Playa del Carmen, Mexico
Our first morning dawns typically early so, surprisingly alert, we decide to start the day as we mean to go on with a run to shift the festive pounds - which we'll no doubt put straight back on with the unlimited booze and food that stretches before us.
We've chosen this hotel, the Playacar Palace, as unlike most of the other sprawling all-inclusive resorts in the region it's not a luxury prison, miles from wider civilisation, but a smaller affair placed right in the heart of Playa Del Carmen, a slightly more sophisticated, European style town, reminiscent of Ibizan pleasures, as opposed to the gaudy, Vegas-style tack of its bigger neighbour Cancun.
So our run takes us straight down La Quinta Avenida (5th Avenue), the pedestrianised strip of bars, restaurants, galleries, shops and clubs that will undoubtedly prove our financial undoing. We've saved for months for this holiday assuming that all-inclusive will mean we return without a hefty bill but as we jog along we spy lots of tempting distractions. Hmmmm. A bit of restraint will be required!
Returning along the beach there's no escaping from the wind and heavy clouds that sit overhead. It's not a sunnily auspicious start to our trip but it's lovely and warm and, feeling virtuous, we tuck into quite the breakfast feast in the buffet by the pool.
Once fed, the fun begins. The Playacar Palace has an extra bonus, beyond its location, as it provides its guests with "resort credits", which for our particular stay amount to $2500 of fun to play around with. Being of the forward-planning persuasion I've already drawn up a wishlist of all-inclusive indulgences and sure enough, I manage to tick off pretty much everything.
So our stay now also includes complimentary trips to both the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza and Coba, adventures to the beautiful seaside town of Tulum and the island of Cozumel, a day out at a Mexican eco-theme park and a romantic dinner for two on the beach.
Throw in various spa treatments, a specially-cooked dinner at the Chef's table and a second at the teppanyaki grill in the hotel's Oriental restaurant, plus a lesson at the Jack Nicklaus golf academy - which should prove highly entertaining as neither of us have the first clue about anything other than drunk crazy-golfing - and we have quite the holiday to look forward to.
Combined with our passes to the biggest New Year's Eve party in town courtesy of Mr David Guetta, it seems any ideas of lounging around doing nothing may well prove hard to come by. And to top it all we then meet Julia, the head of public relations for the hotel, and upon learning that we recently celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary she arranges a special anniversary dinner in La Terraza and promises us that a complimentary cake and bottle of champers will also be waiting for us in the Honeymoon Suite on New Year's Day.
It's quite possible we may just stay here forever!!
Once we've bagged all our holiday goodies we venture out to the beach for a rather windy hour, supping a margherita and pretending that the grey clouds overhead are just what we ordered.
Deciding that lunch may be a better option than being sand-blasted we head into the buffet restaurant, enticingly named Cafe Del Mar, and sample some traditional Mexican fare which doesn't live up to the standards of last night's meal but does the job.
There's not much point in lazing on the beach or drinking by the pool so we decide to head back out to 5th Avenue and find the location for tomorrow night's festivities to collect our tickets. Unlike this morning when it was a fairly tranquil affair, by mid-afternoon it's absolutely thronged with people. Thousands of tourists and locals alike are promenading along, weaving in and out of bars and restaurants and buying souvenirs large and small.
There's a wealth of fabulous things to stock up on from paintings to sculptures, clothes to ceramics, coffees to liquers, spices to jewellery, and even one enormous store calling itself the Tequila Museum. Dangerous!
In one particular gallery we come across a series of paintings by a Mexican artist called Ricardo Comparo that I can't stop thinking about afterwards and may have to return for later, but reining ourselves in we walk the length of the Avenue and only make one small souvenir purchase as we go.
By the time we've meandered all the way to the Marmitas Beach Club at the other end of the strip to collect our passes for New Year's Eve and headed back, jetlag starts catching up with us both so we return to our room for siesta time. Each room has its own hot-tub located by the balcony so we jacuzzi away our aching limbs and then catch a couple of hours shut-eye before dinner.
It's 8pm by the time we're dressed for dinner (there's a formal dress code to use the hotel's a la carte restaurants) and we decide to eat at Momonohana, which specialises in oriental cuisine. The Mexican staff all look very fetching in their red and gold brocaded Mandarin jackets and there's an impressively eclectic collection of dishes from all around the Far East and South East Asia on offer.
With our teppanyaki booking scheduled for later in the week we opt for other delights from the menu. I choose the chicken yakitori, tom kha gai and chicken chow mein, while Coman has the vegetable spring roll, Vietnamese salad and snapper in a tamarind and chili sauce. None of it quite hits the heights to which it aspires but it's tasty enough and we notice that the sushi dishes various other guests order look pretty darn good so we'll be sampling that during our stay.
Our fellow diners are a mix of Mexican families here for the festive break, the teenagers all glued to their mobiles, and Americans of various hues including, from a distance, a super-sized Bette Midler. She's the absolute spitting image, just three times the woman.
As we leave the restaurant we notice some kind of show happening out by the pools so wander over to watch and finish our wine. Fire dancers are whirling their pots of flame wildly around their head to a pumping soundtrack and once they finish a mariachi band strikes up. Feeling tired and spent we hit the sack and put in earplugs to drown out the trumpets, keeping our fingers crossed that the sun will be greeting us tomorrow.
