Playa del Carmen - Prep, Lodging and Travel

One of the only group photos from our trip - with a nice addition in the background :)

The anticipation was in high gear for this vacation! As any Minnesotan knows, this winter has been brutal. It has been super cold, super snowy, and just super crappy all around. I'm not one to complain too much about winter, but this one really has sucked. I know one of the main reasons that I didn't complain too much was because I had this trip to look forward to! The first time we went to Mexico, in 2007, I knew I wanted to do that more often - going in February breaks up the winter really nicely - you go just when winter is starting to feel absolutely unbearable, and if you are lucky like us, you come back just when the temps are starting to rise to tolerable levels again! I also went to Zihuatanejo in January of 2008. Winter of 2009 was rough with no warm weather vacation. I know, I know - my life is just SO hard ;)

I want to share more than just the story of this vacation - I really value reading reviews of trips (sometimes obsessively) and so I will share some details of how this trip was planned, how the travel part of it went with Annie, and details of where we stayed and then share photos from the actual trip in separate posts to keep each post more manageable. If you want more details than I'm sharing (which I highly doubt is possible :) then feel free to email me!

We planned this trip back in summer - we decided it would be fun to try to take a trip with our neighbors (Nate, Molly and 16 month old Mia) for our first trip with Annie and rent a house - we figured out a date that worked, and we found a great 3 bedroom house near the beach in Playa del Carmen! We chose to go to Playa del Carmen because it was easy, honestly. We'd both been there before and knew it was super convenient - direct flights to Cancun and then just an hour drive from there, very easy to get around, really touristy and American-ized which is what I wanted for our first big trip with Annie. I just wanted somewhere warm and relaxing and this fit the bill. Of course the forecast said it would rain the entire time we were there, which Molly and I obsessively checked like 10 times a day the week prior to the trip, but luckily that ended up being BS, as weather forecasts usually are.

Lodging

The house we stayed at is Casa Irlanda and it was a great spot in Playacar Phase I, a gated community of really nice homes just south of the city of Playa del Carmen. We looked at tons of houses - I found that a lot of websites were out of date with what was available (playa.info, I'm looking at you) but eventually we found a place that had what we needed and actually responded promptly. This area of town is between a 3-20 minute walk from the ferry dock to Cozumel, so it varies a lot how close you'll be. I think we all expected the house to be a little closer, but typically it took us around 20 minutes to leisurely walk into town from the house.

When we went to Playa before, we stayed at an all inclusive resort even further south of town, in Playacar Phase II - we walked past all these awesome houses that said they were for rent on our way into town and knew we wanted to stay in that area the next time we came! After renting a condo through vrbo.com when we went to Zihuatanejo, I knew it was a great option in Mexico. The house was really close to the beach, had an awesome pool area, and comfortable interiors as well. You can rent it as either a 3BR or 4BR, and each bedroom has it's own bathroom which is really nice! With kids, renting a house does seem to be the better option, so you aren't confined to a hotel room after the kids go to bed and during their naps. It was great to put the girls down and go hang out on the patio for the rest of the evening, and to lay by the pool during their naps - all within baby monitor range. We were really lucky that on the first day, the caretaker saw that 2 rooms would be used by infants who wouldn't use the beds/linens or bathrooms really, so they let us use the 4th bedroom as well, so each girl got their own room. Made it a lot more relaxing knowing that they wouldn't be at risk of waking each other up!

Unfortunately the only photo I got of our room - on days the maid came, it was clean. This clearly was not one of those days :)


Our bathroom - there were 3 others


Hallway to the master bedroom, which Nate & Molly won after a fierce game of paper, rock, scissors

The outdoor area of the house was the biggest selling point. There was a covered patio area with couches and a coffee table. It was a little treacherous (concrete) for our little babes but they managed without splitting open their heads, phew :) Having a covered area was great when it rained, because it was still warm so we wanted to be outside - this way we could stay dry too. The pool was nice sized, a little on the cold side but felt good after a minute or two. There were TONS of lounge chairs with cushy tops which was my favorite part. You had to get up at the crack of dawn to get a good chair at a resort - here we had like 3 chairs to each of us so you could just switch chairs whenever the sun moved :) There was also a huge dining table with a shade, which we weirdly never used. Not sure why. The grill area was great - it had a sink and counter area. This was basically an entire outdoor living area for the house. After staying at a condo with a shared outdoor area, I much preferred having a pool, patio and lounge chairs just for us.

