Hey girls,
It's lunchtime and I've had enough of my enormous to-do list, so here's a bit of holiday chit-chat! Quite a lot of this is for the lovely Katie's benefit, so sorry for the potentially epic post!
Firstly, I can't recommend the Moon Palace enough....we had some of the best service I've ever experienced in a hotel, and I've been lucky enough to do a fair bit of 5* in my time. The staff just can't do enough for you, right from the minute you arrive. We were handed ice cold towels as we got out of the taxi and I got a flower too...such a nice touch! And great to cool off after a long flight and stepping into some serious humidity. The hotel is only about 15 mins from the airport so it's a lovely short transfer.
Walking into any of the lobbies is impressive - lots of marble and sparkly glass light installations. We stayed at Nizuc, the middle of the three areas (there's also Sunrise, which is the super kid's friendly bit and Moon Grand, which is slightly quieter). Sunrise was on a pretty big scale - the bar, the breakfast buffet...just huge! Stunning, but huge and lots of children. To be honest, we steered pretty clear of this end because we're not really children lovers! lol. Rooms at this end have medium sized balconies and a hammock!
Nizuc don't have huge balconies, but we were in the Dolphin section and had a sea view, which was awesome and there was plenty of room for two chairs and a little table. All the rooms have a hot tub and a huge shower. They also provide a good hairdryer and a set of straighteners in the room...wish I'd looked this up before I packed mine! There are robes and slippers in the room too. The rooms at the Moon Grand look to have the biggest balconies, with lovely rattan loungers. There are some swim up suites too, which looked the bees' knees! Our fave restaurant was there too - the Caribeno. It was buffet for breakfast and lunch (literally the best buffet you've ever seen!) and then Caribbean inspired food in the evening. Think prawn cerviche followed by sea bass or a delicious steak. You'll get a little taster before your a la carte dinner in the evening, which were always really tasty! And if you lay round the pool outside that restaurant, the drinks service is amazing, plus there's a swim up bar, and after lunch they come round with ice creams!
Round the pool the towels are great too - fluffy and white! Sometimes they ask you to write down your name and room number...no idea why...but most of the time we didn't bother. And you can change your towels as often as you like 'round the pool, so you can always have a dry one. There was also always sun cream and after sun by the area where you collect your towels, so if you haven't put enough on, or you feel the need for a top up and you're a long way from your room, you can go and help yourself. I think they top up their stash with what people leave behind in their rooms but it was all top quality stuff and a really handy thing to have. I took factor 20 but used some Piz Buin factor 30 round the pool one day when I was feeling a little sunburnt and delicate!
The beach borders the hotel and is lovely white sand but there's lots of seaweed at the water's edge. It was quite windy when we were there so we didn't really go into the sea but we had some lovely walks along the beach. I think you can get a free shuttle bus to their sister hotel Sun Palace, where theres a totally idyllic beach and still get your all inclusive privilieges but we didn't feel we needed/wanted to. Speaking of shuttles, the areas of the hotel aren't that far apart (maybe 5 mins from Nizuc to either Sunrise or Moon Grand?) but if you can't be bothered you can get a golf buggy or there's a shuttle bus which is constantly going round in a circle.
The first couple of days the weather was a bit mixed - lots of rain although it was still very warm - but there's lots to do in the hotel so we never got bored. We had some lovely long jacuzzi baths, drank amazing hot chocolate in the tea shop, played crazy golf in the rain and worked out way through the cocktail lists at the bars. The bars are all premium spirits...it's unbelievable. If you want a G&T you can choose between Tanqueray and Bombay Sapphire! There's tonnes of space to chill out and constant supply of bubbly and crisps to keep you going!
You can also borrow bikes (which are in really good condition), kayacks, wind surfing stuff etc. free too. And the crazy golf was fun too...especially after a couple of cocktails! We took our bikes on our second to last day and cycled round the grounds to where the horses are (you can have a horse and cart to your wedding ceremony) and they loved a fuss. We also spotted coaties (mexican raccoons) on the golf course - super cute! And huge iguanas! Apparently there are crocodiles in the rainforesty bits of the resort too, but we ddn't see any of those!
The Brazilian Grill restaurant (Arricifes - but that might not be the right spelling!!) is off the Nizuc lobby and the food was amazing. They come round with great big skewers of different grilled meats for you to try. In hindsight, they brought them all a bit too quickly so if we went again, I would tell them to do another lap and come back to me! They do flaming Mayan coffees after pudding too - you have to have one even if you don't drink it because the theatre of it is brill! Coporales is the Mexican restaurant, also off the Nizuc lobby. We went there twice - it was heaven. I'd recommend the Coporales Grill for main!
There's a bar called 'The Pub' which is beautifully British themed which is in the Nizuc lobby and open til 1am but if you want to be up later, you have to go to Sunrise, where there's the SkyBar (lovely bar upstairs) or Noir, which is the nightclub. The nightclub looks stunning but was a bit quiet when we went! We did meet some random Americans though and had a great giggle!
One night we also used some of our resort credit to upgrade to the 'Romantic Dinner' it was £399 resort dollars, I think, which cost us $48 in taxes. If they ask you to go to a welcome meeting to talk about it, or to a meeting to talk about 'your next visit' (by which they mean time shares) don't bother! They will just try and sell you stuff
If you have any questions about stuff to do, just ask me! So anyway, the dinner was lush! If the weather is nice, they set it up on the beach or if not, in one of their lovely function rooms. It's 5 courses with a cocktail to start, the bubbly, then we had white to start and finished on red. That's definitely worth it - we had a really nice evening. You have to remember about paying tax on the resort credit...like the spa treatments are mega overpriced but when you look at the taxes, they are pretty reasonable. And the jacuzzi and steam room in the spas are really nice (although men's and women's are separate - although you do have your massage together). You could also have a photoshoot, which we didn't, but kinda wish we had because we spoke to some other couples who said it was good fun! You can use your credit in the shops, but only on certain items up to a certain value, so bear that in mind.
We only took US dollars, and that was fine. We tipped a bit, not loads but probably $50 across the week to the maid, the bell boys, waiters and bar staff. You get great service anyway, so it's not one of those places where you need to tip to get drinks service round the pool, but the guys were working so hard, they really deserved it! Some of the prices at their airport were in Mexican Pesos (exchange rate was about 13 pesos to $1) but they took dollars no problem.
Right, I really do need to go back to work, but Katie, I hope this has helped! Do you know which area you're staying in? xxxx
