great second day in Riviera Maya.

Today we are doing something new at MayanRental.com: a blog about my trip to Riviera Maya and stay at the Grand Mayan Riviera Maya.  So let me start by introducing myself: I’m Chris and I’ll be your tour guide through Riviera Maya for the next 7 days.  A bit of disclosure is that I work on the website for John so I am a bit biased, but I’ll try to be as honest as possible.  However, remember these are just my opinions, but I hope to share a bit of what it’s like to take a trip to Grand Mayan Riviera Maya booked through MayanRental.com.  So sit back and enjoy!

Everything started off great.  I went to MayanRental.com (welcome, by the way!) and put in an availability inquiry and I had my response within 43 minutes.  Now the response isn’t always that quick, but we do our best here at MayanRental.com.  It was a painless transaction.

So we took off for Mexico this morning.  The flight was smooth, peanuts salty and landing in Cancun was much hotter than where we left from.  We stepped off the plane and went down the escalator weren’t prepared for what we saw next: about 3000 of our closest friends waiting to pass through customs.  After 1.5 hours we made it through the line.  However, we were worried that our MayanRental.com transportation (they pick you up at the airport and take you to the resort for free) wouldn’t be there any more.  We exited the airport and after a while of not seeing our representative a person pointed us in the direction of where they usually stand.  Sure enough they were there waiting for us!  They loaded up our bags and we had about a 30 minute ride to Grand Mayan Riviera Maya.

At that point it was about 9pm and my wife and I decided to order room service.  We were told it would be about 30 minutes later, but no longer than 15 minutes later we were sharing an order of fajitas which were excellent and enough for two.  The room service menu was extensive and had a lot of variety which is really nice if you decide you just want to stay in and eat some good food.

Well that’s it for Day 1 which was mostly a travel day.  Much more coming tomorrow!