After the hectic, stressful, excitement-filled few weeks we had leading up to our wedding, and after the wonderful blur that was the actual wedding weekend, spending nearly a week in Mexico with nothing to do but relax and be together and take it easy was a humongous change of pace – and an absolutely perfect way to spend our first week as a married couple.
When we were awakened by the alarm clock at 3 a.m. on the Monday morning following the wedding, I felt an exhaustion unlike any I’d felt before. For just one moment, I wanted to say, screw Mexico – I need more sleep! But that feeling soon passed, and we were up and excitedly getting ready for our trip while the rest of the neighborhood slept.
We departed for Chicago around 4:15 a.m. and were parked in the economy lot at O’Hare by 5:30. Our plane wasn’t to take off until 9 a.m. – we built it quite a bit of time for “just in case!” – so we waited for quite awhile before finally boarding our American Airlines flight.
Fast-forward 3 hours and 40 minutes and we were touching down in Cancun, Mexico. An hour after that, we arrived via our tour van at our home for the week: Secrets Capri Resort. Our beautiful, all-inclusive resort was located just outside Playa del Carmen, about 30 minutes from Cancun Airport.
When we entered the expansive, sleek lobby, we were immediately greeted with a glass of champagne and a cool washcloth. After we checked in, a staff person showed us to our room - #167, junior suite, ocean-view – and explained the amenities. 
Once he left, we were just giddy. A “Honeymooners” banner hung outside our door, and inside, a bottle of champagne was chilling, rose petals were scattered on the bed, a fresh bowl of fruit sat on the table, and a big bouquet of flowers as well as a letter welcoming Mr. & Mrs. Nevicosi to Secrets Capri was on another table.
We went out on our porch and our location was perfect – we looked straight out into the pool and just to our left was the ocean and beach. Ahhhh, it felt so good to be there. 
Besides two excursions, we stayed at the resort all week and the days sort of ran one into the other. Lounge by the pool, walk on the beach, eat, drink, repeat.
Rather than give you a blow-by-blow account of each day, I’ll just give my recap in sections. Besides, I can’t give you ALL the details of our days. ;)
We did (or should I say I did) quite a lot of research before booking our trip at this resort. Two main things that I heard were way above average were the food and the service. Having never been on an all-inclusive vacation, one thing I’d heard was that the food is usually just mediocre. After having dieted into my wedding dress for months, I wanted to eat and eat WELL on my honeymoon!
I was thrilled with both of these aspects at Secrets Capri. The staff was all so friendly and helpful and truly happy to be there. It was impossible not to be constantly smiling because everyone was so nice! And everyone called me Mrs. Nevicosi all week, which I got a kick out of.
The maids came twice a day, once around lunchtime and then again before dinner with chocolates and a forecast and newsletter for the next day.
Then for the food. Wow, did we eat well on this trip. The food was out of this world.
There were five restaurants at the resort. The Seaside Grill and The Riviera were open for all three meals, while the other three – Himitsu, Portofino and Oceana – were only open for dinner. There was a breakfast buffet and a lunch buffet at The Riviera every day and they were both AMAZING. I wish I’d taken a picture of the buffets, but I was too busy indulging! There was so much food, and it was all so fresh and high-quality and delicious. We ate a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables, a lot of fish and bread and cheese, guacamole with every meal (!), and many, many other things. 
The Riviera was the only “casual” restaurant and the others were listed as “casual elegance.” Even the casual restaurant was quite fancy, and at every single meal, the waiters pulled out our chairs and laid our napkins on our laps.
The Seaside Grill overlooked the beach and was located below Oceana. The quesadilla trio I had for two breakfasts was one of my favorite meals of the trip. We also had some great fajitas and burgers and steaks there, too.
Himitsu was my favorite restaurant – we ate there two of the nights. The sushi was so awesome that the first night, we just kept ordering more sushi rolls and didn’t even get entrees. During our second visit, we had just a few sushi rolls and then we had entrees, too. I was completely wowed. 
Portofino was Italian and was very good. We ate there the night of our long excursion so we were pretty tired when we were there. Oceana was the most romantic dining experience – through our window we felt the breeze and listened to the waves – but the portions were quite small (my dinner was like five bites) and the food wasn’t as good as I would have hoped since I’m such a seafood lover – but oh well. 
On top of the restaurants, room service was available 24 hours a day and was always prompt and yummy. We got breakfast in our room one morning, as well as several mid-day snacks of nachos and wraps throughout the week.
Of course, all drinks were included, as well. I couldn’t believe how much people could drink. It could be 9:30 in the morning and people were walking around with alcoholic beverages! We drank quite a bit throughout the week – but it was probably nothing compared to a lot of the people there. One of the days I had three amaretto sours before noon, which felt weird – but good! – but most other days I waited until the afternoon or evening to imbibe.
