Last year Zach and I celebrated 5 years of marriage by visiting ITALY! While it was literally the trip of a lifetime, it was also pretty intense. We didn’t get to do much relaxing because we had SO much to do and see! Plus I was having to deal with pumping which all you breastfeeding mamas know is a PAIN. The year before we didn’t go on a big anniversary trip because we went to Bermuda with Aflac and decided to just call that our “anniversary trip” as well. That trip was nice, but it was CHILLY and I was also pregnant. And you who have been pregnant also know how uncomfortable it is and how non-romantic you feel for 9 months haha!
This year I’m NOT pregnant. And I’m NOT nursing. All I wanted to do for our anniversary was RELAX and ENJOY the freedom of just being ourselves without any pumping sessions or pregnant bellies getting in the way 🙂
We decided to head back to one of our favorite places: Mexico! This time though we decided to visit Cozumel. We have heard great things about Cozumel being a more calm vibe than wild Cancun and thought it’d be more our style. We didn’t do a cheap cheap travel deal like usual. Those days of timeshare tours are over for us after our last horrible experience with it last Sept at Disney.
We also decided to fly out of Valdosta rather than Atlanta. Flying from Valdosta costs roughly $100 extra per plane ticket. Thankfully in our situation we got my ticket for free using our credit card thank you points and we had a voucher from Delta for Zach’s ticket that we got when they messed up our Canada flight last year. So we saved a big chunk of change on our tickets and wanted to enjoy the convenience of Valdosta flying. It’s super close to our house, a breeze to get through security and check-in, free parking, and no hassle to drive all the way to Atl!
The negative of flying out of Valdosta? The flight time is 5:45 AM. Yikes!
I was pretty nervous about the flights after my hardcore flight anxiety issues on the way home from Italy. I called my dr and they prescribed me Xanax. I took 1/2 a pill on our way to board the plane in Valdosta and I think me being so tired def helped it kick in quick. I was nice and callllllllm for sure!!!
Once we arrived in Atlanta we had a couple hour lay over. Our original flight information was actually wrong and we had an hour less than we had expected! Kinda crazy! We went to Chick-Fil-A for breakfast which was a great way to kick off the vacation mode 😉
Check out my eyes haha do I look stoned? B/c I was sooooo dopey thanks to the Xanax. I believe some of my friends may have enjoyed “drugged up Emily” texts before we boarded the plane! Haha!
The meds stayed in my system long enough for us to get to Cozumel. We decided to fly straight into Cozumel because we didn’t want to deal with the hassle of transportation from Cancun which I’ve heard can be a nightmare. I also insisted on us paying to have transportation to the resort prebooked before we left. All of our travels have taught me things and I did NOT want to deal with our Italy arrival experience! I’m SO thankful we went ahead and got the transportation in advance because when we got there it was pretty shady and I would not have felt safe taking a “cab” off the street. We don’t need another creepy van story haha!
The resort we stayed at was Park Royal Cozumel. We had the room for an entire week with all-inclusive but decided to originally only stay for 6 nights and then decided to cut it back to 5 nights so we could get home for Zach to work. Gotta make that money, right? 😉
When we arrived they greeted us with fruit drinks!
Post Xanax sexinnnessss
Pretty much ALL of our pictures are of us with FOOD. Because seriously we did NOTHING the ENTIRE trip (hence why it’s all in one post! haha!). We downloaded some books on our Ipads and brought dvds to watch together (we started Parks and Rec and we LOVE IT!!!!!!!!) and just chillllllled. I treated the trip like a second honeymoon for us. It has been so long since I haven’t been pregnant or nursing and I just wanted to enjoy that quality time together! We slept as long as we wanted and basically had NO schedule! It was HEAVENLY!!!
When we first arrived our room wasn’t ready so we ate lunch and changed into bathing suits to start enjoying the beautiful weather!
I’m not a big fan of all-inclusive style eating. I typically don’t enjoy much buffet food and this time was no different. I do, however, LOVE virgin pina coladas. I drank my calories on that trip fo’ sho’. I probably had at least 8 a day haha!!!!
Z prefers the strawberry daiquiris (virgin, duh!)
We were VERY impressed with our room. It was beautiful and we had such a great view too. The beds were tiny but we sleep in a queen at home anyway so it’s not a big deal to us. I know, my 6’6″ husband sleeps in a QUEEN bed (and we share it with a dog and a cat too haha). We like having the smaller size bed because it keeps us close together. We’re so cheesy huh? But I feel like those HUGE king beds make it too easy to spread out and not stay close! When we first got married we actually slept in a double bed! These beds were possibly smaller than doubles though…they were TOO small for our liking and we did end up sleeping in separate beds haha. Real romantic huh?
View!
Fancy shower with a seat!
Each night we made reservations at the restaurants on the property. The food was okay. I did enjoy getting to have so many date nights together!!! And it was so nice to just walk hand and hand across the property and have the chance to truly reconnect. We had some great talks on our trip and laughed more than we have in ages together. Like I said in an earlier post, this trip helped rekindle our friendship as well as our romance!
Prior to our trip I had a skin cancer scare (more about that coming in a later post) and it REALLY woke me up to the dangers of the sun so I planned on enjoying laying out by the pools everyday, but stuck to the shade the entire time. My goal was the total opposite of a typical beach trip goal: I didn’t want a tan for the first time EVER haha. I was also careful to hardcore apply sunscreen. Zach will only wear spray sunscreen so I bought a fresh bottle for the trip and, of course, it got broken in our bags. It was HILARIOUS. It would leak ALL over the place when we went to put it on and it took us a good 20 min or so to get it all handled and we had to apply it in the shower haha. Most people would have probably just tossed it and bought more, but you know us…I wasn’t about to throw out a brand new bottle!
Breakfast was my favorite meal of the day. They had AWESOME omlets and chocolate milk which I really enjoy but isn’t something I get to have very often.
I was a little nervous about my foot would do on the trip. I wore my sneakers on the flight and was still, at that point, wearing them at home around the house every day. I was able to wear my flip flops but had to cover my incision with bandaids because flip flops rub the exact spot of the incision! It’s still very very sensitive for sure. I liked getting to look down at my awesome Toy Story bandaids…great little reminder of my sweet babies back home 🙂
We celebrated our anniversary while on the trip and exchanged gifts there. Zach got us couples massages as my present, I LOVE getting massages together and it was so sweet of him. Plus the theme of our trip was relaxation so that fit in perfectly! My gift to Zach…well…let’s just say it was a gift that I couldn’t post any pictures of! 😉
It cracked us up that the Spa was INSIDE the fitness center. Like we legit had to walk through the workout equipment to get there!
We each enjoyed hour long massages and it was wonderful! I just told them not to massage my feet so I was good 🙂 The only bothersome thing about it was that they had us laying on towels. I mean towels are just not as comfortable for a massage as sheets ya know? But thankfully they did NOT talk to us during our massages. That’s a total pet peeve of mine. When I’m getting a massage I like to kinda zone out and even usually fall asleep. I don’t want to talk at all during the experience!
We were early for our dinner reservations so we took some pictures around the resort! It was a really, really nice place and is somewhere we both agreed we would go back to again. It was like a dead zone which was awesome. Hardly any people and the people that were there weren’t the crazy wasted partier types which we appreciated!
A nice lady offered to take a picture of us together. The angle is horrible but I still appreciate having it!
Loading up with more virgin drinks!
Let’s just say if the drinks weren’t virgins that WE would have been WASTED the entire trip haha we drank that junk like it was WATER!!!
Perfectly the creepy glare 😉
The Mexican style of restaurant was the best for sure. Which I mean we were in Mexico so you’d assume the Mexican would be the best right? It was a super cute little restaurant and the food was Zach’s favorite!
Beautiful moon!
I didn’t pack a single bikini for this trip. It’s the first time I’ve ever not rocked one on vacation like that but I just don’t feel comfortable in them anymore. I think part of the reason is that I have a daughter now and I don’t want her wearing them so I shouldn’t either, ya know? Plus I have TWO dang kids and it’s not like I have rock hard abs to be showing off!!! I’m a mom. I admit it. However, seeing the bathing suits (or lack thereof) that others were wearing made me kinda feel silly not wearing one!!!
The hotel is right where the cruise ships dock and there isn’t a lot of beach. I thought it was the perfect amount as I’m honestly not a HUGE beach lay out type person. I prefer to lay by a pool 🙂 The snorkeling was supposed to be awesome but we ended up not being able to do it. We saved it for the last day and then it was raining all day that day!
I didn’t participate in a SINGLE activity either. Is that shocking to anyone? I legit finished a book I was reading then read two complete books and almost finished a third while we were there! Zach played horseshoes and he also played several games of volleyball too!
There was a big outdoor mall like attached to the resort. It was super odd! We went to check it out and hardly any of the stores were open yet so I guess it’s new??? At least we did get to see Bruce from Nemo!!!
And we got to find out that Zach is some ancient tribal name or something!
I loved seeing all the wildlife on the property!
We opted for dinner at the buffet one night just to mix things up. Ummmm I literally just ate bread. I didn’t like a single thing they offered. Bread, butter and virgin pina coladas were my diet staples that week!
Views around the resort at sunset! LOVE the infinity pool!
We thought we’d take a dip in the hot tub but turns out it wasn’t hot? I heard from others that they are illegal there?!?! SO random! Like why have the “hot tub” area if it can’t be hot? Instead they call them “whirlpools”
Breakfast of champions!!!! Potatoes, omelet, chocolate danish, and LOTS of chocolate milk!
Laying out under the shade by the infinity pool ended up being “our spot.” I loved the “swim up” bar and the pool plus it was right next to the beach where Zach could go participate in the fun activities. And they seemed to have the least annoying music playing. Zach cannot tune loud noises out very well…so he has an issue trying to read with loud music playing!
