twodoebs

Today, Sweet Kati and I visited a place called Xcaret (pronounced ish-KA-ret), which bills itself as an "Eco Theme Park" that's "full of Mexico." After an entire day there, we're not quite sure what that means, and we're not so sure the folks at Xcaret do either.

We hated Xcaret. We loved Xcaret. Xcaret was uninspired and boring. Xcaret was hidden treasures waiting to be found. Xcaret was a rip-off. Xcaret was worth every penny.

Let me try to make some sense of all of this. The big selling point about this Xcaret place is the Underground Rivers attraction, where visitors are invited to "explore their crystalline waters and marvel at this ancient creation of Mexican Nature." Wearing snorkeling gear and a life vest, we float for more than one kilometer (that's more than .62 miles for those of you who are counting along at home) while we "discover ancient Mayan sinkholes, magical caves, rock formations and marine fossils." Honestly, the rest of the trip takes a back seat to this Underground River nonsense. To be blunt, the Underground River was LAME . . . lame, lame, lame, lame, lame ("and cold," Sweet Kati adds).

And in a bigger sense, Xcaret suffers from . . . humm, how do I say this without sounding racially insensitive? . . . Xcaret suffers from a non-Disney sense of organization. It's kinda one half baked idea after another without anything really tying them all together. At some points, Sweet Kati and I found ourselves on what looked to be the "Forlorn Mexican Road In the Middle of Nowhere" attraction. And the *map* that's supposed to make sense of this whole thing?--don't get me started . . . they tell you Xcaret can NEVER be fully enjoyed in just one day, but that's because one NEVER knows where in God's creation one IS.

COMPOUNDING matters was our sneaking suspicion (read: absolute certainty) that the people who were responsible for us purchasing the tour to Xcaret were involved in a conspiracy to RIP US OFF! When we booked the Xcaret excursion from our private concierge here at the Royal Hideaway and his "friend in the travel agency" (whose name, I don't mind sharing, is Jurek), we were talked into paying $40 extra for the "all-inclusive-package." This morning, we find out there IS no "all-inclusive-package" at Xcaret, there's just the "Plus package." The "Plus package" includes significantly LESS than $40 worth of value. So on TOP of the base excursion price, on TOP of the "all-inclusive" price, we found ourselves paying AGAIN for things we were pretty sure we had already bought. THEN (then!), every time we turned around, we needed to give these people a cash deposit for one thing or another . . . cash deposit for the lockers (our articles from which we must remove no later than either 5:30 PM or 11:30 PM, depending on when we asked the same person) cash deposit for the snorkel gear (in US dollars, please, of course). Viva Me-hico!

It just felt as if we needed someone on OUR side to help us make sense of what we needed, what we didn't need, and what we should expect. We thought that's what we could expect from our private concierge, but apparently his assistance is limited to making dinner reservations, arranging resort-based activities, and refilling the refrigerator in our room (which--to be CLEAR--we 100% appreciate and LOVE!).

Balancing out the bad experiences, however, were a coupla absolutely lovely, very high points of the day. The first of which was this SUPER cool Mayan Village Mexican Cemetery. Now, in writing this posting, Sweet Kati and I have come to find out that this cemetery was NOT, in fact, an authentic cemetery, but was--instead--a creation of some architect. While this may take a BIT of the excitement away from this place, it's STILL pretty memorable. It's tough to describe exactly what this cemetery is, 'cause it's NOTHING in keeping with the cemeteries we've seen back in the states. Best we can describe, it resembles a layer-cake with seven concentric tiers. Adorning these levels, there are monuments that are meant to reflect the personalities of the dead. So, for example, one of the monuments was meant to honor someone whose trade was a fisherman--his monument included a wooden boat, oars, and an inscription on the bottom of the boat. I know that still sounds a little like regular headstones, but these thingy-magiggers are MUCH more complex. They're--most notably--all very colorful. So the entire image looks something like a Monet painting. Additionally, many of these monuments are very three dimensional. So there might be a monument that includes a well and when one looks down the well, one sees a statue at the bottom of the well--then, later in one's explorations, one finds a tunnel that actually LEADS to the bottom of that well, where there's likely to be a quiet, reflective chapel.

The funny thing WAS, though, that this totally awesome exhibit wasn't anything we knew to visit. All the d-bags involved in getting us on this trip were so fixated on up-selling us to bigger, more expensive packages that nobody even mentioned it. In fact, it wasn't even on the Xcaret MAP--if it wasn't for the nearby souvenir shop, we might have thought we had wondered out of the Eco Theme Park and into a nearby village.

The other thing that we really enjoyed was "the show." This was something that DID live up to it's reputation. The whole time we've been here, everybody's been talking about "the show" . . . have you been to "the show" yet, when are you going to see "the show," whad-ya think of "the show?" "The show" turns out to be something called the "Spectacular Mexico." Words, words, words ('cause this is getting WAY too long . . . go check out the website) . . . "we laughed, we cried, it was better than 'Cats'" (we ALSO--for an additional fee, in US dollars, of course--enjoyed this SPECTACULAR as a dinner theater).

One more full day to go in Mexico. We'll wait to see what Mexico has in store for us yet!