Isla Mujeres

This trip has been in the making for the last couple of years. When Mike and I went on our honeymoon 4 years ago to the Smoky Mountains, we said we would take a 2nd honeymoon in a couple of years to a beautiful beach.  We have been diligently saving for this trip these last 4 years and the time finally came for us to visit that beautiful beach we dreamed about since the day we got married. And the best part, we came in way under budget and have money left over to start planning our next trip :) Our plan is to take a big trip every 5 years to celebrate our anniversary! So here is the first installment to anniversary trip #1...the beautiful Isla Mujeres! 

**AND IF ANYONE WANTS MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS ISLAND AND HOW WE PLANNED OUR TRIP, PLEASE EMAIL ME: heartofwalker@gmail.com 

When planning a trip you have been dreaming about for years, you hope and pray it is going to live up to your expectations. Well, this trip not only lived up to the expectations...it surpassed them! It truly was the most wonderful trip we have taken. Isla Mujeres is a small, picturesque island of tropical paradise. The island is only 5x1/2 miles and you can explore the island from end to end on golf carts or mopeds. It is located just east of Cancun and takes about a 15 minute ferry ride to get to the island. Our hotel offered a travel package that took care of all our transportation from the airport to the island and back again. I was able to cross off a bucket list item when the person picking us up at the airport was holding a sign with my name on it!!!! (I may have booked the hotel under my name for this reason alone hoping it would happen...success!!)  

Once we arrived at our resort, The Privilege Aluxes, everyone treated us like we were VIPs (apparently we had garnered this status when I called and told the resort we were celebrating our 2nd honeymoon, 4th anniversary, 1st year as parents, my birthday, and it was our first time visiting the island)! The concierge proceeded to take us to everyone's favorite room in the resort and it did not disappoint! The room had wall to wall sliding glass doors opening to amazing views of the ocean and huge wrap around porch. We were in awe and extremely thankful this was going to be our home for the next 5 days!! And thus began our favorite vacation to date :)

One of the hidden gems about Isla, is how easy it is to get around and how you literally have access to the whole island to explore. Our favorite activity became our golf cart drives around the island. At only 5x1/2 miles, it is fun to just drive the island from coast to coast. The north side, where we stayed, greets you with picturesque turquoise water and white sand of Playe Norte. The southern coast of Punta Sur greets you with majestic cliffs and miles of ocean at every turn. This became our favorite spot to watch the sunrise, and it was totally worth the early morning wake up call on vacation! There is just something so peaceful and humbling about watching God's creation light up all around you. 

Besides golf cart rides we went on a snorkeling tour that ended up just being Mike and I with our favorite Marine Biologist, Tito. If you head to the island, make sure you plan your diving expedition with Sea Hawk Divers!!! Tito showed us over 50 species of fish and numerous types of coral...and he knew the name of each one! Our favorite part was seeing turtles and a school of barracudas. Neither of us had snorkeled before so it was truly an incredible experience. Katie now has a stuffed turtle named Tito :)

We also went zip-linning and kayaking. The island has a reef park which provides a spectacular backdrop for outdoor activities. Again we lucked out with timing and the park wasn't busy.

Before we left for our vacation we decided our main goal was to rest and relax. So this is how we filled all the rest of our time and it was my absolute favorite. Our resort was the perfect place for us to relax with beach access just steps from our room. There was always a cabana open and our favorite restaurant was right on the beach which is where we ate almost all our meals. To top it off, there was live music each night :) One of my favorite places to go on the whole beach was a dock leading straight out to the ocean. It provided the best place to watch the sunset each evening. This is also the place where we met lots of new friends from around the world also capturing this colorful moment each night.

Our favorite eating spot right on the beach :)

I can't say enough wonderful things about our resort and the island. We wanted a quiet, relaxing vacation away from the hustle and bustle of life and Isla Mujeres didn't disappoint. There were many moments before we left that I thought about canceling the whole trip because I was so nervous about leaving Katie plus in the 2 weeks leading up to the trip we all got sick. But thankfully my parents reassured me Katie would be more than fine and probably wouldn't remember us being gone...in fact she didn't even miss us until we got home :) So thank you mom and dad for giving Mike and I the gift of time to spend with each other! We will forever cherish this vacation and the time we got to spend with one another and only further confirmed how important it is make marriage a priority! Happy Traveling!!