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Articles Tagged with: cancun

It’s 5 o’clock somewhere

October 25th, 2009 | By admin

Our room with a swim out pool

Our room with a swim out pool

Wow!  It doesn’t get any better than this.  I am typing this as I sit out at our private patio looking out at our swim out pool waiting for room service to bring our breakfast.  Getting this room was a free upgrade, not sure how you consider it a free upgrade when we are staying here for 3 nights for free to begin with. ;)   As I mentioned in my last blog we got this trip by taking an online webinar about AMResorts newest and upcoming properties.

Dick and I are at Secrets Maroma Beach in Playa del Carmen. Maroma Beach has been rated the World’s Best Beach by the Travel Channel for four years in a row. I can see why its a world’s best beach.  The sand is so fine and soft and very white.  The water is turquoise blue and it is just such a contrast to the sand.  Just beautiful.

When we arrived yesterday we walked into a magnificent lobby.  Unlike your typical lobby desk, we were greeted at the door and “Welcomed Home”.  While waiting to check in we were handed a flute of champagne.  After just a couple minutes we sat down at a private desk (with our champagne) and told about the resort’s amenities.  It was a very nice personal touch.

We went to our room, there we met our personal concierge, Elizabeth.  She was there for us if we needed anything, well we sure did.  We had packed our toothpaste in our carry on and it was confiscated at Logan Airport since it was over the 3 ounce minimum.  Elizabeth arrived back in 5 minutes with 4 tubes of toothpaste for us.  After changing into swimsuits and shorts we grabbed a quick bite to eat down at the pool.  A salad bar with sushi was a perfect lunch. We broke our first “rule” about waiting until 5 o’clock to have a drink and had a couple Corona’s, oh well, its 5 o’clock somewhere!!

Time for a walk on the beach, it’s a long beach and we passed several other beaches. It was quiet and the water was oh-so warm.  When we got back there was a wedding going on at our beach and a group playing volleyball.  Secrets has a large beach with lots of chairs too.  Plenty of room for everyone. We rinsed the sand off our feet and headed to the infinity pool.  Time for a couple more Coronas!

A quick change and we headed to El Patio for a Mexican supper.   Dinner was scrumptious. The hard part about an all-inclusive is we keep waiting for the check to arrive.  Not so, everything is included.  Back to our room we enjoyed a swim in the pool that is just a step off our patio. How cool is that?

Well our breakfast has arrived.  We ordered a simple continental breakfast and coffee and I hear Dick in the room, carrying a glass of champagne and saying “look at all this stuff”.  Two plates of of sliced cantalope, honeydew, watermelon and papaya, a basket of toast, spice cake, soapapillas, jams, butter, orange juice, coffee and champagne mimosas.

Well, there goes our “rule” again for today… oh well…. after all “it’s 5 o’clock somewhere”!!

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Hi-Ho Hi-Ho, Its Off To Cancun We Go!

October 23rd, 2009 | By admin

For those of you who wonder how and why I got in the travel business, here’s my story:  Back in October of 2007 I got an email from a friend of mine, who got an email from a friend of hers in Texas.  It talked about getting your own website, buying travel from yourself, selling travel to others, all at competitive prices.  The email also mentioned selling websites to others.  I pushed it aside.  I was too busy. With 3 business I sure didn’t have time for another. I didn’t delete the email and 5 days later I said what the heck.  I’ve spent $500 on worse things and why not get the commissions that I was paying to online travel businesses like Travelocity. Not that I was traveling a lot, a hotel here a hotel there, a cruise every couple of years, but why give not get commissions back on my own travel? I had no intention of ever becoming a travel agent or even working the business but I knew in the future with our children grown and on their own we would want to travel more.

So on October 17, 2007 we started our home based travel business. At first I didn’t do much with it other than book my own travel, but then the travel bug bit. I decided to do more with the business. I took YTB’s First Class training, (we actually were at the filming of it in Wood River IL), the 10 module’s of YTB’s eCampus to become a Travel Agent, along with at least a dozen classes vendors have offered.   The training I want to talk about now are the AMResort courses I took.  They taught me about the 3 brands that make up their properties, Zoetry, Secrets and Dreams.  I graduated as a Master Agent and registered on their website just for Travel Agents.  There I registered for a webinar introducing several new and soon-to-open resorts.  They promoted one attendee would win 3 free nights at a resort of their choosing.

Secrets Maroma Beach

Secrets Maroma Beach

Well, guess what… I won the 3 free nights for 2 and will be staying at Secrets Maroma Beach for those 3 nights. There are non-stop flights from Boston on Saturdays, so it made sense we should stay for a full week. Thinking it would be nice to check out another of their resorts in the area I chose the newest, Dreams Riviera Cancun.  AMResort was offering a special FAM (familiarization for Travel Agents so we can promote the property to our clients) rate along with the 3rd night free promotion because they just opened October 1st.  I’m actually embarrassed to say what we are paying for 7 nights in Cancun at these 2 beautiful 4-star all-inclusive resorts.  Food, drinks, snorkeling, kayaking, non motorized water sports, golf, entertainment are all included. I couldn’t stay in Boston for a weekend for the price I got!

What started out as a what-the-heck do-it-for-my-own travel has turned into a business I have a passion for. Clients are finding great deals and booking on my website, Express Travel 4U. And now I’m visiting the places I have been reading about for 2 years. I’m looking forward to sharing my travel experiences with others. I’m so excited. I really can’t believe it. When I first bought my YTB travel website, never did I imagine it would turn into this.  Headed to Cancun this week, home for 11 days then off on a cruise to Panama, Costa Rica and Belize and hopefully Europe next year. And the 2 free cruises I have earned… that’s another blog for another day.

It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.  So it’s off to work I go.  Stay tuned for blogs from Cancun  :)


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