I took the elevator up to the Presidential Suite, located on the 17th floor of the Club Tower. The elevator doors opened and I immediately saw a very large piece of art that decorates the entrance to the suite. I walked past it and into the living room. From there, all I could notice was the view. Simply amazing!! I thought my view of dolphins was pretty darned cool, but the sight of the Caribbean Sea from 17 stories up was astounding! A few seconds seconds later, I stopped acting like a tourist that had never witnessed such beauty, and started making my rounds. There were, once again, men carrying trays of martinis! Hurray!! (Note to self: When I become wealthy, I must immediately hire a handsome man to hover nearby with a tray of martinis in hand!) I helped myself to an Apple Martini and started to mingle. Even though the party was work-related, it turned out to be fun and I ended up meeting some very nice people…most of whom are fellow writers.

After the party, I rushed back to my room to get my boyfriend so we could go to dinner. He really wanted to have shrimp for dinner so we had decided to dine at Oceana, the gourmet seafood restaurant by the beach. I walked in to find him napping. The thought of fresh seafood was enough to get his lazy bones out of bed. He got ready in record time and we were out the door.

We took the long way, choosing to walk by the dolphins, around the pool area, and then to Oceana. In the pool area, there is a fairly small pool on one side and on the other side, there is a sandy beach with sea water. (This area would be PERFECT for children that are too small to play in the rough waters of the ocean.) On the sandy beach, the hotel had set up chairs and a stage. There were two guys playing guitar and singing popular rock ‘n roll songs. The were very good too! The hotel calls this event the Stargazing Rock-n-Roll Party. People were relaxing in lounge chairs on the beach while listening to the music. It looked like a good time, but we were too hungry to hang around and partake in the fun.

Oceana is the large palapa in the center of the photo.
The musicians were set up on the left side of the beach area shown in the photo.

We continued walking past the musicians and quickly arrived at Oceana. There was a short wait for a table because they were not seating guests at the tables on the terrace. We were told that the threat of rain caused them to only seat people indoors. (Apparently, in the past they have had major seating problems when it starts to rain and the guests want to move from the terrace to a table inside.) I was disappointed about having to sit inside, but it was a pretty room and I was sure it would still be a nice experience.

Before we were taken to our table, my boyfriend took a moment to point out all the men that were breaking the dress code and showing off their toes in open-toe sandals. I assured him that I read the dress code properly and then reminded him that, thanks to our destructive puppy, he no longer had sandals anyway. He stopped pouting when the host returned to escort us to our table. We were taken to a table in the center of the restaurant and given HUGE menus. They had to be 2 feet by 3 feet. (I wish I was exaggerating!) It’s a good thing they seated us inside because I’m afraid the large menus would’ve acted as sails and swept us away before we had a chance to order.

The menu at Oceana has a very limited selection if you do not like seafood. They have MANY selections if you enjoy seafood, however. The over-sized menu was full of choices, as a matter of fact! I was excited to see Mahi-Mahi (my favorite fish!) on the menu and didn’t really look any further. I had my usual Caesar Salad and the Mahi-Mahi. My boyfriend had been craving shrimp until he started reading the menu selections. He decided to have the Grouper. Our entrees were served with rice and steamed vegetables. Everything was delicious! My fish was slightly overcooked, but not enough to send it back, by any means.

My only complaint about the restaurant was the noise level. We were in the center of the restaurant and had to talk over the noise from the kitchen and the musician. I know the noises from the kitchen are inevitable but the musician would’ve been much more enjoyable if he had lowered the volume a little. Other than that, I just have to say that the dress code was obviously not an issue on the night we visited Oceana. While we were having our dinner, a girl was seated at a table near us. She appeared to be wearing plastic flip-flops/shower shoes, boxer shorts, a tank top, and a cardigan sweater. It looked like she was wearing her pajamas. Thankfully, everyone else in the place decided to dress for dinner.

