July 25
We woke up around 3:45 in the morning and got ready to head out to the airport. Kelly’s grandma picked us up with the big van around 4:30. We went on our way to Charlie Brown and dropped off our van. (I'd like to note here, that I lived in Pittsburgh for the first 22.5 years of my live and have no clue WTF "Charlie Brown" is...)
We got into a shuttle to go to the airport. We were the first ones left off at the USA 3000 doorway. We then went to the desk to check in. Bill, Kelly and Kerri all showed the man their birth certificates and IDs. Then Kelly’s mom, dad and grandma showed the man their birth certificates and the man told them that they were not the real certificates. The man at the desk told Kelly’s family that the Mexican people would put them in a holding cell and send them back home on the next flight out. Therefore, we were put aside and waited for an apple representative to come about an hour later at the airport to get affidavit letter signed by him giving his okay. We finally got the letters signed. We had to go through security and everything went well, we then got on the tram and went over to the gates.
We went to gate 58 to get on the plane. The plane boarded at 6:15 and we took off at 7:00. We sat 3 seat in front and 3 behind in rows 6 (Kerri, Kelly and Bill) and 7 (Kelly’s mom, grandma, and dad). The plane flight went well; we were served breakfast on the plane, we had a choice of an apple pancake breakfast and a western cheese omelet. (Bill was chanting he wanted his “applebreakfast”) Bill got the apple pancakes and Kelly got the omelet. A blueberry muffin, fruit cup and orange juice came both meals. There was a movie (The whole Ten Yards) showing on the plane but you had to buy head phones for 3 dollars, but we didn’t buy them. The plane ride was only 2 hours and 50 minutes long. We landed around 9:00 Mexico time (central time an hour earlier than back home). It was raining when we arrived.
We went straight to customs and we had to wait in a very long line for about a half an hour. We all had to go up to a desk and show a Mexican man our IDs and birth certificates. We then went to claim our luggage. They told us the wrong luggage belt so we wasted some time watching luggage that wasn’t ours. So we had to go to a different belt to get our luggage. The belt was very thin so luggage was falling off and the luggage was all wet from the rain. There was a big grasshopper on someone’s suitcase.
Once we got everyone’s luggage off the belt, we had to stand in another line to press a button which was a stop light that was red (review) and a green light (pass), Kelly’s dad pressed the button and the light green came on so we got to move on. As we were passing the searching people, they stopped Kelly’s mom to look into her carry on bag (it was bright pink) but everything was fine so we got to move on. We then headed outside to find our bus. We had to wait in yet another line to talk to an apple person to show them our transfer to get from the airport to the hotel. We got on this big tour bus that wasn’t in the best condition, the chairs were broke and they were reclined and the roof was leaking on us. We had to stop at 3 different hotels before we arrived at our hotel. Once we got to our hotel our rooms were not ready for us so we got our bracelets on and went to eat lunch. (Our bracelet showed that we could eat and drink all we wanted.)
We then went to Don Juan for lunch where it was a buffet. We ate a bunch of good food. We went and walked around on the beach and around the pools. Our rooms were not ready until 3:30. We finally got up to our rooms on the fourteenth floor. We were in room 1412, our room was missing a garbage can and chairs for the outside porch. Our room had a hallway with a closet and a bathroom. The refrigerator was also there, but there was no diet pop in it. (This was sometime after Kelly found out she was diabetic, hence the diet pop)
We had to call the front desk for diet pop, a trash can and outside chairs. We didn’t like the hallway door closed so we put Kelly’s suitcase up against the door to keep the door open. There was a bed room with 2 beds, there were no carpets in our room, there were only 2 throw rugs on the sides of our beds and then there was porch that had a great view of the sea. We quickly learned when the door was open the air conditioner would not turn on and only the fan would turn on. When the door was closed the air conditioner would work because two magnets, one on the door and one on the doorframe, were touching. We got changed into our swimming clothes to go out to the beach, since it had stopped raining and the weather was very hot and humid.
While we were at the beach they put Pepsi light in the in the refrigerator.
We swam for a long time then we went to the La Mision for dinner. While we were walking outside, on the porches there were people giving out drinks called Mellon Kiss and it tasted very good. We then went to the party room to watch a show that consisted off a perfect couple show. The people that were in charged of the show tried to pick us but Bill was telling the man NO NO and then he called Bill a chicken and they ended up having enough couples. There were 3 different couples picked, all from different countries. One was from Ohio, another from Colombia, and another from Wales.