THIS is where we probably spent most of our time! Sleeping and watching Parks and Rec together on the lap top 🙂 I loved getting to cuddle up and just not have ANYTHING to do!!!!!!!
Cruise ship parking just off the coast of the hotel!
View from our balcony…which I also got a lot of us out of this trip! I loved sitting out there reading!
Zach ALWAYS turns BRIGHT RED when he’s in the sun. It turns into tan and he does apply and reapply sunscreen, but it’s just the way his skin is I guess? It was hard for me because even though I stuck to the shade the entire time, Zach still wanted to get his tan on. It was like a crack addict having to be around someone using haha. I’m a SUN LOVER so it was mega hard to resist that temptation to soak it up but I’m proud of myself for resisting!!! I’d get in the sun for a little bit but majority of the time I stuck to the shade!
Favorite dessert was the little lemon pies! Yup, I ate two and didn’t care 🙂 We usually chow down on some ice cream while staying all inclusive but the resort didn’t have any!!! Isn’t that crazy?!?!
Since our flight left Atlanta an hour early for Cozumel on our way in we were pretty nervous about our flight time heading home. We just felt uneasy about it even when the front desk confirmed our departure time. On our check-out day we ended up being ready to go early so we went ahead and headed to the airport and thank goodness we did because we were RIGHT! Our flight had been bumped up to leave Cozumel an hour earlier than it was supposed to!!!
We had enough time to get some souvineers while at the airport. We picked up a little something for the kids (a wooden mini guitar for Britt which she LOVES and a puppet for Kye which we’ve never seen again) as well as a thank you gift for Mrs Charlotte for keeping them (some super cute shell earrings), an ornament for our tree, and friendship bracelets for Casey and Jordan (making our circle of trust complete haha).
I took the Xanax again and had a good flight back. I read and rested and it went fine! We had a longer layover in Atlanta as our flight out of Atlanta to Valdosta was leaving an hour LATER than our itinerary said! I’m telling you Delta had their junk messed UP! Plus we arrived in Atlanta an hour earlier since our flight left early so we had a lotttt of time to kill. We finished out our trip with burgers and a milkshake at the airport!
Cracking up about how you can’t see Zach’s eyes haha a
Tiny eyes!
I was SO excited to see the kids when we got home. It worked out great at we got home late Wednesday night and Casey and Jordan brought the kids to our house after church so they were in their beds when we woke up the next morning. I really appreciate Casey helping SO MUCH with our kids while we were gone. We never want to overload Mrs. Charlotte and it’s such a blessing that so much family is willing to step up so Zach and I can enjoy these special times together!
Kye and Britt were both super happy to see us and loved their “prizes.” Other than the stuff we bought at the air port we also gave them each a Delta blanket from the plane. Which Casey says is stealing. But is it???? I mean I ALWAYS have thought you were supposed to take them with you?!?! In doing a quick Google search I can’t really find a clear cut answer? I have never even considered it being stealing? Not that I take one off every flight or anything but still! I guess next time I fly I’ll have to ask!
Anyways I also brought home a box of Fruit Loops from our last breakfast morning. I told the kids it was special cereal from Mexico 🙂 The only time Kye has had Fruit Loops is at Chef Mickey and at random hotels so it was a special treat for him. He was pumped! Free thrills 😉
She loved it too!
It may not have been an exciting trip to read about but it truly was an AWESOME one for Zach and I. We really enjoyed getting the chance to reconnect with each other and just enjoy taking it easy and escaping the realities of life back home. No responsibilities or worries or drama or work: just FUN! I’m so blessed to have married such an amazing man and love all of our travel adventures together! Excited to see where our future anniversary trips will take us 🙂
My work has been featured on Love What Matters, Today Parenting and Babywise.Life. I'm also honored to be a member of the Babywise Friendly Blog Network.
You can read more about our family on my About Me page. Also be sure to follow along with me on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest!
- What I’m Gifting My Family: 2024 - November 21, 2024
- Effective Parenting Tips to Discipline a 5 Year Old Child - September 24, 2024
- Happy 9th Birthday to My Daughter – Letter to Tess from Mom - August 26, 2024
I've never taken a blanket from a plane, and I personally wouldn't want to. I've never taken stuff (besides shampoo, etc) from hotels either. My husband traveled to Vegas for work on Delta in May and Delta had his flights all messed up to…coming and going. Going was more due to the OK tornadoes but coming home was just like your experience. CRAZY
Sounds like the perfect get away!! Funny about the little beds though. You'd think a resort would at least have queens! We got a king a couple years ago…..I still wake up on J's side of the bed. Haha
We pretty much always fly Delta b/c that's the airline that Chris's frequent flier miles are with, so we ALWAYS fly through Atlanta. A couple years ago, we flew to San Fransisco and still flew through Atlanta?!? We pretty much hate that airport because we've been stuck there so many times and our flights have gotten re-routed and rescheduled so much. Looks like you had a great trip! Reminds me of a trip we took once to St. Croix!