This is actually a hard post to write, but not because our trip wasn’t fun, amazing, and relaxing. I was going through a lot emotionally because of some family stuff going on at home during this trip, and I know if I talk about it right now I will cry (I am sure you will learn at some point, I cry a lot). But I don’t want to wait too long, so I’m going to write about the trip and I will write about the hard parts in another post when I am ready.
I need to brag on Nate for a minute! The whole reason we took this trip is because one day at work in July I texted him and said I wanted to take a few days off work for my birthday. He told me to do it and we could go somewhere. Originally I was thinking we would road trip somewhere: West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, upstate New York. Maybe do some hiking in a National Park somewhere and take the doggos with us. I was excited! Then he suggested St. John (we thought about going for Christmas 2024), Iceland, or Cancun. We stopped in Cozumel during our cruise in 2023 for my 28th birthday, where we spent the whole time we were there snorkeling. Since we didn’t even get to try an authentic Mexican taco, I have been trying to convince him to go to Mexico since. He always said it was too dangerous and he would never go there, so I was shocked he suggested it. I will admit, choosing between Mexico and Iceland was a challenge, but I added Iceland to my “to visit” list and he booked our Mexican getaway for my Dirty 30! 🌮🇲🇽🏖
We left on Wednesday, September 17th, the day of my 30th birthday. We left our house around noon, and had a layover in Atlanta. When we got to Cancun, it was just around 8pm their time, and after a quick 20-minute ride to the airport, we arrived at Live Aqua Cancun, the resort we would call home for the next few days! The lobby was beautiful, and all the staff greeted us with smiles and more helpfulness than I knew what to do with. When we got to our room, it was just after 9, so we had time to go to a restaurant before most of them closed for the night. We decided to go to Varenna for some Italian cuisine. We had fried calamari for an appetizer, I ordered the seafood risotto and the catch of the day as my main dishes. Nate and I split just about everything we ate the whole vacation, but I don’t remember what he ordered, honestly. My risotto was delicious! And I really enjoyed the fish. Then the staff brought out a surprise dessert for my birthday (pictured ⬆️). Normally these birthday dishes are loaded with chocolate, which I hate, but this one was great! I was able to pick around the chocolate and still enjoy it. We were both pretty tired from our day of traveling, so we went back to the room, opened the balcony door, and watched YouTube until we fell asleep.
We unintentionally woke up just in time to see the most beautiful sunrise from our balcony the next morning. The waves made the perfect background noise, and we sat out there and soaked it all in for a while. Then we went down to Siete for a breakfast buffet, and let me tell you, this was the best breakfast buffet I have ever seen! There was every American breakfast food you could want, even a spread of breads, cheeses, fruits, and cured fish. But they also had a station for authentic Mexican breakfast dishes, which is most of what I ate. Nate asked me what was on my plate, and I had no idea what it was called, but it was good, and that’s all that mattered to me! After breakfast, we went back to the room to put on our swimsuits and adventured down to the pool area (Live Aqua has 7 pools 😲) but ended up on the beach instead. We snagged a daybed and I basically ran to the ocean. They kept the beach raked, but there was a lot of seaweed still. Otherwise, the water was really nice and the sun was shining. After a while, Nate wanted to go sit by the pool, so we went to the main pool. It has a sun shelf that I actually enjoyed sitting on, but also had a deeper part that came up to my chest (I’m 5ft 3inches for reference). The main pool is also connected to 3 of the other pools, one of which has the most amazing view of the beach and ocean.