After dinner, we went over to World Cafe (the buffet restaurant) for dessert and a cocktail. Once again, we walked past the musicians playing under the stars. They were so much better than the musician in Oceana!!

When we walked into World Cafe, the hostess asked for our room number and then took us to a table. The restaurant was pretty during the day, but at night, it was beautiful! The lighting was very soft and I was surprised that the buffet restaurant was MUCH more romantic (and relaxing) than the fancy seafood restaurant we had just come from. We ordered drinks and then walked over to the buffet…only to find that they had a seafood buffet that night! There were mounds of shrimp and my boyfriend was in heaven! He was a little disappointed that he barely had room for another bite, but he persevered. He had some shrimp and dessert while I just had a sampling of desserts. Everything was fantastic! I saw some people with bowls of ice cream. I didn’t think it possible, but I had somehow managed to walk past the ice cream freezer. Unbelievable! By that time, I had no room left for anything…not even ice cream. We were so happy and relaxed…and our tummies were full of fabulous food! We thought about having another drink in the lobby bar, but decided we were too tired. When we walked out of the restaurant, the hostess called us by name and told us to have a good evening. I was impressed that she remembered who we were. (I love when hotel employees make a point of remembering the names of guests.)

World Cafe (buffet restaurant)

On the way back to our room, we looked for dolphins, but they were nowhere to be found. Maybe they were already tucked into bed…or out at a disco. This IS Cancun and I’m sure even our dolphins like to live it up from time to time. Since the dolphins weren’t interested in coming over to greet us, we continued on to our room. I went out onto the terrace and sat in the hammock for a short time. The soothing sounds of the water lapping against the side of the building and the sound of the ocean were lulling me to sleep. I didn’t want to sleep on the terrace (there’s no air-conditioning out there!!) so I went inside and got ready for bed.

My boyfriend had big plans to wake at 6am and go to the gym before breakfast. I didn’t really see that happening, but he set the alarm anyway. He was asleep instantly. Even though I was very tired, I stayed awake to watch the last bit of The Late Show with David Letterman (a genuine treat for me!!!). After Dave said “good night”, I fell into a deep, peaceful sleep. When the alarm went off at 6am, my boyfriend decided to skip the gym in favor of more sleep…just as I had suspected. We planned to get up in an hour to have breakfast together before he left for work.

At 7am, we woke to a beautiful, sunny day! We got ready and went to World Cafe for breakfast. As you have probably guessed by now, the food was very good and the service was impecable. I was very pleased with the quality of the buffets. Everything I had was good. I have found that many all-inclusive hotels have rather bland, boring food on the buffets, but that was hardly the case here.

The view from our room!

A small beach near the pool and dolphin aquarium

The area where the dolphin encounter takes place!!

We were sad that we had to leave the hotel. We thought that, since you don’t usually pay until you check out of a hotel, we would just stay forever. That way, we’d never have to pay! We decided our plan probably wouldn’t work so we pouted a little more about having to check out.

While enjoying our breakfast, we watched the dolphin trainers arrive and get right to work. They seemed to greet the dolphins and then did what appeared to be various medical checks. It was interesting to watch, even though we weren’t sure what the trainers were actually doing. I was excited about getting to swim with the dolphins a little later in the morning and still hoped I would get a dolphin as a lovely parting gift.

After our lovely breakfast, we walked down to the beach and took some pictures. It was such a pretty day!!

The Pyramid Tower on the left and Club Tower on the right.

Beach on the bay side (facing Isla Mujeres)

Sadly, it was time for my boyfriend to go to work. I also had to work, but my day was guaranteed to be more fun than a usual workday. I had to go learn all about Delphinus’ dolphin program and swim with dolphins!!! We said our goodbyes and vowed to see each other at home…in the real world…even though the real world doesn’t have a fully-stocked buffet, a concierge, and dolphins playing right outside.

To be continued…

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 28th, 2007 at 12:16 am and is filed under General Blog Entries, Hotel Photos, Hotel Reviews, Hotels. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. We reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments.