Jonathan Tullett

A fairly bad start to the day – up at 3am to put out the towels and the people below were having some kind of party. Two complaints to the reception later, and the music died enough for me to get to sleep.

Booked two adventures: river ride, glass bottom boat and snorkeling for Monday, and tomorrow we’re going to swim with dolphins.

Z woke at 7am, had breakfast and went to the pool.

Z did very well, jumping and swimming up to 3m, lots of going under the water. Loads of drink consumed.

Hate at the open air restaurant near the pool. Had hotdogs.

Z fell asleep in the shaded hut again for a few hours. Meanwhile, Emma read and I played in the sea.

Woke at 3am to put the towels and a few other personal belongings by the pool. Walking by the sea at that time is wonderful, you only hear the sounds of the crashing waves. I could easy fall asleep. I hold off until I get back to the room.

Amusing moment of the morning came when Emma chased Zachary out of the bathroom and he tried to run onto the balcony. Unfortunately the sliding doors were closed and he ran splat into them. Are we bad parents for laughing?

Another day by the pool. This time with t-shirts to cover our burned bits (in addition to sun cream.).

All in, Zachary spent around 6 hours swimming with one or both of us. He is getting more confident, though I notice more so when only one of us is in the pool with him.

Met an English couple, from Chingford, this afternoon, our first since leaving the UK on the 14th. It makes a nice change to hear a familiar accent.

Ate at the Veranda restaurant again, had steak. Was yum.

First day by the pool. Got burned; quite badly. With the sea breeze flowing, a few drinks and spending all day in the pool, it was easy to forget how hot the sun is. Zachary’s mostly ok, but we’ll certainly be more diligent with sun lotion applying than we have been. Factor 50 all round, I think, and applied at least every hour.

Learned from another tourist that the German method of claiming the best sun loungers works: put your towels on them. I make a note to set my alarm for 3am, so we can get the ones we want which have a complete sun canopy – perfect for small children.

Zachary’s fear of the water has returned. He’s happy mostly doing ‘monkey arms’ around the pool. He’s not confident enough to let go of us and jump to the other, and really doesn’t like going under. This is at complete odds to our last holiday. I hope he improves as the week progresses.

I’m still thinking that arm bands would be better for him, they would enable him to float by himself, and then use his energy to propel himself forward. Emma hates armbands, but without them, he’s pretty much reliant on us for any forward motion. We will see.

Ate at the Mexican restaurant; booking is advised, but they were able to squeeze us in. Result. Food was ok, as were the two guys playing guitar for the diners. My attempts to convince Emma to go up and play ‘Amazing Grace’ were ignored. I managed to squirt lime juice in my eye while attempting to squeeze the slice into my Korona beer. Emma laughed.

With the price of the food and drink, we’ve decided to take the all-inclusive option – $98 USD/pppn. I’ll sign up for this tomorrow morning.

Arrived in the resort around 5pm, got ‘orientated’ by the ‘Expedia Local Expert’. I don’t know what their idea of oriented is, but it isn’t the same as mine – he only tried to sell us things.

Emma chatted to concierge girl called Claudia. Apparently she used to live in Cambridge, and she seems to like Zachary, a lot! I’m constantly amazed at his abilities to get hot women literally chasing after him.

The hotel is stunning. The building is shaped like a pyramid with all the rooms surrounding an atrium. The atrium has huge water features with loads of koi carp, and a central stage where they’ll put on shows in the evening.

We ate on the Veranda, I had carvery.