15th Wedding Anniversary Trip to Secrets Maroma Resort!

Happy Friday!!!

YAY for the weekend almost being here!

Ok. I am SO excited to be sharing about the trip my husband and I just took to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico! We celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary this past March and decided to celebrate BIG. 

I did a lot of research and read SO.MANY.REVIEWS. 

We narrowed our choices down to a couple resorts and ended up settling on Secrets Maroma Beach Resort.

The pictures of the resort were beautiful and the reviews were AMAZING. 

We booked our trip for the week after Labor Day and basically counted down the days as soon as we bought our plane tickets and reserved our room at the resort! HA!

After lots of planning, it was finally time for us to go on this much anticipated trip!!

Our flight left Raleigh at 6:20 am- so we were there BRIGHT AND EARLY.

We flew Southwest and had to take a flight from Raleigh to Baltimore. Then from Baltimore, we flew to Cancun. Everything went very smoothly, despite getting randomly picked to have our bags searched as we were leaving the Cancun airport! All just part of the adventure of traveling! HA!

Our resort was all inclusive- but you did have to arrange for your own transportation. Aaron set that up and reserved a car for us. It was about $70 extra, round trip, for us to have our own car. I am SO glad he chose to do that. With a shuttle, you have to get picked up and leave the resort at a certain time- whereas we were able to set the time we got picked up from the airport and when we got picked up from the resort. We used the transportation company Amstar and they were GREAT!

We arrived at our resort around 1:30 pm and were SO happy (and VERY hungry)! HA!

We were greeted at the entrance of the resort by the nicest men who graciously welcomed us, took our bags and gave us cool, herbal scented towels along with a glass of champagne. 

Aaron and I both looked at each other and were like, "WHERE ARE WE?!?"

HA!

The resort was STUNNING. 

Very upscale bohemian chic. It smelled amazing and was SPOTLESS. 

These pictures don't do the main building justice!

This was the check in area. Again. SO STUNNING!

And this was the women's bathroom in the main building. 

It was beautiful!

(and SO CLEAN)!

After we got through the check in process, we went to our room, changed into our swimsuits and headed out to the pool to find some food. There was an outdoor grill that had casual food like burgers, nachos, etc. We got something to eat, finally started to feel like our blood sugar had stabilized (HA!) and headed down to the beach to go on a walk!

We were BLOWN away by the clear turquoise water and the beautiful white sandy beach!!!

After a lovely beach walk- we headed back to our room to get ready for dinner!

I really wanted a beach picture, so of course, Aaron somehow set up our phone on a beach chair and we got this picture! HA!

We ate at the outdoor seafood restaurant the first night and then headed over to a barbecue buffet they were having in another part of the resort. YES. We ate two dinners. HA!

And then ended our evening with the most DELICIOUS brownies. We may have shared 3 of them between the two of us:)

Our mornings were spent on our balcony, talking and drinking lots of coffee.

There was a 24 hour coffee shop on the resort- but we really didn't want to leave our room to get our coffee. Our concierge (sounds SO fancy- I never got used to it! HA!) suggested we have room service deliver a pot of coffee to our room. We were like, "You can do that?!?" 

So we had two pots of coffee and a basket of pastries for Aaron delivered at 6:30 am every morning, so when we woke up (around 7 am)- our coffee was waiting for us. 

Seriously. We were living the DREAM!

After we had our coffee, we went to the "World Cafe" which was the buffet restaurant. They had breakfast and lunch hours. I don't eat breakfast- but Aaron does. So he would get a yummy breakfast and I just hung out with him :)

Then- we would head over to the gym and workout! The gym was not overly big or fancy- but it had everything you needed to get a good workout! I used the Peloton app on my phone and did treadmill walks and runs and lifted weights. Aaron did whatever he wanted! He has such limited time during the work week to workout- it was such a treat for him to have no time constraints!

Post workout- we would go to the coffee shop! Iced coffee for me and a frozen mocha for him!

We took our coffees down to the beach and went on long beach walks.

The water was SO BEAUTIFUL!

After our post workout coffee and beach walk, we went back to our room, got cleaned up and ready for the rest of the day- which was spent at the beach and the pool :)

We went to the World Cafe every day for lunch and LOVED sitting outside!

This was our view!!

After lunch, we would head down to the beach and just lounge and talk.

We went on a lot of beach walks :)

This is how I felt about resort life. 

I did not hate it at all. HA!

Our second night at the resort, we headed to the Asian themed restaurant for dinner.

(It was SO SO GOOD).

Funny story about the pants Aaron is wearing.

