The resort

When we arrived, we were led into a super comfy open-air lobby:

                           

I had to laugh at the Christmas tree - growing up in Minnesota, 85°F and Christmas decorations don't really go together...but I guess that's not the case for most of the rest of the world:

                                       

 This was the view walking from the resort to our room - the people on the first floor (US) had rooms that opened right onto the pool:

 Now onto our room - this was the view upon entering:

Just to the right of the door was a big closet and just to the left, the first bathroom.  Across from the couch was a gigantic flat screen TV, and the dining area also had a fridge hidden in the big hutch.

If you go through the open doors on the left, you come across my favorite part of the room, ie this lovely king-sizer four poster bed:

The second bathroom had a jacuzzi tub, a shower and a double marble sink.  There was also a walk-in closet and a nice desk area.   And running all along the length of the room was a balcony:

Then it was on down to the beach - I sure do love me a good white sand beach:

"Here, why don't you guys sit down and enjoy the view, while I go get you the drink of your choice":

Don't mind if I do....

Then it was on to visit the six different pools - though this one was my favorite because of its swim-up bar:

The boardwalk:

Lunch, les pieds dans l'eau:

We saw beautiful sunsets over the water almost every night:

It really was a good-size resort for a week-long vacation.  Even if you didn't go on any excursions, you could still visit a different pool each day and not get bored.  And because things are so spread out, we actually didn't even realize how many people were at the resort until the night they had a BBQ barbecue and all the other restaurants closed down.  It was actually quite surprising how calm the resort was given the number of people - I guess because there were so many great options, people didn't all congregate in one place and it never got crowded.

And it's true that was one of the things we were looking for - we really wanted a couple's resort, not a party resort.  Despite all of the free alcohol, we never saw anyone who was drunk the whole week. The large majority of guests were just there as a couple, so it remained a fairly tranquil destination.

The excursions we did were all great too - before leaving, I was a little worried we'd be crowded into a coach bus and herded around, but in reality, there were always been 6-8 people in a passenger van.  This meant that we could always hear and interact with the guide, and that we could make random stops if we saw something interesting.

As a side note, another thing we liked was that tips were also included for the week for everything except the excursions (since they were a private company).  We also tipped our butlers at the end of the trip, but that wasn't necessary.