Rosewood Mayakoba. May 4, 2021. Day 3. The Day Tzvi Met Danger.
We woke up this morning early again, I guess still struggling to get on Mexico time. Today I opted to start the day with some quick exercise in the room. For anyone familiar with Jess Sims’ 5 minute Family Fit, that is what Tzvi got a video of me doing. They are called monkey jumps and they are flattering.
We got dressed and headed to breakfast. Today we got the French toast (in addition to everything else obviously). While it was sweet – I mean it did come with fruit compote and ice cream – it was good. A different Jewish couple (not the one from the golf cart) sat at a table near us. They got coffee in paper cups, fruit in a paper tray and then the wife went to the kitchen with the chef. I don’t know what she did in there but by the end they were eating eggs and vegetables and some other stuff. [Tzvi: I assume she went to supervise the making of eggs (probably in pans that they brought with them).]
After breakfast we headed to our Covid test!! The test is required in order to board a plane back to America. The hotel offers free rapid tests if you stay at least four nights, or you can pay to get a PCR test. There was also a third option to have a Mayan shaman examine your aura and check for Covid, but the CDC doesn’t recommend that one, so we opted for the rapid test. We were both negativo.
Today we decided to spend the day at the pool by the lobby/breakfast restaurant. It’s so great that the seats are spaced out. We’re not actually near anyone so it’s not like we have to listen to anyone’s conversations (you know, unless we’re actively trying). We spotted the Jewish couple from the golf cart, as well as another older Jewish couple. The Jews are out in full force! We basically spent all day just sitting at the pool. It was great. It was hot. We got burnt. Very burnt. I don’t even know how. I lotioned so much and sat almost exclusively in the shade. At this point I’m pretty sure that the “sunscreen” the hotel gives out is just body lotion.
We saw a bunch of people we had seen yesterday at the other pool. I guess people shifted around as we did. There’s this one family we’ve seen at the pool every day. I think is mom is Mexican and the husband is I don’t know what. He’s from San Francisco, but they live in Amsterdam. They’ve had a hotel babysitter with them every day, and the dad must have ADD or ADHD because he can’t stop moving and he keeps talking to people. Yesterday he started offering to get people drinks, though it was unclear if it meant on his tab or not.
Oh, I should also mention that there is a man who walks around the pool with a hawk to scare off the little black birds. They told us his name but I didn’t catch it. I think it was Danger, but maybe I just want to think that.
For lunch I had pasta with vegetables (from the kids menu) and Tzvi got a Caesar salad with seabass. We also shared a hummus thing with pita. I had a mudslide in the afternoon, among other drinks throughout the day.
Around 4:30 I headed back to the room to get ready for dinner. Tzvi had told me tonight was our special anniversary dinner, but I had no idea what it was. Then, at 6 PM a boat showed up at our dock. The table on the boat was set for dinner and Pedro, our captain, welcomed us aboard. Apparently this was all part of the romance package that Tzvi had booked. He had worked with the celebrations department at the hotel to plan out the whole menu and evening. The only thing he didn’t plan was the music, although it ended up being the perfect playlist. It was all soft covers of pop/rock songs, half of which were definitely used on The OC. So yeah, perfect.
Our first stop was Agave Azul, the restaurant next to the lobby, where we met Freddie, our server for the evening. Tzvi explained that the meal would be three courses, each from a different restaurant. Freddie presented us with two margaritas (the package is supposed to come with a bottle of champagne, but Tzvi subbed that out for the cocktails). Freddie also gave us each our appetizer plate, which had a vegetable sushi roll with jicama, avocado, shitake and veggies and crispy fried samosas filled with potato and edamame and came with a curry-mango chutney. Both were so good, but it was so much food.
We then sailed over to the beach to the Punta Bonita restaurant where we met Freddie again. Freddie served us roasted salmon with mancha manteles mole sauce, smoked carrots & baby beets and lentils pico de gallo style. I was so excited to see salmon. I think it’s only been on one menu (for lunch at Punta Bonita but it was like $50 for a salmon entrée so we didn’t get that). [Tzvi: the original menu they proposed had a different fish, but I told them it had to be salmon.]. Oh, and it was a massive piece.
As we ate, we sailed through the lagoon, seeing the other hotels in Mayakoba, birds, turtles, the golf course and the Rosewood residences you can buy for a reasonable $5 million (which seems fair compared to what’s happening now in Lawrence). We also learned about Pedro, who is from Mexico City. He’s been with Rosewood for six years and his parents just got vaccinated because they’re over 60, but he may not get vaccinated until September. It was all so nice, but at some point we had to facetime Hallie to say goodnight. I’m not sure how, but that devolved (quickly) into her being quite upset about our absence and for the last twenty minutes or so of our ride we couldn’t get off the phone with her. Oh well.
The last stop was at a dock near the spa, where Freddie presented us with a cake. Yes, an entire tres leches cake. The cake had a Happy Anniversary chocolate on it and he lit a big sparkler in the top. It was delicious. It was like a soft spongey vanilla cake with tons of sweet cream. Like the perfect cake to cream ratio. We cut a couple of pieces and then Freddie said he would take the rest back to our suite.
Pedro dropped us off back at our suite. The rest of the cake was waiting for us on our table and we asked Freddie if it could be stored overnight. He made a call and then came back and said he had good news and bad news – “the bad news is they can’t save it, but the good news is you get to eat the rest of it tonight!” After that I had to change because my dress was too tight.
It was still early so we took a walk to the lobby to walk off all of that food. We decided to get drinks and took a table at Zepote Bar. We spent way too long talking to the server trying to figure out what to order, but finally I got a raspberry thing with aquafaba and Tzvi got the Negroni, which they keep on tap. Tzvi was deciding between the negroni, which he had seen on the hotel’s Instagram, and something else and asked the waiter which to get. The waiter said to get the negroni, because he saw it on Instagram and he would be disappointed if he didn’t. That was good advice.
After that we had a golf cart bring us back to our room. On the way back we saw fireworks in the distance. When we got back to our room, we found that our butler, Denisse, had set up a romantic bubble bath with rose petals and candles. We’re still not sure if the candles and rose petals were part of the romance package (usually you have to pay for that), but either way it was really nice.
Great night.