El-Dorado Seaside Palms is where we spent our 6th wedding anniversary and it was wonderful! I booked it months ago knowing that things would be too hectic come November to think about it, and I’m so glad I did. We will definitely be going back to this place. It’s in the Mayan Riviera between Playa Del Carmen and Tulum. It’s about an hour from the airport (longer with all the other drop-offs) but totally worth the travel – it’s a really great place. We didn’t even get to all of the restaurants and bars there were so many, and the bali beds on the beach normally reserved for members only in resorts like this had sections of them that were available to everyone. We didn’t leave the resort, but will be going back for sure, so there is time for off resort excursions.
First off i loved our room. We were on ground level and had a pool attached to our little patio. The first night there was a fire show and a huge amount of buffet style food. It was pretty fantastic. The next day we kind of got our bearings and walked the whole of the resort.
Animals. So many animals. This resort was over flowing with racoons and coatis. Their racoons are thinner then ours, and somehow way cuter. Coatis are something we don’t have here. They sort of look to me like a combination of a cat and monkey. They roam freely around the resort. At the beginning of the week we only saw a few here and there, but after a few days we realized that they are EVERYWHERE. One night we were on our way back to our room and there was huge group of them on the path and everyone was taking pictures. Someone must have fed them or something, but man they were cute. Also, we came across a racoon drinking what could only be a daquiri – and then we saw the wee guy a few hours later just staggering around… Also, at one of the restaurants there was a trainer with a hawk. Rich asked what she was doing there and she was there for pest control! The hawk was there to keep all the little birds from stealing food off people’s plates. 🙂
In our wanderings, we went looking for the 2 gyms that the resort had to offer. One of them was in the resort spa, and when we were walking around the grounds we got chatting with an employee who told us about an on-resort sort of excursion which we ended up buying and was AMAZING. It was a temazcal experience. It was a traditional Mesoamerican sweat lodge and purification ceremony, preceded by a water therapy session and followed by an 8 course traditional dinner. The whole thing took about 4 hours and it was really terrific. I would do it again in a heartbeat. The Shaman who led all of the rituals did everything in Mayan, and there was a translator. The sweat lodge part was about an hour long and included a lot of ritual and prayer throughout. It was pretty amazing.
We also got roped in to the usual couple of the hour long sales pitch to become members there in exchange for free hour long massages and a romantic dinner on the beach. Totally worth it. We opted to do this on our anniversary. 🙂
The beach. OMG the beach. For our last 4 days there we got up and went to the beach every morning in time for sunrise. We would claim a bali bed and just base there for the day. We basically spent all of our time between the bali bed and in the water snorkelling. It was magical.
