Day One -Aventura Spa Palace

Well, yes, they DID say there was a hurricane headed to Cancun. But I'm from Myrtle Beach and we've been through dozens of hurricanes and hurricanes that petered out to tropical storms. Besides, Mike called the place and they said to C'mon down, y'all - olé!

We checked in to a bottle of champagne and wine waiting in our room with a note to wish us Happy Anniversary (yeah, its not, but they like to play that up, so we milked it). Get a load of the 'nip' bar. The fridge below held mixers.


Mike immediately relaxed on our hammock.


Here's Mike at the pool 'con margarita':


Day one was great. The place was gorgeous...




At night, we had a nice Mexican dinner and saw a circus in our lobby. They didn't serve alcohol at dinner - which we thought strange, but we chalked it up to the fact that maybe it was just this restaurant that we picked. Little did we know, it was the management's sly way of trying to ensure that there would be less rowdy drunkards in the morning. Here's some shots of our nice relaxing night:

Crazy hoola hoop chick


Stair-climbing handstand guy


This guy swung and flipped giant lighted shapes. Sounds doofy but it was kinda cool


When we got back to our room, there was a note saying to pack up our valuables and essentials and meet at the designated area. What designated area? So I called the lobby and no one answered, so we began REpacking everything we'd just put into the drawers and closets. They told us to put our belongings in the bathroom. Mike got no sleep worrying about what would happen. I was out like a log as soon as my head hit the pillow. We never evacuated growing up. I figured it was something they did cuz we were a bunch of Euro-Americano tourists. We'd be back in a day.

Day Two - Morning Evacuation

We woke up and wandered to the lobby hoping for some food. Mike said to get up early so that we could get breakfast. I said, "Breakfast? They're going to evacuate, they won't be bothered feeding us. There'll be food wherever they take us." So we found rolls, luncheon meats, juice and coffee in the lobby and made a few to take with us.

We wandered to the check in area and a line was forming in two areas. What's this? Who knows. So we sit up there to be closer to the buses when they come. The line gets longer. I ask this woman what the line is for and she says in Germanic broken English, "must check out to get bus." I'm like... check out? what? No one told us that. So - frig - I jump in line. Mike's gone back to the room for his blackberry charger. AARP has just given me world access via Cingular. It was our only means of communicating with people back home. (Mike had Nextel - no good overseas).

The line gets longer and longer and still no one's told me to actually line up except for this German woman. The staff never made one announcement. (Which was foreshadowing of things to come).

We met some nice people in line and heard people's stories as they filtered past us. In the chaos, I heard people saying that they were charging people for excursions they were obviously not taking on Sat. & Sun- since we would be evacuated due to the hurricane. The nerve. I assume they straightened it out, but they must have tried that with everyone because I kept hearing complaints the entire time we were in line -- which was at least an hour- standing. Mike and I took turns.

While in line, I noticed people with their backpacks full of their belongings. I'd crammed ours in my AARP tote (thank you, Alana!) but that was all we had. I was kicking myself for making Mike leave his backpack at home. I can hear myself saying, "We're grown-ups now, we have tons of matching luggage - use that. Why would you take a backpack that isn't even on wheels?" (there was probably even a 'sheesh' muttered under my breath). I mentioned this to Steve (some guy from Caldwell, NJ in line behind me) and he just laughed. "Yes," he said, "I got the same speech and have been told many times to grow up." Thier bag was even smaller than ours. Tee hee. Well, at least I'm in the nagging wife club.

Incidentally, they WERE serving breakfast. (Again, Mike was right). I have now aquiesced that Mike has veto power in states of emergency. However, he has rubbed off on me. I packed asprin (for infections), bandaids, flashlights (thanks, Kathy), scissors (in case we had to cut sheets or clothing off of people), bug spray, waters, pillows and a blanket - among other things. I paused in front of the sewing kit - thinking that someone may need stitching so I should bring that. Then thought better of it, because, as with all great ideas, he who thunk it, does it. I wasn't sewing anyone's skin. I left the kit. Everything else small enough was in ziplocks and I even put my laptop in a giant ziplock before we left. Oh, and I brought 2 dvds and an extra battery for boredom.