For lunch, we went to Sea Corner, which is an outdoor beach restaurant that specialized in tacos, ceviche and tostada’s. This was probably my favorite restaurant in the whole resort (Nate would be ashamed of me 😅). We got 2 kinds of ceviche and the amazing tacos pictured to the right. These are octopus tacos with bell peppers, and I was in heaven. My 2 favorite foods (tacos and octopus) in one and I could literally eat them every day 🤤
After lunch, we went to hang out at the pool bar. Nate wasn’t convinced it was part of our “package” because the pool name had “Club” in it and he thought it would cost extra. I was convinced it was part of it, since there was nothing on the sign saying it was extra and I hadn’t read anything previously that said it was part of a special room package. I went and sat at the bar while Nate got us chairs, and I ordered a Pina colada with no issues. I spent the better part of the afternoon sitting at the pool bar, trying to enjoy the weather and the relaxed atmosphere that is Live Aqua. Admittedly, I had a little too much to drink, but made it back to our room for a nap before I embarrassed myself.
That night, the hotel had some outside vendors set up outside that we could see from our room, so Nate and I went to check it out. There were people with jewelry, Christmas ornaments, mugs, magnets, and other knick knacks. We ended up getting a super shiny and colorful wind spinner with an owl in the center for our patio from one of the vendors. I was starting to not feel good again, so we went back to our room and ordered room service for dinner. I ordered a club sandwich with fries, and a creme brule for dessert. I decided to eat the creme brule first, in honor of a very special person back home. It was delicious, but wouldn’t recommend that and approximately 4 french fries for dinner 😅
The next morning, I woke up feeling much better, which is good since we had snorkeling booked! We ate some of the leftovers from dinner room service for breakfast, since the shuttle was coming pretty early to pick us up for snorkeling. They picked us up right outside our hotel, and after picking up a few other people, we got to our snorkeling dock. When we got there, they did a safety briefing and had us get in the water to make sure all of our gear fit properly.
We could see that there was a storm coming in when we left the dock, but the staff were very knowledgeable and confident, so we went out anyway. I wont lie, the waves were pretty scary, but we got in the water at the first of what should have been 4 or 5 stops. We were actually in the water for a decent amount of time, even though it had started thundering 😬 We saw a few fish and a stingray, and some “blessing of the ocean” statues, among some others in that same spot. When it was time to get back on the boat and move to the next spot, the captain let us know that because of the waves and the storm not passing as fast as they thought it would, we had to go back to the dock to ride it out there. By the time the storm had passed, it would interfere with the rest of their day if they took us back out. They did offer to let us come back later that same day or the next day, but we opted to get a partial refund instead. We didn’t have any other concrete plans for our trip, but there were a few things we were considering doing (camel rides, Chichen Itza, para sailing). It took about an hour in the shuttle to get back to our hotel after dropping a few other people off. We went to Azur for lunch, which was delicious! Then we went back to the room for a while to nap since we had gotten up early to snorkel. We still had quite a bit of time before dinnertime (we typically eat a late dinner at home), so we put on our swimsuits and went back to the pool. On our way down there, I insisted we stop at an authentic taco set-up they had (this was the whole reason we came to Mexico!), even though Nate said he wasn’t hungry. They were cooking all kinds of meats in a big circular griddle type thing, where the center stuck up so they could heat up the tortillas at the same time. You picked what meats you wanted for your tacos, and then they had all kinds of salsas, pico, and other traditional toppings you could choose from. I got chicken and I think Nate got steak and chorizo, and on one of my tacos I used what they said was the hottest salsa they had. They were definitely some of the best tacos I’ve ever had! We enjoyed the rest of the evening in the pool, and got to see a beautiful sunset. Afterwards, we got ready to go to MB for dinner. MB is Live Aqua’s signature restaurant and does have a dress code. Nate forgot his dress pants (😐) but the hotel had some they let him borrow so we could still enjoy MB. We got a drink at the Aka bar outside of MB while we waited for a table, and I got an espresso martini (a vacation necessity). We only waited 20-ish minutes, but it was well worth it. The food was excellent! I don’t remember everything we had but a few of them were a false tuna ravioli, ajillo shrimp, and quail. When we were done eating, we went back to our room to relax for the rest of the night.