View from the rooftop terrace, which we never used




View of the walk to the beach, spiral stairs on the left go up to the rooftop terrace

This particular company was great - there was a caretaker who stopped by every day to see if we needed anything, brought more things like water, paper towels and answered any questions we had. The communication prior to the trip was great as well - emails were answered promptly, everything felt very secure with the payment for the house and contract. We were able to rent 2 pack n plays from the company so we didn't need to bring those. I also checked into renting high chairs, which they were not able to locate, but they did find one booster seat somehow so that is an option as well. We also had a maid who came every other day.

Packing

We of course way overpacked - I knew with all of our stuff, we'd need to check 2 bags, but I'm sure you could maybe get by with carrying on. With a baby in tow, it was definitely worth it to me to pay to check bags so we just didn't have to deal with them at the gate in addition to everything else. I carried on the diaper bag and camera bag, Ben had his backpack, and we gate checked the stroller. More on the stroller below.

Things I'm glad I brought:

-First and foremost, our big stroller, the Baby Jogger City Classic (unfortunately not sold anymore, but it's a typical 3-wheeled jogging stroller) - the key here was having the bigger wheels. I was on the fence about whether to bring this or get a cheap umbrella stroller and I'm so glad we brought the City Classic. The nicer wheels were SO much better to have when walking around in Playa since everything is cobblestones. We got a few comments from other parents that that was the type of stroller to bring when down there! This large of a stroller won't fit through the xray machine at the airport, but we had no issue with it being examined separately by a TSA official, so it was well worth it. We gate checked the stroller. Also, if you have bags hanging over the handles on an umbrella stroller, if you ever have to take the kid out, the stroller usually falls over - not the case with a large stroller. Obviously each destination is different, so check into the type of sidewalk and street situation at your destination and weigh against how much walking you'll be doing. We did a TON of walking so it was definitely worth it to us to have it.

-Beach bag (separate from diaper bag) - glad I brought this so I didn't have to lug the whole diaper bag to the beach and have it get filled with sand

-Portable changing pad - this was GREAT to have, and I used this more here than I have this entire past year but it became worth it just this week alone. It was so nice to just throw this in the beach bag or the stroller and not have to lug the whole diaper bag around. It fits a few diapers and has a wipes container and also has a zippered pocket that holds a wallet and phone (and chapstick, if you're me)

-Very few toys for Annie - the only thing we brought was the blessed stacking cups, in addition to her plane toys - but they played with random non-breakable things we found around the house more than anything else. It was good to have a few books though.

-Pack n play sheet - I'm no germophobe, but it just seemed nice to have a sheet over what was probably not a very well washed sleeping surface for Annie.

-Ergo - This was more of a "nice to have" - we took a few walks on the beach that wouldn't have been as comfortable without the Ergo. We COULD have done without but, but it doesn't take up much room and was great to use on the beach where a stroller won't work. We also brought this on the plane just in case but didn't end up using it.

-Extra diapers from home for nighttime - they have diapers there that we used for the rest of the time, but Mia kept leaking out of hers overnight so I was glad we had brought a few extra from home so we could just use those at night.

-2 sippy cups - we ended up losing one somewhere, so I'm glad we had a backup.

-Baby food pouches - They were on sale at Target so I bought a few on a whim. I mixed these in with yogurt every day and felt a little better about all the random crap she was eating because I at least knew she got SOMETHING of nutritional value daily.

