We have been looking forward to this day for a long time. We are finally back in our beloved Cancun. We have spent so many great vacations here, and it is nice to be back in Cancun, and in a Solaris Hotel. I have to say that we are all very tired. We were up at 3:00 AM and on the road to the airport just after 4:00. Our flight to Memphis, and second flight to Cancun were right on time taking off and landing. The lines at the airport were lonnnnnnnger than I have ever seen before, but hey, I’m on vacation and standing in line in the Cancun airport means I’M IN CANCUN!!!

We got through with everything in about 1-hour after we landed and we were at the GR Solaris in the Hotel Zone 20- minutes later. They dropped a family off at the old Royal Solaris on the way and we were a little bit lonesome when they get out. We had so many great vacations there, and the good points of that hotel outweigh the bad by a ratio of at least 10:1!!!

The new Gran Royal Solaris (GR Solaris) hotel is a much smaller than we are accustomed to staying at in Cancun or the Riviera Maya. This entire resort is about ½ the size of just the Lindo portion of the Iberostar. That is very nice as far as I’m concerned because there will be MUCH less walking than at the Lindo. You will find that I compare much of this trip to the Lindo because we loved that hotel. The IB* chain is great, but we chose not to return when we thought the service was no longer justifying the price they asked.

Our room at the GR Solaris is nice, not great, just nice. We have beautiful tile floors with the typical textured walls like you see in most resorts in Mexico. Our room is right next door to the elevator so we will hold out judgment as to if that is good or not because we are anticipating a high noise factor at night. Of course we like being next door to the elevator for the convenience of getting down stairs!

We have two double beds in our room, and a Murphy bed, which we don’t need, but this room could hold a family of 6-people if several were small kids. I was so tired I took a nap after lunch and I’ll say that the beds are very comfortable, which is the opposite of what I had read on the Internet on several review boards.

The thing that makes me the happiest is that we have a killer view. We are over the pool and we also look straight out onto the ocean. This is something that I missed at the Iberostar Lindo. Looking at a pool is nice, but looking at, and listening to, the ocean is something that can’t be substituted for.

We a have a small fridge in our room that is stocked, and I mean overstocked! This is the most I have ever seen in a resort room fridge! The little 190ml Sol beer bottles are soooooo cute!

The food at lunch was great! We all had steaks, and pasta with a white sauce! Did I mention that it was great! We arrived too late to get into the Spanish night at Marco Polo so we went to the Saturday night Taco Party. The food at the Taco Party was OKAY, but not great, but the table service was excellent. They also had a tequila bar outside and they were making drinks with high-end top shelf tequilas.

Hey Tami, I had a Margarita for you, and I made it a special Azul Margarita! Wow they are good, and they actually seem to put a little alcohol in them here. Notice I said “a little”!!! There are three bars that are open all the time here. Joni says that the lobby bar reminds her of the lobby bar at the Iberostar Beach/Del Mar. I miss the beautiful lobby bar at the Lindo.

After dinner we went to the lobby bar where they had a play for fun casino. Heather was the big winner of the night at the Roulette table and she won a spring break T-shirt from Dady-Rock! Hmmmmmm…. Not quite the message I want sent to my kid, but she had fun playing – get this – one hand!!! Everyone else lost and Heather won, so she was the roulette queen tonight!

Then came the big shocker of the night – the International show. In the past the shows at the Royal Solaris we a little better than the shows we watched at the Iberostar. The GRSolaris obviously hired these people according to their talent as performers first, and how they would fit into the entertainment team second. The show was fantastic, and remember that I have 30+ years of playing and teaching music. At most resorts there are a few people who are talented who carry the show. If I had to rate the performers tonight I would rate every female in the show as a 9 or 10, and all but one male in that same 9-10 level. The last male would be a 7 or 8, but that would be about average for most shows I’ve seen in Cancun, Playa, Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, and even Jamaica. The GR Solaris team was a cut above what we have seen in the past. Now I’m going to be honest here. I will watch almost ever show this week (I’ll skip karaoke) and I will tell you if this crew was a one hit wonder.

Overall I would say that our first day was a winner. On a scale of 1-10 I would rate this day between 8 and 10. It’s too soon to give it a solid score, but our first impression was very positive.

More tomorrow, and pictures – I promise!