For our final full day in Cancun, we decided not to do any excursions and stay at the resort. We went back to Siete for breakfast, which had all the American staples, but new breakfast Mexican cuisines. We got to the pool pretty early, since we used a bag the hotel provided to bring our swimming stuff to breakfast with us. We found this was the best time to find seating. There was hardly anyone at the pool yet! I took my full face snorkel mask I bought for a previous vacation (but had never used😅) to test in the pool, and will definitely be using it the next time we go snorkeling. They brought a tostada cart around the pool around 11am, and you know I had to try one (it was delicious!).
It was a beautiful day! The sun was out, there was a warm breeze that I loved, and not a cloud in the sky. When we were done at the pool, we went back to Sea Corner for lunch again, where we got another ceviche and a larger variety of tacos. Afterwards, I insisted on going down to the beach to swim in the waves for a while. On our way down, we stopped at the beach bar (complete with swings! 😍) for a shot of tequila. I love wave jumping, while Nate enjoys swimming with them to see how far they will carry him. There were other people out swimming around us, but Live Aqua has a really large beach area, so we didn’t mind. I tried my best to give Nate a wonderful gift of seaweed multiple times, but he just wouldn’t take it 🤷🏼. When we’d had enough swimming, we decided to take a nap, but stopped at the hotel gift shop on the way to our room. I got a t-shirt (its a necessity everywhere we go) and Nate got 2 shot glasses. After our nap, we did go back to the pool for a little bit to enjoy it in all its after-dark beauty. There were only 2 other couples at the pool at the time, but we just sat on the sun shelf instead of actually swimming.
We went back to MB for dinner that night, and they were able to seat us right away. I got the habanero foam for an appetizer, the beet rolls as a main dish, and another amazing desert. Nate’s main course was the beef tongue (of course we shared everything). We weren’t quite ready to go back to our room, so we stopped at Ego for another drink and to experience the atmosphere. It was very upbeat and lively, and they were doing karaoke night! Everyone that sang appeared to be American, so we knew all the songs they sang, and were able to sing along with most of them. There was one guy who was really good, that was able to get the whole club singing along to both the songs he did (both without using the lyric prompter)! Then again, I don’t think its too hard to get a bunch of people to sing Sweet Caroline with you 😉. When we got back to our room, we showered and started to clean up a little bit to prepare for our flight the next day.
We didn’t have a lot of time the morning we left, so we ordered room service to enjoy on our balcony. Of course, it was another beautiful day in Mexico, and while I was ready to head back home to be with my dogs and be with my family, I was not ready to leave the sunshine and beautiful weather. We were pretty adamant about reapplying sunscreen throughout our trip, so we both got a great tan but avoided any painful sunburns. We were able to have the front desk get a taxi to take us to the airport. When we got there, we did do some duty-free shopping for a couple of bottles of tequila (it is not the same as American tequila, I beg you to try it if you ever get the chance). Boarding went smoothly and so did our flight. It was 6 hours from Cancun to Detroit, so we watched “Walk the Line” and then I took a small nap. Nate recognized his workplace from the plane when we got closer to home (this is always exciting to me, as my workplace is really close to the airport as well). When we got home, the dogs, and even the cats, were very excited to see us ❤️
Overall, I would say Live Aqua is a great place to stay in Cancun. The service from every single staff member we interacted with was A+, friendly, and everyone seemed happy to be there. Everywhere in the resort was clean. The food was excellent. The beach was beautiful. It has a great location, close to the airport, and most of the excursions I looked into offered pickup from there. If someone I knew was looking into going, I would recommend making sure you have lots of singles for tipping (I know it says its included, but its still a nice gesture) and bring sunscreen. Everything else is so easy, you don’t have to worry about it. The food was great and having a choice between a beach and a pool is a luxury I didn’t know I needed. Live Aqua truly has a relaxed atmosphere, and I am so thankful we had the opportunity to stay there.