So- I looked at the resort website before we left to check and make sure we packed the right clothes. On the website it stated there was a dress code: casual during the day, casual elegance at night. But I did not see any specifics on what you could or could not wear. I packed nice chino shorts and collared shirts for Aaron. Not a single pair of pants- because it was well over 95 degrees every day we were there! Well- when we arrived at the resort- they went over the dress codes for dining out at the restaurants and the men HAD to wear pants at dinner!!!

UM. No pants were in Aaron's suitcase. 

Soooo...off to the resort store I went! 

To find the cheapest pair of pants they had were $113.

Yes. You read that right.

Talk about one heck of a souvenir. HA!

So he wore the same blue pants to dinner every single night. We got our money's worth out of those blue linen pants! 

We had one minor "bump in the road" but I am cautious to even call it that because the staff immediately took care of it.

We reserved a full ocean view room (and paid for that upgrade!).

When we arrived to our room- and went out on the balcony- we had a very PARTIAL ocean view.

Aaron was not super happy about that. We decided to go talk to the gentleman who checked us in and as soon as Aaron showed him a picture of our view, he said he would change our room!

The first night we were there- a room was not available- which was not a big deal at all.

The next day, they moved us to a new room and this was our view.

Absolutely STUNNING!

They were so amazing about switching our room. So while it was slightly frustrating to initially be put in a room with not a full ocean view- they remediated the situation so quickly- that it was really a non-issue for us.

They had kayaks and paddle boards to take out into the ocean- so one of the afternoons we took a double kayak out for a little excursion. Aaron did most of the paddling and I just laughed the entire time because I could never get in sync with his paddle strokes! HA!

After our little kayaking adventure, we found a place to lounge on the beach. 

The beach chairs were SO comfy and the staff was so wonderful about bringing us drinks!!

Vacation Aaron is my FAVORITE!

The beach was beautiful! There was a small amount of seaweed- but the resort landscapers were out on the beach every day removing as much of the seaweed as they could from the shore. It was a non-issue for us!

We spent a good hour every day just hanging out in the ocean. The water was SO clear and warm!

For dinner on our third night, we went to the Mexican themed restaurant.

Our appetizers and dessert- huge, fresh churros- were the STARS of our meals there!

Cute little photo op feature! We sent this picture to our girls and they loved it :)

On our last full day, we did our coffee/breakfast/workout routine- but instead of a beach walk- we played tennis! It was SOOOOO hot. But we had so much fun!!!

I just loved this picture :) I think I might frame it!

There were several pools at the resort and the two main pools were very lively and fun. Lots of drinking at the swim up bar and there was always a game of pool volleyball game going on!

There was a narrower, more chill, infinity pool and that's the one that Aaron and I liked the best :)

We would spend time at the beach and then come up to the pool and hang out there until dinner. This was a favorite spot to hang out in the pool- it had this beautiful view of the ocean!

On our last night, we planned a fun eating adventure. HA!

We first went back to the Asian themed restaurant to get the shrimp tempura appetizer and a couple sushi rolls. Then we headed to the steakhouse restaurant (that is outdoors) and had a delicious filet. Then, we headed over to the open air dining area, where they were having a Mexican fiesta. We sampled some yummy things there and Aaron grabbed a margarita.

We ended our night at the coffee shop, where we got several desserts.

Ya'll. It was SO MUCH FUN to just hop around and eat so much delicious food!

We were up bright and early on Monday morning - and I am so glad we were- because we got to see the sunrise!!!

  We got a quick workout in, ate a good meal at the World Cafe and then finished packing our bags! Our Amstar driver picked us up at 11 am to head back to the airport.

We had a solid day of traveling and arrived back at our house at 9:35 pm. Our boys were asleep but our girls were waiting up for us. It was SO good to see them and give them a big hug!!

I know this post is soooo long- but I wanted to mention a few things before I wrap it up.

1. The staff at Secrets Maroma was INCREDIBLE. 

EVERY SINGLE PERSON we encountered was kind, cheerful and helpful. The resort was truly run like a little city. It was truly amazing. I told Aaron our government could learn some lessons from how they run things at the resort! HA!

2. The food was DELICIOUS. There were so many options and 6 different restaurants to choose from for dinner. The buffet they had for breakfast and lunch at the World Cafe was SO good with so many choices!!

3. The resort and our room was SPOTLESS. Everything was incredibly clean. 

I am kind of neurotic when it comes to cleanliness and my expectations were truly exceeded!

I would absolutely 100% recommend this resort!! 

Aaron and I feel like we are completely ruined now- because Secrets Maroma has set the bar so high!!

                                                          

If you made it to the end of this post- you deserve a medal. HA!

Thanks for taking the time to read about our super special anniversary trip!!

Hope you have the BEST day and a WONDERFUL weekend!

Linking up with from Andrea and Erica Friday Favorites because this vacation was my FAVORITE!