Merry With Children: El Dorado Maroma

I thought I would break the vacation posts up a little so that each post won't be sooooo picture heavy. Dewey must get all the credit for deciding where we went on vacation. We decided on Playa del Carmen together & then he took it from there. We talked to Nana and Papa Don (proprietors at Chez Nana - toddler all inclusive) to determine if this was going to be a "with kid" or "without kid" vacation. Chez Nana had room so we moved into the "without kid" column! I love Evan and I love kids BUT if I am not taking my child on vacation.....well....I don't really want to deal with yours. So....adults only resort for us!

Dewey has an aversion to what he calls "Vegas style" resorts. They are huge, party palaces with hundreds (or sometimes thousands) of rooms. I've never stayed in one that big so I really can't comment but Dewey HATES them. The resort we ended up staying at is called El Dorado Maroma. It is just north of Playa del Carmen on Maroma Beach (voted one of the 10 best beaches in the world). It has 75 rooms and is adults only. We LOVED it! We never had to wait for a beach chair. The staff was so attentive (I think the ratio of guests to staff was about 2:1). There isn't a ton of night life but we were completely okay with that. This vacation was mostly about rest & relaxation! For the guests who DID want more activities, there is a marina beside the resort with diving, waverunners, sailing excursions, snorkeling excursions, etc.

One other plus is that this resort has no buffets! You can order a la carte meals at every meal. At breakfast they do have a small buffet with a "eggs your way" station but the menu is always an option. They have 3 restaurants for dinner (Italian, Caribean/Mexican & Japanese). They also have two "special" dinners per week...one Italian and one Mexican.

So for today's post, I'm focusing on pictures of the resort & surroundings. I will have one more post for our visit to Coba to see the Mayan ruins & our outings with friends.

Our room. We stayed in the Mi Hotelito section (cheapest part). The upside to these rooms is that they are closest to the beach. We really liked having a ground level room b/c we were steps from the beach & the swim up bar! One thing to note is that this resort has no elevators. If you can't do stairs, definitely insist on a ground floor room!

Our outdoor bed on our patio. Nice for relaxing when escaping the sun for a few minutes.

The Marina next door. Lots of diving/snorkeling adventures to be had if only I could pry my lazy butt out of the beach chair!

Dinner at El Dorado Maroma with our friends (starting on left) Sven, Angelle, Andre & Nancy.

Our cute elephant towel animal. We didn't get towel animals every day so they were a nice surprise when we did. I thought the elephant was super cute!