Trip Report Playa Del Carmen 2014

Our first 9 days in Playa Del Carmen,  have gone by quickly, it took a few days to settle into our condo, as it is a lot noisier here at night, sucks when you can't sleep!  Our condo is great, otherwise, we solved the noise problem ourselves, as the management had no other room to move us to, and offered no other help.  
We took the 2 mattress' off the beds in the 2nd bedroom and stood them up against the windows in our room, had to stuff a few pillows around them and place a chair against them, but they are now covered by the drapes and the sound is greatly muffled.  Now that we can sleep we quite like it here!
You can check out the details and photos here:
http://www.rivieramayasuites.com/wordpress/?page_id=204

The weather has really improved from a couple weeks ago on Isla Mujeres, we now talk about sweating too much and enjoy sitting in the shade under a Palapa....Yeah, it is a tough life.

Walking down 5th Ave there are many changes.  There are new Hotels being built, a beach front Hyatt, and a large mall on 5th Ave that was only a shell last year, now is a 3 story modern shopping mall, with Victoria's Secret, Forever 21, Nike, Sanborns and much more.  Honestly I don't think it belongs here, but apparently that is the future for Playa Del Carmen.  Progress apparently.  There are many small Mexican stores mixed in on 5th Ave, some across the road from this big mall, some have a new Designer store beside them, it is quite a mix, I do hope the keep some of the mix.

this was the mall Feb 2013
below is part of what it looks like now, Feb 2014

Some of the great restaurants we found last year are still here, some have moved, some have raised there prices.  We are happy that La Tarray still has a great fish fillet for 90 pesos (Huge plate of fish with rice and salad) La Chevre del Chango still has the amaranth crusted chicken stuffed with cottage cheese, but the price went up to 138 pesos, still worth it, but won't order another margarita there as that went up to 100 pesos, crazy!

We are exercising every morning, on our roof top deck, followed by a long walk on the beach or thru town, more later, have to get moving before it gets too hot!...........