I drank about six mudslides the first two days before burning out on them and moving to amaretto sours. I also had some pina coladas and margaritas. Dave drank a couple fruity drinks with me but mostly stuck with Modelos and Coronas and White Russians. I drank red wine at night – and the house wines were really good. When the waiters would come by to fill my glass with wine, they filled it twice as full as a normal restaurant would – I liked it! 
The resort definitely catered to couples and the atmosphere was always so romantic. There were musicians scattered about the resort each night, and we would enjoy a drink in the lobby and listen to the music each night before dinner. One night there was a sax player, another night was an accordionist and violinist, and another night was a keyboardist and guitarist. We also visited the piano bar one evening after dinner. The live musicians all over were one of my favorite parts of the resort.
After spending our first full day (which was Halloween) swimming and floating on rafts in the pool and walking and lounging on the beach, we went on our first excursion Wednesday – swimming with the dolphins at Xcaret. We were picked up at our resort at 8:50 a.m. and drove the ½ hour to our destination. We watched a video and put on our life jackets and then it was into the water with the adorable dolphins.
Dave and I were in a little group with one other couple, and we had two dolphins that played with us for about 45 minutes. The instructor blew her whistle and gave them orders and it was just awesome to see all they could do!
Right away, we each took a turn at the foot push. We floated on our stomachs with our arms out and our feet flat. When the instructor gave her order, the two dolphins came up behind us and pushed us about 30 feet with their noses – it was SO cool!! Their noses felt really hard on the bottom of my feet, and before it was my turn, I was afraid that I might fall on my face rather than glide through the water like everyone else was, but the dolphins really know they’re doing and keep you up in the air. 
The four of us were instructed to always float at a good distance from each other so that the dolphins could swim between us. Each time they swam by, we touched them, and they felt so soft and smooth. Dolphins are extremely friendly, playful and sexual animals and they love to be touched all the time. They each had gashes and marks on their skin and the instructor told us that these were from other dolphins. Since they don’t have arms like we do to tug and say “come play with me” they use their mouths instead. She said they are constantly playing with and touching each other. 
We each took a turn at having them kiss our cheeks, and we danced with them, too. At one point we all floated in a line and linked arms and they jumped over our heads.
We weren’t allowed to bring our own cameras so once we were done and out of the water, we were able to see our video and the photos that had been taken of us that we could purchase. This was the one fight that Dave and I had on the whole trip.
The pictures were ridiculously overpriced, as things usually are on vacation. To get just eight pictures on a CD – not even any prints! (prints were $15 each) – it was $80. For 16 pictures, it was $160, and these were the only options you had – you couldn’t, say, buy four pictures for $40.
I told Dave that I was going to get eight pictures and he kind of freaked out, saying how dumb that was and how it was way too much money to spend on top of what we’d already spent to go on the excursion. So as I sat at our computer trying to pick out pictures, he stood behind me and fumed, refusing to help me decide on which photos to get. Give me a break – we do this once-in-a-lifetime thing and we’re not going to have any photographic evidence of it?
He got over it pretty quickly, and of course now he’s glad we got them. I’m happy to say that we got along wonderfully the rest of the trip. We rarely fight, but spending that much time with any one person can get annoying. We actually thought we might be sick of each other by the end of the trip, but when he went to work this past Monday morning, we actually felt sad to be parting ways for the first time in 10 days!
That excursion was great because we had a blast and we were back at our resort by lunchtime. Our other excursion, however, wasn’t quite so hassle-free.
We knew that seeing some ruins was a top priority on our trip. There were the ruins of Tulum, which were less than an hour away, and then there were the ruins of Chichen Itza, which were about three hours away. Chichen Itza is more expansive and that’s where my history buff husband wanted to go, so that’s where we went. Little did we know that the excursion would have us away from our resort for 14 freakin hours.
The bus picked us up Thursday morning at 7 a.m. Our tour guide, Alvaro, welcomed us and one other couple from our resort onto the empty bus. We proceeded to pick people up at four other resorts, and for each resort, we had to follow quite a long path to get to it and then back out onto the main road. It was tedious, to say the least, but finally we were on our way. 
At 11 a.m. we finally stopped. We weren’t to the Mayan ruins quite yet – instead, we were at a Mayan marketplace where they gave us 45 minutes to shop. Dave and I didn’t feel like shopping, we just wanted to get to the ruins. We did walk through the marketplace for a few minutes but, finding nothing we wanted to buy, we just chilled on some steps until it was time to move on.
At noon we reached Chichen Itza. Alvaro led our group into the park and proceeded to take us around to all the main ruins. The tour lasted about two hours and then we had one hour to explore by ourselves before meeting back at the bus at 3 p.m. 
All around the park, Mexican men, women, and young children were holding items they’d made and trying to sell them to the tourists – carved statues, handkerchiefs, jewelry, scarves, etc. There were TONS of them and they were very persistent. At first I was extremely bothered by them, but I got over it pretty quickly. There was a sign on a nearby tree that said “Note to visitors: Please do not purchase items from those soliciting inside the park. They are here illegally.”
That made me feel better about refusing them – but then when we went off on our own, I saw some beautiful necklaces and I wanted one. All the other tourists were making purchases, too, so I thought, ah what the heck.
I asked how much and the guy said $12. I ended up talking him down to $7, which I was quite proud of. Dave was impressed, too, since he will never let me live down my first purchase in Mexico when I was in Acapulco three years earlier with Christi. I paid 500 pesos – almost $50 – for a stupid silver keychain. I didn’t even try talking the guy down. This time I was better at it! 
Anyway, while off on our own, we climbed the observatory, checked out the huge ball field again, and then trekked to the sacrificial well, which was a huge deep lake. It was pretty creepy thinking of all the people who had lost their lives there long ago!
We got back to the bus just as it started to rain. Some moron who was traveling on his own didn’t get back to the bus until 3:25 or so, making us all wait. By 4:00 we finally stopped for lunch. Um, how can it be called lunch at 4 pm? Especially when we’d left our hotel at 7 am! We were absolutely starving – and the buffet we went to was pretty awful. The people around us mowed down and went up for seconds while Dave and I each choked down a few bites, both wishing we were back at the hotel instead. 
Once back on the bus, we traveled for about 45 minutes – and then stopped AGAIN. This time we were at an underground cave and watering hole that we were told we’d be at for another 45 minutes. Dave and I were pretty grumpy by this time. It’d already been a very long day, and we knew the ride home would take hours. The cave was pretty cool, but we were in no mood to swim, so we sat and watched others wade around. 
When it was almost time to go back, we headed out before everyone else and walked toward the bus. It was hella scary – it was dusk, we were in the middle of nowhere on a Mexican farm, and the top of the well reminded me of the scariest movie ever. I couldn’t wait to get back on the bus.
The bus ride home took another four hours. They showed a movie on the bus and we almost died when we saw what they were playing – out of ALL the movies in the world, they showed “Little Man” and it was the most obnoxious, awful movie ever. Then we had to stop and drop people off at four resorts again until we were finally the last ones dropped off at 9 pm. Dave and I kept a fairly good attitude most of the day, but we were both going stir-crazy that last hour or so. Taking a shower and then having a big glass of wine and dinner that night felt REALLY good.
Chichen Itza was totally awesome and I’m so glad we saw it – I just wish we’d taken a tour that would had driven us there and driven us back and that’s it. We had no idea we’d have all those extra stops! But what’s done is done, and now we can simply laugh about it.
We got quite a bit of rain on the trip, but it was probably for the best since one of the days that we laid out for about three hours, we both got pretty scorched. It was sometimes nice to just lounge around in our room and watch movies on TV, and in the main building, just downstairs from the lobby, there were all kinds of activities to keep people busy on rainy days or when they felt a little bored – ping pong tables, pool tables, putting greens, video games, and board games. 
There were always people doing stuff in this room, even when it was sunny outside. Dave and I played quite a few games of ping pong throughout the week and decided we should get our own table when we have a house. We also played chess and Connect Four and a couple games of pool, which we are both terrible at. On one particularly rainy afternoon, we played Atari and then played Jenga against some staff members (and they beat us.)
By Saturday we were getting ready to come home. When we first got there, I thought, wow, I wish we could stay here for two weeks! But all the downtime does get kind of old after too long, and I was ready for my own bed and my own apartment. Sunday was a long day of travel again and we arrived back in Shorewood around 8:30 p.m.
For a few days, our house looked like a tornado went through it, but we're slowly but surely getting things back in order. Normal, non-wedding-focused life feels strange but great. And, it's been 11 days now, and I LOVE being married. Calling Dave my husband is totally weird, and I do a double-take whenever I catch of glimpse of that ring on his hand. I love how it looks, though – very sexy! I've started the name-change process and am slowly getting used to my new last name. I'm back at work and now the holidays are upon us and life is just very good. 
So that's that - our honeymoon was darn near perfect, just like our wedding day was, and I truly hope that this is only a sign of many, many more happy days to come.
Great recap girl. It sounds like you guys had a perfect honeymoon!