From this lobby, we were bussed to the main lobby to stand in a line that spanned about 2-3 buildings. This one went rather quickly, but I think it was also about an hour long.

The waiting was too grueling, so I didn't take any photos, but I found this one from AP.

Day Two - At the bunker

At the bus to the evacuation center, we were told that there were 4 destinations: 2 Palace Resorts Conference Centers, and 2 schools. We were praying for the convention center. Whoo hoo. We landed at the Moon Palace. There was constant food, water and sodas. They had hot breakfasts and even gourmet desserts. The bathrooms were clean and we had use of the docks to get fresh air. The place was positively cold because they were trying to keep the A/C running as long as possible in case we lost electricity, but they provided extra extra sheets and blankets for us.

The place was fairly empty when we got there


This is Mike in our little area. Casa de Corriea for the night.


The other people's spreads:


I found this photo from the AP showing the people at the schools. whew - we were so lucky!


The only crazy thing was that when they initally put out the food, people were hoarding the bread, meats, desserts, and sodas. We saw people with entire loaves of bread and several liters of soda that they were in no way consuming. We felt that if the resort had just made an announcement saying that there would be food available all day and night, (any announcement, really!) they would have been less likely to have the refugee mentality. The one thing that they were horrible with was information.

I was in a line for 3 hours for extra blankets (tho no one announced that there was a blanket line or that they were distributing them, we just saw people come back in with blankets and went out to investigate) and heard different ETAs every half hour by a different employee. I think they were making it up. Finally, they said it was going to be 5 hours, so I got out of line. 20 mins later, the blankets came.

Day Three - Lining up to leave

We woke up at 4:45 AM this day. And can you believe it? The staff had already started on breakfast. There were 4 stations already set up. The worst of the hurricane had hit directly into our original hotel the night before.


Of the Palace resorts, Aventura Spa Palace and Xpu Ha were the worst hit. I'd never heard of Xpu Ha, but the people I met in the 'bunker' told me about it. It was an Eco-reserve with crocodiles swimming under the suites, flamingos running around, an aviary, and more. They'd corralled the animals all day long and for the most part, they're uninjured. The suites were on stilts with thatched roofs. They didn't make it as well. When we got home, I looked it up and they were actual buildings but the roofs were pretty flimsy. People at Xpu Ha were awoken with no warning and told that they had 5 minutes to take what they needed and evacuate. No packing, no putting belongings in the bathroom. Things don't sound good for them. And the worst part is that most of their visitors were from Europe, who tend to go on 2+ weeks vacation, so they had LOTS of belongings and a lot of them had MUCH more time to be in Mexico.

Anyway, back to me. :)

By mid-day, they told us that they would take families, the elderly and the infirmed (people in casts, etc.) out first and send them to hotels. There would be rooms for everyone. I had my neck brace with me and was very tempted to put it on. (OK, I did put it on, but to support my neck, I didn't go into the 'injury begging line'). In the photo below, you can see the 'couples' line we were in - they asked for all the couples to wait and they'd call for us later. Around 2 pm, A bunch of people decided to make a line anyway. This line goes from the left side of the photo, out the door, loops around out there and back in the right door. We were in the middle- out between the doors.



When we finally got through the line at around 5pm, we found out that we were going to be staying at the Moon Palace... across the street. Whew! We had all envisioned the Cockroach Palace with a few tarantulas thrown in. But, it wasn't over yet... more lines. Here is the mass at the upstairs check-in. This is generally reserved for weddings and events. I guess a few thousand people checking in all at once is an event of some sort. In this photo, you can see Jenny on the far left. She and her husband were honeymooning from the UK. They're both Drs starting out their new lives together. They'll definitely have stories to tell their kids.



As we were waiting in line to get to the line to check in, waiters were coming by with trays full of beer. It was pretty cool.



