This year for my birthday I knew I wanted to travel, being that my last birthday was spent at home during the pandemic lock down. As I thought through locations that would meet my desire for relaxation, pleasing aesthetics and a place less traveled (to avoid crowds), Tulum, Mexico came to mind. In this blog post, my hope is to enlighten you before making that trip to Tulum, Mexico! There are definitely a few things I wish I had known prior to traveling there.
Where We Stayed: Copal Tulum Hotel
Finding a nice hotel to stay at in Tulum can be difficult without breaking the bank. Since this is not our only trip for the year, I wanted to be considerate of our next international travel trip. I knew I did not want to stay in an airbnb because I did not want to clean my room on vacation. Sis was trying to be in 100% relaxation mode, okurr?
The staff at Copal Tulum were kind, respectful and helpful. Most of the staff were fluent in English and helped in calling taxis for me and my husband when we wanted to leave the hotel. The hotel is overall aesthetically pleasing. Beautiful rooftop pool as well as one on the ground level, yummy restaurant, quick room service and just an overall chill vibe. The rooms were spacious and this was a huge plus for me. Our room had a kitchenette and this made warming up food 10x easier.
The Hotel was very accommodating for my birthday as they offered birthday packages that could be selected! Mine included balloons, champagne, roses and chocolate covered strawberries.
Things that I feel could be improved are having more food options on the room service menu and working to provide better ventilation in the rooms. My nose is super sensitive and I could not help but pick up on the smell of mould in the room. I could not see it (thank God), but I think it could definitely be problematic. Turning on the A.C helped with the smell and I also realize that Tulum, Mexico is VERY humid, so the smell in the room might have been a result of the weather. Besides these two thoughts , everything else about the hotel was great! We stayed for 5 days and 4 nights and I would give my overall rating of this place as a 7.5/10.
What We Did
I knew I wanted to do something I had never done before, so swimming in a Cenote (seh-NO-tay) was definitely on my bucket list! Did you know that Tulum has the longest underground river in the world? I know, fascinating. We went swimming in the Cenote at Yax Mul and I rode an ATV for the
first time. Some reservations that I had about this particular Cenote was that upon entering, the tour guide ushered us to a person that had to "bless" us in prayer to their gods before entering the Cenote. Understanding that this is their culture and wanting to be respectful, I allowed it, but made sure I prayed to Jesus in my head during this time.
