Today I found out how the other half lives. Or the other 1/8th maybe. My mom and I checked into The Grand Luxxe outside of Playa del Carmen thanks to a trade with their timeshare company, and holy hell, you guys. We have a plunge pool on our balcony, and a soaking tub and two bathrooms and twice-daily maid service... And we don’t even have one of the nicest rooms here. On the bright side, it’s fun to take pictures of and talk about that amazing plunge pool, and on the downside, it’s cold as F and probably isn’t going to get used. Haha. But in all seriousness, it is the nicest room I’ve ever stayed in.
But my Mom and I find ourselves in a strange predicament here. It’s beautiful. So beautiful. And we mostly hate it. Too huge, too expensive. Too pretentious. Too many rules. Too far from Playa del Carmen with a shameless gouging of guests to get them there. So in a defiantly white-trash way, we are smuggling our own drinks to the pool, challenging bellboys and taxi drivers about the rates, and cooking our own meals with groceries from Walmart in our oh-so beautiful suite. First-world problems, I know. We are so, so blessed to be able to be here. But I hate the idea of this place and I wouldn’t come back. I told the timeshare guy that on the phone tonight and he didn’t take it that well.
This trip is about sun and sand and relaxation and fun, but it is mostly about getting to spend some time with my Mom, who has been a rock through my life and deserves a little slice of the finer things. I thought that until today when she dropped my thermal drink cup over the edge of an elevated walkway into the jungle below. In perfect, white-trash fashion, I scaled the wall and went down after it. Haha. Don’t judge me - that thing was expensive.
This resort makes everyone wear wristband RFID tags branded with the name of the property. The result is that, when you walk down 5th Ave. in Playa, all kinds of people rush up and say hi and tell you that they were your waiter that morning at Grand Luxxe and would you please have a look at their wife’s shop because they are just there helping her out? These are, of course, completely lies, because we are branded like mules walking around the town. It wasn’t until the second guy that we figured it out. Besides, I remember faces. And we never ate in the restaurant. But nice try.
No matter how completely over-touristed and watered down the Playa del Carmen scene has become (compared to Cozumel anyway), we still loved strolling the main street watching the street performers, eating terrible food (just kidding - we didn’t love that) and finding great gems amidst the giant tourist machine. Our favorite place was overflowing with Mexican people being crooned by a so, so handsome guy with a keyboard, a music machine, and a microphone. We are going to go looking for that again.
But, in all honesty, what we are probably not going to go looking for again is a resort that takes itself so seriously that you feel pissed off half of the time when you are just trying to soak up something fun. It’s great for the bucket list, but I think I would rather be staying at one of the cheap hotels in Playa del Carmen where we could walk anywhere right now without a shuttle and a jungle and an outrageous cab ride, and where everyone is nobody and we are all there just for some fun.
But laying next to the ocean today under an umbrella was pretty sweet - not going to lie. And the cabana next to the pool - that was sweet too. But it’s funny to me that it took all this greatness for me to realize that, while the good life looks really amazing on paper, what is so much more amazing is connecting to a place on a way that makes you feel it’s heartbeat. You know? Those are the stories we love. That’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it?
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