The girls had to take a lime from the one end off a pant leg end to the other end on the guy. The guy had to do push ups with the girl lying on his back. The girl had to sing while the guy jumped rope. The girl had to stand on the other end of the stage with a roll of towel paper between there legs and the man had to hop across the floor with a blind fold over there eyes and broom between there legs, the man had to get the broom in the hole in the towel paper roll. They also had to pop balloons by sitting on each other (on a chair), on their chests, stomachs and lying down. After the show we then listened to a little bit of some Mexican music.
While watching the show we got up a few times to get drinks. We didn’t enjoy the music very much so we left and went up to our rooms. We sat out on our porch for a while (we didn’t get the chairs we wanted so we took out the wicker furniture chairs that were in the rooms) then got showers (the showers were different, it was a big hose that you could detach, the bath tub was very high and there was a very big step down.) and then we went to bed. Bill slept in his own bed closest to the sliding door out to the porch and Kelly slept in the middle and Kelly’s grandma slept on the other end of the bed closest to the wall near the door that went out to the hall.
July 26, 2004
We woke up around 8:00 and got ready in our swimming suits and then went down to eat breakfast at Don Juan restaurant. We then went down to the sea where we walked around in the sand and along the shore line. We then ran up to our room to get more sun block. Where we found the maids in our room cleaning, Bill walked around the room telling the maids he wanted a basura and lawn chairs, we also got extra pillows. Since we tipped the maid they made us a fan out of our washcloths. We then went down to the bar pool where we sat in a whirl pool. The bar was right in the pool, you could swim up and sit on little stools and tell the bartender what you wanted.
Some of the drinks Bill and Kelly learned to like were: Blue Ocean, Miami Vice, Fuzzy Navel, Dr. Funk, Banana Mamma, Strawberry Daiquiri, Melon Ball and Meringue. After we spent a long time in the pool we went over to Don Juan for lunch. After lunch we went up to our room to get changed. We then walked out of the hotel resort and went to a mall across the street. We walked around the mall for a little bit. Then we went out the outside of the mall and ended up near some fast food places. We walked a little bit then we found the hard rock of Cancun. We went inside the mall area it was in and bought some souvenirs. Bill got a shirt for him self and we got a hat (for Todd) and a shot glass for his family. We then went across the street from there to a market place.
We stopped at the first store so Kerri could get her hair braided in corn rows. While Kerri was getting that done Kelly went next door and got a henna tattoo of a rose on her right ankle. Bill and Kelly then went off and walked around because Kerri took a long time. Bill got a sand dollar bird statue for his mom and he also got a Cancun Mexico shot glass for his family. Kelly got a pair of orange shorts that said Cancun of the back of them and a big sea shell. We then had to walk back. We stopped at a Mexican outlet shop where we went in and looked around. Bill got a magnet for his grandma there and Kelly got a Cancun tee shirt and a Cancun frame.
We then went back to the room to drop off our bags and get ready for dinner. We had made reservations at a Brazilian restaurant in our hotel at 9:00 for a late dinner. At the restaurant they had a waiter take us to our seats. We were able to go to the soup and salad bar. Bill and Kelly weren’t very crazy about the salad bar. Bill got a big pile of carrots on his plate because he had thought it was grated cheddar cheese. Bill and Kelly both had a bowl of French onion soup. Then we got appetizers of onion rings, broccoli, green beans, and baked potatoes with some type of filling. The waiters came around with a big knife with the food on it like a sis kabob, and they took another knife to push it off on to a person’s plate. We got five different meats, porklion, chicken, sausage, steak, and ribs.
When the waiter was severing Kelly’s dad ribs some of the sauce dripped into his shoes. When he was bending over to clean his shoes he bumped his head on the ledge and his forehead began to bleed. (I think he was already dizzy from the severing...) Bill thought that the porklion, chicken, steak and ribs were good. Kelly only thought chicken, steak and ribs were good. Then we went up to the dessert bar, Kelly tried a piece of cheese cake but she didn’t like it at all.
We went up to the coffee machine to make coffee for Kelly’s dad and grandma and we couldn’t find regular coffee cups and we could only find the espressos (very funny). Then Bill and Kelly started to play with the hot water because we had found different types of tea bags. There were apple, spearmint, lemon, and black tea. After we were done eating it was too late to go to the shows so we walked over to the La Mission to get ice-cream (yogurt) for dessert. Once we got our ice-cream, Kelly’s grandma didn’t like the yogurt so she got a cone from the La Mission and sneaked into the Don Juan to get a scoop of there ice cream. We then went up to the room to get ready for bed.