Glad to have you guys back =)
Posted by: Christi | November 08, 2006 at 10:05 PM
Wow--it looks like a great time! I have an event today, so I don't have time to read everything, but I will tomorrow:) From the pics I see though it looks like a blast!!
Posted by: Katy | November 09, 2006 at 09:19 AM
Are you making a sand wedding cake in that picture?
Looks like a decent time. As for the fourteen-hour day, count your blessings. I'd love to go through ten hours of crap for four hours of doing something that cool.
Congrats on everything. I'm looking forward to meeting you as a married couple.
Posted by: Andre | November 09, 2006 at 10:47 AM
Thanks Andre - and I do feel thankful that we got to see the ruins. I wish the day would have been shorter, but I certainly wouldn't trade the experience for anything.
And yes, I was building a mini replica of our cake. :) Complete with a bow and everything.
Posted by: Erin | November 09, 2006 at 11:07 AM
I had a great time at the ruins and would do it again even knowing how hellish the bus ride was.
Posted by: Dave | November 09, 2006 at 12:17 PM
I was just looking over some of the pictures again... aren't those the same ruins as in "Against All Odds"?
Posted by: Andre | November 09, 2006 at 04:15 PM
I loved reading this! You are a great tour guide. I was in Cancun about 15 years ago, and we saw Chichen Itza and loved it. Our bus tour was a little bit more direct than yours, but it still took about 2 hrs. to get back to our hotel. I am doing a series of photos on my recent trip to Europe, so you may want to check it out.
Michele sent me.
Posted by: kenjukenju | November 10, 2006 at 08:52 AM
It totally is the Against All Odds place. I knew there was a real reason behind why Dave wanted to go see it so bad. I can see it now...
Dave is an aging football star, looking to make a little extra money, hired to find Erin who is running from her past. He tracks her to Mexico, she's got some weird mask, he shoots some guy in the ruins, all while racing his ferrari through traffic listening to Phil Collins.
Posted by: Andre | November 10, 2006 at 10:49 AM
Andre, you're such a dork. :)
Neither of us knew what movie that was.
Posted by: Erin | November 10, 2006 at 10:59 AM
Tagline via IMDB...
"She was a beautiful fugitive. Fleeing from corruption. From power. He was a professional athlete past his prime. Hired to find her, he grew to love her. Love turned to obsession. Obsession turned to murder. And now the price of freedom might be nothing less than their lives."
Erin, I know what we're renting this weekend.
Posted by: Dave | November 10, 2006 at 11:28 AM
I guess you guys are a couple years too young to remember that terribly famous Phil Collins song...
So take a look at me now
Cause there's just an empty space
And you coming back to me
Is against all odds and that's what I've got to face.
And don't call me a dork! I'm not the one slow dancing with a dolphin.
Posted by: Andre | November 10, 2006 at 01:02 PM
It's a terribly popular song, therefore most everyone knows it, I'm sure, despite their age. What does it have to do with Against All Odds? I'm confused.
And it was fast-dancing.
Posted by: Erin | November 10, 2006 at 01:45 PM
Like swing dancing, or more like tango? The dolphin has no fingers to snap, so it can't be whitey dancing.
Phil Collins did the title track to the movie. For the love of god, at least watch the very first part of the video. The 80s were awesome, and the movie is just as sweet as the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r-u5opwLi0
Posted by: Andre | November 10, 2006 at 01:57 PM
I'd never heard of the movie, but I am familiar with the song. The Postal Service even did a fun cover of it for some crappy movie that came out about 2 years ago. I think Josh Hartnett was in it.
Posted by: Dave | November 10, 2006 at 09:55 PM
Ok boys, can we quit talking about movies and music on my honeymoon post now?
Thanks much. :)
Posted by: Erin | November 11, 2006 at 06:48 AM
Moving on then...So I hear Robin Yount isn't coming back next year. That's kinda sad.
Posted by: Dave | November 11, 2006 at 10:20 AM
How much gel did Dave have to use to keep his hair all metrosexual-ed up while swimming with the dolphins?
Posted by: Alba | November 13, 2006 at 11:31 AM
Awww, snap! Silly Dave with his combed hair and shirts with buttons. :^)
Posted by: Andre | November 14, 2006 at 09:24 AM
wow... I'm jealous about the dolphins... always wanted to do that
Posted by: Charlie | November 14, 2006 at 10:34 PM
It's pomade not gel, silly.
Posted by: Dave | November 15, 2006 at 06:34 PM
Hey, I was looking up info on Puerto Morelos and I came to your page. I too am going on a Honeymoon to the same place. Your narrative was the first thing that has made me excited. I thank you although you do not know me. Eric
Posted by: Eric | December 31, 2006 at 12:55 PM