Azul Beach Hotel

I must admit that I am literally a month behind in my blog posts, partially because my phone crashed and I lost all my notes, and partially because my son doesn't nap as much as he used to which means I have less time to write. Nevertheless, I decided to deviate from my regularly scheduled programming to talk about the fabulous time that we had in Mexico!

Restaurant: Azul Beach Hotel
Location: Mexico
Meal: All
Day: All
Son's Age: 8 months

Azul Beach Hotel is an all-inclusive resort by Karisma, located in Puerto Morelos near Cancun. It's different from your average all-inclusive in that, while there are some buffets available, the food is actually available across several different restaurants on-site with full service, which allows for a different quality of food that I haven't seen at a resort before. It is also a boutique hotel specifically designed for families with babies and young children, so you don't see drunken party people running around at all hours of the night. If anything, all the bars close at 1am (although all rooms are stocked with a mini bar and there is 24 hour room service, so yes, I did order a late night piña colada to be delivered to my room). Since I know how hard it is to travel with a baby, I wanted to include this review for any Toronto moms looking to plan a family vacation.

Accessibility: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Like I said, this place is designed for babies. They provided a crib, stroller, baby bath/change table, baby monitor, bottle warmer, and sterilizer.

The restaurants are all equipped with baby high chairs, restaurant high chairs, and booster seats to suit children of all ages.

While there are several pools, one is a kids' pool that is warm and shallow, which is perfect for babies! It's even lined with kid-sized beach chairs!

Speaking of beach chairs, instead of fighting for chairs in the morning and draping towels all over the place, you can reserve a beach bed the day before. 

These are particularly nice because it makes it easy for baby to take a nap while you read your book and relax by the water. They even have some hanging beds if your baby likes the swaying motion. 

If you are used to doing circle time at home with parent and baby groups, they actually have an indoor kids' playground that is air conditioned, and circle time in the morning!

If you like any of the toys there, you can also sign them out for the day to let your baby play with them on the beach. Actually, if you forgot sunscreen, they also have some kids sunscreen you can use! Finally, there is a partnership with Nickelodeon which means your baby can meet characters and attend an orange carpet event. 

I think my son was too young to appreciate what was happening, but if you have an older child, this would probably be very exciting. From an accessibility standpoint, this resort was pretty much made for babies, and I can't imagine it gets any better than this. 

Service: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The staff here are all pretty much trained to deal with babies and young children, so everyone was very cordial and helpful. High chairs are regularly cleaned. I brought my son's bib, which the staff offered to clean after most meals and bring back. Because it is a small place, the staff is pretty good at remembering people, and the server bringing drinks around the beach remembered our drink orders and would bring us new drinks without us asking. I have to remove a star, though, because there were a couple incidents that could have been improved. Specifically, on he first day, we were told to wait in the tequila lounge while they got our information to check us in. Later, I realized it was one of the few indoor or conditioned places on the resort (the restaurants are open air), but at the time, this was not explained, and we waited quite a whole before anyone told us what was going on. Also, the baby amenities were not in the room when we arrived, and I had to call the front desk three times before they were delivered. Finally, at one point we ordered room service, and it took much longer to arrive than they had said it would. Granted, they then brought us a bottle of champagne as an apology, so they were clearly aware that there was an issue. I bring these up because, other than the room service,

 the issues were all on the first day, which gave us the impression that we were in for a stressful vacation, when this was nowhere near the case. Everyone was nice and happy to interact with my son, and we even managed to book a baby friendly trip to Chichen Itza and bring the resort-provided stroller. 

Food: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Obviously, this is a food blog, so my focus is going to be the food. And oh boy, the food alone was totally worth it! Everything was restaurant quality. There are five restaurants in the resort. The main one is Blue, which is the only one open at breakfast and one of two open at lunch. Upon arrival at lunchtime, they always bring some bread with hummus and aioli. 

Now I was here for a full week and did not initially intend to blog about this, so the rest of my photos aren't going to be categorized. But all the restaurants provided an assortment of Gerber baby food so you don't have to worry about packing food for the baby. 

Also the rocket salad with tuna carpaccio was fantastic but you can see the presentation of Gerber food in the photo. The bad news is that my son does not digest Gerber food very well (let's just say results were explosive). The good news is that they were happy to cook food for the baby instead, so he was able to eat banana, avocado, steamed vegetables, chicken, pasta, peanut butter on toast, etc. 