We checked in at 8 pm. It was a long day. All I wanted to do was shower and put on clean clothes. Well, I got to shower, anyway.

Its late and I'm getting tired, so I will post more tomorow with the Aftermath photos (which is probably more what y'all want to see). Nite!

The Aftermath & Cleanup

Back at the Bunker on Tuesday AM, they had opened the metal shutters so that we could see out. Here are the shots Mike took from the front windows:








From the shots above there doesn't look like much damage. Then we went off property and saw the billboards and trees.



Back at the beach, we weren't allowed on the beach due to the massive amount of seaweed and debris washed ashore.




They had this much cleaned by the middle of the afternoon.


This was one of the beachside restaurants. This is the sea side.




As you can see below, the crew worked hard cleaning up. They worked all day with just one break in the hot, hot sun. They systematically rolled each piece of thatch, threw it down, piled it up and pile by pile, they carried them out. We were all so impressed with these guys.

And now, on to our vacation...

There's not much to report. The excursions were closed except for Chichen Itza, which was about 2 hours away, and Isla Mejor, which was an island with snorkeling, sea sports, sunning and shopping. We weren't certain what all they'd have open at Isla Mejor and figured we could sun without the travelling right here at the resort. So all we did was sun.

After awhile, the sun just got to be too much, by day 2, I'd jerry-rigged myself a cabana for some shade.


This is where we spent the two days we had. The people around us were the couples we met in the bunker, the newly wed Dr.s Wearing from the UK and Erica and Allan Cruz from CA.


We went shopping with Erica into a shopping mall area in Cancun. It wasn't all rustic like I'd thought, but it was a nice break.

New Friends

Here are shots of the couple we hung out with.

Erica and Allan Cruz from CA


My camera accidentally snapped this shot of Paul & Jenny watching the waiter make the Especial Coffee concoction

Mutant Moths

The one thing we noticed were these humongous moths. Here's two shots of them:





Aren't they gross?

Bye Bye Cancun

On our way home. Mike on the bus, heading to the airport


It was an experience that we thoroughly enjoyed. People have asked me if there were points when we were scared. I'd say twice. Each time we got on a bus to destinations unknown, I was scared we'd land in some horrific place. I wasn't scared for the storm, as I said, I'd been through them before -- it was the potential of being in a suffocatingly hot or insect infested place that made me nervous.

We met some really nice people - some just a few towns away, other across the globe. We met people from Seattle; Red Bank, NJ; Scotland; North Brunswick, NJ; CA, The Bronx; Colorado and on and on. We both feel that we would not have gotten to know so many people so well if it weren't for the bunker experience. We both feel really lucky that it was so painless.

We felt lucky on so many fronts:

We got a call Friday night before we left - to find out that they'd upgraded us to the Aventura Spa Palace which had about 6 total properties around Cancun. If we'd have stayed in the original resort, they didn't have other properties and we probably would have had to evacuate to a school with no a/c.

As we were deplaning and going through customs, (Mike ALWAYS gets random searched) I let a couple of girls go through the lines before us because their friends were further up. The second girl got stopped for random testing -- that was the spot Mike would have been in.

The two days we spent in the bunker were overcast and pouring rain -- we would have been indoors anyway.

We got our luggage back.

We got placed back in a very nice resort and were able to resume our holiday with some really nice people. As a matter of fact, all the different people from the bunker were all talking and trading stories all week as we passed each other at bars, in the pool, etc. We met sooo many more people than we ever would have.

...And best of all, we had each other and we didn't have to be at work. Whoo hoo!

Thank you to all of you who expressed concern. Muchos Gracias!!

There were distinct differences in reactions that Mike got and reactions that I got. Its funny, we were very careful to minimize the danger factor when we emailed to Mike's family. I had my cousin call my family and, apparently, my mother just laughed. She never evacuates. :) My officemates emailed me their concern and everyone gave me a big welcoming hug when I got back to the office. Mike's office were taking bets on when Mike would get back and what condition he'd be in. niiiiiiiice.