Family Fun in New York & Mexico!

This year as a family we decided to do a twin centre holiday where we could have a few days of action then flop on the sunbed and relax by a pool for a week. We picked New York and Mexico as the perfect combination! We flew with Virgin (economy classic, so got to choose our seats when we booked) to New York and stayed in the Park South Hotel, a lovely boutique hotel, which is in the trendy NOMAD (North of Madison Square gardens) neighbourhood and a great midtown Manhattan location to see everything from. The hotel room was great for a family of four, with two decent sized double beds and a large bathroom. The best points about this hotel were the coffee at their coffee shop called Covina in the morning on your way out, the restaurant downstairs also Covina (amazing meal, pricey but worth it on our last night) and the rooftop bar (called ROOF) with amazing cocktails, food and views! Only open in summer months of course. What we did in New York and my highlights: • Ferry to Staten island is completely free and you do not need to book. You see the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan and have a lovely ferry ride which helped us get the scale of it all • 911 memorial/museum and ground Zero. It’s incredible what they have done in the time and what the city went through, a very emotional morning! • Top of the Rock (Rockefeller building). We booked a ticket on a New York Explorer pass before we left the UK. Amazing views of the city and you can see Empire State Building from there • Central Park on bikes (it’s easy to hire them just outside the park). It is 7 miles round the whole park so doing it on bikes means you can see more, a great Sunday morning activity! • The RIDE, an unusual bus trip going around the city. Get on at Times Square. It’s very American and a little cheesy, but we loved it! We booked it on the Explorer pass in the UK • Shopping, my boys loved Nike in Soho and Adidas and Macys! • Street Basketball at the CAGE on West Fourth St courts. My son loves basketball, and this was an authentic New York way to see real Basketball, completely free to go and watch and they have games most days. After an exhausting but brilliant four days we flew with Delta to Cancun (only 3.5-hour flight, great service from Delta) and as we had been in New York we were already in the time zone so once we were in Mexico we were used to it. We stayed on the Riviera Maya at Now Sapphire near Puerto Morelos, all-inclusive in a Preferred Club Junior Suite Tropical view. The room was huge and the bathroom was massive. With a family of four it worked brilliantly, a lovely balcony and brilliant air-con! The preferred club gave us the better mini bar, access to the preferred club lounge anytime for food and drinks and computers etc. and access to the Preferred club pool (which is adults only, so be aware of that). The resort is fairly small compared to a lot of others in that area, just right for us, with plenty of choice of restaurants – six a la carte plus a buffet and a 24-hour coffee shop. What I liked is you do not need reservations for any restaurant except the Teppanyaki tables! We never had to wait more than 10 minutes for a table! The main pool is huge, with a swim up-bar, this does get loud in an afternoon with music and the entertainment team but not all day and it’s loads of fun for the kids. The activities were there all day if you wanted them, archery, beach volleyball, football, tennis, salsa making lessons, shows - the list goes on. Whilst in Mexico we also got the opportunity to visit the Grand at Moon Palace and I did a full tour of the resort and spend the full day there and GRAND is the word. With amazing restaurants, bars, activities and pools, I can honestly say I have never been to such a huge and amazing resort. I have had many customers go there this year and they have all loved it. I could tell you so much about it, please contact me to talk about it in more detail! We also did a day trip to Cenotes Zapote Eco Park, where we did zip wires through the jungle, then swam in the amazing natural sink holes. The sink holes have crystal clear water (a little cold though) where you can jump in or dive from low of high platforms, and zip line into the water. A great trip for kids! I could go on and on about this holiday but hopefully this has wetted your appetite a little, so please give me a call to talk about either of the destinations.