I include this information as part of my food review because really, he was eating baby portions of the adult food, and he definitely enjoyed it. The other restaurants are Chill (lunch only - burgers and sandwiches), Roma (Italian), Tainan (Asian), and Latino (self explanatory). For dinner, Latino was definitely my favourite, but the food was delicious everywhere so you won't be disappointed. And now for my onslaught of random food photos from the trip:

Oh also I know I didn't take any photos but they had some of the best ice cream ever - I swear it must be made in house because the coconut ice cream definitely has real coconut and same with the strawberry and the lychee. Plus they have a separate crepe and panini place and I never would have thought peanut butter and berries go together until I tried their crepe. 

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ 

If you are looking to go on vacation but you are worried about travelling with a baby, I highly recommend Azul Beach Hotel. They really take care of everything for you, and if you just want some sun and some seriously amazing food, this place is worth every penny. 

Playa Cabana Cantina

It had been a while since I went out to eat with my cousin and she was in the mood for tacos and shockingly agreed to have dinner at a ridiculously early time. Since I wanted to have enough time to catch up and still get home for my baby's bedtime, we decided to pick a restaurant in my neck of the woods.

Restaurant: Playa Cabana Cantina

Location: The Junction

Meal: Dinner

Day: Saturday

Son's Age: 17 weeks

Playa Cabana Cantina is run by the same owners as Playa Cabana and Playa Cabana Hacienda, but each location is a little different in terms of ambiance and menu items. I used to come to Cantina a lot before my son was born, but this was my first time coming with baby in tow. Just in case, I made reservations and indicated in the notes that we had a baby who was too young for a high chair so we would be bringing in the car seat. A good thing to note is that the music is loud enough that a baby crying won't disturb other patrons, but not too loud so you can still have a conversation.

Accessibility: ⭐️⭐️
To be fair, I don't think this place was designed with babies in mind, but as I think I've mentioned before, most restaurants are baby-friendly at 5pm! We were seated at a booth for four so we could put baby on the bench seat beside us.

This looks better than it is. I actually thought the setup was good, but my husband was the one actually sitting next to him, and he said that due to space constraints he was pretty much sitting partially off the seat because there wasn't enough room for him to sit comfortably. There was another table nearby that brought a baby as well and they didn't appear to fare much better. As for diaper changes, the washrooms were located downstairs in the basement. 

As you can see, there was no change table and no counter space. Luckily we were parked on the street nearby so when my son inevitably needed a diaper change, my husband just took him to the car to change. Works fine in a group, but not really practical if you come alone.

Service: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Our server was very pleasant and patient in explaining the different menu items to us. When we sat down, my cousin and I noticed that the seat on our side of the table felt sticky, and the server immediately wiped it down and checked to make sure it was clean. Our food also arrived surprisingly quickly, and the server also offered to bring another basket of chips for our guacamole when we finished the first batch.

Food: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
If you are into margaritas, this place has three different kinds! (Don't look at me like that - I'm allowed to have one margarita.) We each ordered a different kind. I can't remember what they are called, although as I noted above, the server was nice enough to explain the differences. My cousin had the more traditional margarita, I had one that had a bit of a citrus flavour, and my husband had the third one which was strong and really hit you with tequila. With drinks ordered, we decided to start with some guacamole.

The guacamole is simple and fresh, which is just the way I like it, and it makes for a great starter to share. We all agreed to order tacos, as it is cheaper to get three of the same and there were three of us. We had the braised short rib, the pescado, and the carnita.

If you are looking for a good fish taco, let me tell you, this is so not the place to go. I found it to be extremely basic, boring, and kind of bland. The carnita was much better as the pork was juicy and flavourful. The braised short rib was undoubtedly the star. The meat was succulent and perfectly paired with the crispy taco. After the guac and the tacos, we agreed to split a dessert: specifically, the churros poutine.

This is a dessert made with churros, marshmallow curds, carjeta gravy, and peanuts. I've never had a combination like this before and it is amazing.

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½
The food is great and we got excellent service, but it is quite a hassle to bring a baby to this location as physical space is very limited.