Category: Review

Mexican Vacation: Luxury Gran Bahia Principe Sian Ka’an

We just returned from our anniversary trip just a couple of weeks ago! We had such a great time and cannot wait to share it. We stayed at an adults only, all inclusive resort in Akumal, Mexico which is about one hour south of the Cancun airport. One of the reasons we were against traveling to this part of Mexico is because of the Cancun party atmosphere but after reading tons of reviews we decided to give the southern end of the state of Quintana Roo a try. We were not disappointed at all. Our hotel was literally carved out of an existing jungle and you can tell that whoever planned and built the resort meant for it to be this way. We stayed on the 3rd floor of the villa and we were in the tree tops! It was such a difference from the beach resort we stayed in last year but we loved it as you felt so secluded.
The resort has two on site a la carte restaurants, a buffet restaurant, a sushi bar and a 24 hour snack bar. Needless to say that we were not hungry! We had four different pools at our disposal which we only used one(we’re more beach people) and tons of nightly activities. There were bars spread across the resort with fabulous cocktails and coffee drinks. We loved the flaming Mexican coffees served nightly during the entertainment!
GBP Sian Ka’an was in the jungle so it was not beach front which we knew before we booked. It was one of my greatest concerns about booking the vacation as we are beach hounds. But we were pleasantly surprised that the beach ride was about 5 minutes on a trolley which was kind of fun! We had our own private beach with a bar and servers that came to check on you frequently and would occasionally bring by delicious fruit skewers and iced tea with lime.
Here are some pictures of this resort and it’s beach:
Resort Entrance viewed from across the highway. It was huge and there was no mistake that we had arrived.

Margaritas upon check-in and my favorite drink of the trip Mango Tango

Our room upon arrival decorated for our anniversary! Tons of chocolate and Tequila. We decided not to upgrade so this is the standard suite offered at the hotel. It was more than we needed and no need to spend an extra $1000 for the penthouse for the week. That extra money we saved is going towards another trip 🙂


Such lush jungle grounds. It was just beautiful

Four pools to choose from(not all shown). We loved the ‘sushi’ pool(above) which had like four smaller jacuzzi like pools inside it. This was a quiet area near the sushi bar to hang out. The sun beds were a nice touch as well!


The Sian Ka’an private beach! So nice! It was awesome to be able to use the beaches from the other resorts as well. We will touch more on that in another post. This was adults only and had it’s own private bar and servers to make sure that we were well taken care of. 

There you have it! You may think this resort seems small and it is but there is something awesome about GBP and that is there are actually four resorts on property and as Sian Ka’an guests we had access to all of their amenities however they were not allowed to visit our resort! We will be sharing a ton more from our trip as there was just so much to see and do! I will be reviewing everything we did and everywhere we went on TripAdvisor so more people can make informed decisions before booking their travel!

January Book Club Pick: The Husband’s Secret

For the book club this month we are actually reading one of my own picks for 2014! I have just finished reading this book over the weekend and I wanted to share my thoughts about it. I picked this book solely from reading synopses and from it being rated so highly on Goodreads. The book is a sort of puzzle as you have to try to put all of the pieces together as there are essentially three different stories being told at once and at the beginning I will say it is kind of hard to keep up with it all. As you read you will start to connect the dots and feel like you are catching up to how these stories actually relate to each other. 
The book centers around Cecilia Fitzpatrick: mother of three girls, overachieving Tupperware saleswoman and wife to a mysterious husband. Now granted, she doesn’t think he’s mysterious per say until she finds a letter addressed to her in the event of his untimely death. She is torn about what to do with the letter; to read or not to read. Cecilia eventually reads and the story unfolds with the aftermath of the secret contained within. The other stories told are all about how Cecilia and the letter connects to them!
The book is a bit slow in the beginning as she finds the letter first thing but holds off on reading it until about half way through. However my eyes were glued to the book after she discovered what the letter entailed and the twists just kept coming. I really enjoyed the book, however I thought that one of the three characters that was featured could be omitted completely. The story really didn’t connect to her at all, although the author did mention her at the end connecting more, but I feel like her whole storyline was completely useless. Not to say I didn’t like her story, but it wasn’t imperative for the ‘real’ story the author was trying to tell. 
So as for my recommendation I would say that I enjoyed this book and would suggest it to friends who like chick-lit mixed with a little mystery! It was a quick and easy read that I cannot wait to discuss with the club!