Marcus Troiano

I got back from my one week holiday to Mexico last Sunday, and it was great! My dad took me down as a “finished first year of University” present, which was so nice of him!

The flight took around 3.5 hours (to get from Toronto to Cancun) and it went by quickly. The movie they played was King Kong, which I saw already, but ended up watching again. It’s a good movie, but I don’t think it lived up to all the hype, at least not for me. then we met up with the bus that was to take us to our resort, the Gran Bahia Principe. The drive took around 1.5 hours, and we couldn’t really see much because by that time it was dark outside.

We stopped off at the Gran Palladium Resort first, as some of the people on our bus were staying there. It looked like a nice place as well, though it was too dark to see much of it at the time. A few minutes later we arrived at the Gran Bahia Principe resort, the one we were staying at. The resort is partitioned into four different sections, each with their own lobby and respective facilities; the Tulum, Akumal, Premiere and Coba. Ours was the Tulum.

The Gran Bahia Principe Tulum was in one word, great! It’s an all-inclusive package, so you get all the food and drink you could wish for, plus access to all their facilities. Our room was on the ground floor of one of the many (there must be enough to house several thousand guests) villas, had two double beds and all the rest you’d expect. One of the many, many pools in the resort was just a minute walk away from our room, though I actually never went swimming in one of them, as I much prefer the Ocean. The beach was just a little further than the pool, and the water was great! It’s the Caribbean sea, so you really can’t get much better. In our area it was a little rocky, though just a short treck down the beach it was perfect. The temperature was also perfect, so nothing to complain about at all, I went in the water every day!


The food was excellent! The Tequila restaurant was just as far as the pool, and we usually went there in the mornings to get some food. Whether you felt like having some fruit, eggs, meat or pancakes, it was there. I usually got a custom omelet, some fruit, potatoes, bacon or what ever else they featured, it was different every day, so you never got tired of the food. For lunches we either went back to the Tequila, or went to the main restaurant adjacent to the Tulum lobby, which was massive and had absolutely everything (both were buffet style). We also went to that for dinner several times, and it was great (the custom pasta’s were a sweet part of it!).

We also had three a la carte dinners, one at the Tequila, one at the Don Pablo and one at the El Pescadore. They were all very well done, and I enjoyed the Don Pablo best, it was the “gourmet restaurant” (the tequila was, you guessed it, Mexican, and the El Pescadore, seafood).

In addition to food, drinks were also extremely plentiful. Whether it was a cerveza with your lunch, some vino tinto with your dinner, or a shot of tequila just before bed, they had it all.

We enjoyed the facilities a lot, taking advantage of all they had to offer. We played tennis on the Wimbledon style grass courts (in the hot heat!), went biking around the resort, went kayaking in the ocean, and just relaxed on the beach. I really liked the sea kayaking; especially when there were big waves, riding them in was so fun (though you get flipped over quite a bit). I actually saved a girl from Canada when I was kayaking :). She had been snorkeling, and was pulled out by the current, and couldn’t get back. Luckily, I was out there, and I saw that she needed help, so I paddled over and let her grab onto my kayak. I then brought her back in to shore, which took quite a long time (kayak was off balance, it was rough in the water, and I didn’t want to hurt her with the paddle). It was really cool though! We talked for a while, as I paddled in, and it turns out she’s from my country, Canada, but just at the other end, BC. She was really nice, and even offered to buy me a drink, but those are free ;). So yeah, got to play the hero for one day :D.

We went on two excursions, Coba Maya Village and Tulum. The first one took the whole day, as we went to the Coba Mayan ruins first, climbed the pyramid there, which is the tallest in the Yukaton peninsula (easy getting up, but a pain getting down!), then we visited a Mayan village. It was really interesting to see how they lived, and to see that even though they had next to nothing in terms of possessions, that they were all happy. We then went to lunch at a traditional Mexican restaurant which was nice, went shopping at a market for souvenirs and went to the cenote to take a refreshing swim! That was definitely welcomed, as the day was hot and dry. A cenote is an underground cave where you can swim. This area of Mexico is largely made up of limestone, and the water carves out these caves all over the place, very cool!

The second trip was to the Tulum Mayan ruins, which instead of being in the jungle like the ones in Coba, were on the coast. It was really nice, and definitely worth visiting! The Mayans were an amazing culture, so advanced for there time, and their legacy still stands there’s thousands of years later, amazing!

We met a wonderful couple from the UK on that first tour, and throughout our stay at the resort, we hung out with them on several occasions and had a great time. It was definitely a highlight of the trip, as they were really nice and great to talk with over a few drinks :). Thanks for the fun times Woody and Karen!

The weather was for the most part in the 30’s Celsius, sunny and breezy, which made for a splendid combination! The staff were all so nice, being mainly the native Mayans. When you walked by, they always were like “Ola!”, and all smiles. It was the same with all of the people there, the waiters, and everybody; it was really nice and welcoming. The seven days we stayed couldn’t have gone by faster, which was probably the only drawback of the vacation. The flight back went well, and the movie this time around was Last Holiday, which I had just watched the week before…So I just listened to music and slept most of the remaining time. When we got back to Canada, the weather, which had been really nice when we first left (albeit not nearly as nice as in Mexico), turned out to be cloudy, cold and rainy…great :(. Well, hopefully it improves soon!

So anyways, we had a great time, and would definitely like to go back some time! I’ve put together a gallery with all my pictures, so go check them out and tell me what you think.

written by Marcus