-Clip on chair - with these it is always tough to know if it will fit on the table. On tables with a lip, such as our dining room table, they don't always fit. From the photos online, I thought both Mia and Annie's would work fine, but ours did not. Mia's did, so I'm glad Molly brought hers - they have this one. This made feeding Annie kind of a pain because we either had to feed both girls at different times, or hold her in our lap which is becomingly increasingly difficult lately.
-Baby monitor and white noise - some would have forgone the monitor I'm sure, but I was glad to have it so I didn't have to feel like I needed to keep going back in the house to check if Annie was awake. We also brought the speakers and iPod from her room that we use for white noise - since each of the baby's rooms were off the main living area, using white noise helped us feel like we could still talk at normal volumes even after they went to bed. It also probably helped them feel comfortable since they both sleep with white noise at night at home.
-[Edited to add b/c I forgot] Carseat! Annie still fits in her infant seat, which is much easier to install using any seatbelt, so we brought that. I know technically you don't need to use a carseat in a taxi, but I felt more comfortable since the ride was over an hour each way, and we needed to get to and from MSP to home as well. We checked this in a carseat bag borrowed from Rebekah (not gate checked, normal checked) and it was free, although the ticket agent in Cancun was quite confused about it, eventually it was figured out. We did hold her in our lap for 2 shorter cab rides, which went fine.

The Flight

For any child that is eating a lot of solid foods, snacks are key - I brought a banana, cereal bars, gogurt (which was dumb since Annie has no clue how to eat that), a food pouch, a snack cup filled with cheerios, baby goldfish, and graham crackers, water and milk. Oh, and animal crackers in the box at the recommendation of Rebekah, who gives Adelaide that for every flight - she can play with the box as well as eat the "cookies"! Annie had water, the banana, and a cereal bar but I'm still glad I brought everything - it didn't take much room and made me feel more prepared. Plus Ben and I were both starving so we ate the gogurts. I nursed Annie on takeoff and landing and she didn't appear to have any issues with her ears at all.

She pretty much played happily the entire flight out - it was actually fun to just hang out together for a few hours with no distractions. From Rebekah's recommendation, we brought the barrel of monkeys game, which was a HUGE hit, pipe cleaners which we wrapped around her wrist and fingers, a new book, crayons (didn't even take these out), and we also had our iPhones and Ben's laptop which we didn't really use at all. I also made sure to have 2 changes of clothes and lots of diapers and wipes just in case.

The flight back was a completely different story. We had the same stuff, but were dealing with a very cranky and overtired baby after a long taxi ride, early wake up (her own fault there), and being stuck in a carseat or stroller for several hours due to long lines at the Cancun airport. We also didn't have the extra seat. I realize now that this MIGHT even be worth of the cost of an extra ticket for a kid over 9 months. If it was ~$300 or so, it probably WOULD be worth it, but our flight was around $500 so that was still definitely over our budget for this trip. Annie is usually great about sitting in our laps in waiting rooms and at the doctor's office, but for 3.5 hours she was OVER it. She did fall asleep nursing (thank god I kept nursing through this trip!) but only for 50 minutes and she wouldn't go back to sleep after that. In hindsight, the flight wasn't awful, but she did have a few meltdowns. I walked her around for awhile, and just stood up myself so she could use my seat for play space. Molly and Nate made a little bed for Mia to sleep on the floor at their feet which worked, but only for an hour. We made it through, which is all that matters :)

Random Tips

-If you are staying in a house and will have a kitchen, try to plan some meals in advance. We had many unnecessary trips to the grocery store which cost money in cabs, and tons of wasted food at the end of the trip. Be realistic about how much you'll want to cook versus go out and try to have some idea of what you want to make before you go to the store.

-In Playa del Carmen, the best grocery store is MEGA, by FAR. Ben and Nate went to Wal-Mart first just because of name recognition, but apparently it is not even close to as nice and well stocked as the MEGA, which we went to for our other grocery trips.

-Make sure to disinfect your fruits and veggies when cooking at the house/condo. This is a good post about how to do it. We ate out a ton and had no stomach issues at all, but did make sure to disinfect all fruits/veggies we bought at the store.

-They truly do have everything you will need there - including refrigerated milk (still not sure if we purchased whole or not, but Mia drank it fine. The majority of the milk in Mexico is ultra pasteurized and not in the refrigerator section but we did find some cold), frozen fruits/veggies, diapers, wipes, baby toys, beach toys, clothes, etc. Turns out they have babies in Mexico too, who knew?! :) The diapers weren't exactly the same, but they did get the job done for the most part.
-Figure out taxi fare before you get in - tell the driver where you want to go and ask how much. If it's over 50 pesos you can may be able to ask for a lower fare but we never really wanted to try. It was between 50-80 pesos between everywhere we went.

Again, email me if anyone wants any additional information! More to come about this trip...