C/O O&O Mandarina

I just returned from our annual exchange with my host agency, Departure Lounge, where we spent 4 nights at the Conrad Punta Mita and then ended our trip with an AMAZING stay at the fairly new One&Only Mandarina right outside of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

What is a host agency you might ask? Think of me like a realtor. Realtors work with a broker for their clients that help with relations and licensing. This is what Departure Lounge is to me. They are one of the best know host agencies in the business and are amazing for supplier relations. What does this mean to you? It means that because we have such great relationships with our suppliers they want to make sure our guests are the happiest. I love working with Departure Lounge as well as all of our VIP partners to make sure that my guests and clients have amazing vacations that they deserve!

Anyways, back to One&Only Mandarina!

This resort opened in 2021 in a new complex called Mandarina, right outside of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It is a quick 45 minute drive from the Puerto Vallarta airport so that you are in paradise before you know it! This property felt more like Costa Rica to me than Mexico and I loved it. A beautiful mix of jungle that meets the sea!

We stayed in the Ocean View Cliff Villa during our stay. The great thing about this property are that all rooms are villa/suite type accommodations so even the entry level rooms are a great size and still perfect for a family. Kids under 12 years of age are not allowed to stay in the treehouse suites due to safety reasons. That being said, I think this is a fabulous resort for kids! The kids club is so cool with a treehouse and a butterfly garden as well as an indoor area for arts and crafts and fun play. They also have several pools around the property with the Jetty Beach Club being the best for children in my opinion. If you are wanting a more adult only vibe, there is an adult only pool that is much quieter with no kiddos in site!

There is a Rosewood that is planned to open in 2025 that will also be apart of the Mandarina complex similar to the Mayakoba complex in the Cancun/Riviera Maya area. It will connect to the Mandarina beach club and you will be able to “dine around”. I can’t wait to go back and check out this property when it opens.

For my clients, my VIP amenities are as follows:

Daily breakfast for 2
$100 resort credit
Upgrade on arrival (based on availability)
Early check-in/late check-out (based on availability)

I would love to book this fabulous property for you and your family today! Send me an email at lauren@thatblondetravels.com or fill out my contact form to get started!

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TOP LUXURY HOTELS IN GREECE

Disclaimer: This Luxury Greece Hotels List contains Affiliate Links for products I’m currently using. By using these links you won’t pay any additional fees, but support me to keep this site running!

ATHENS

ATHENS CAPITAL CENTER HOTEL

HOTEL GRANDE BRETAGNE

FOUR SEASONS ASIR PALACE

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CRETE

BLUE PALACE ELOUNDA RESORT AND SPA

SANTORINI

CANAVES OIA EPITOME

MYSTIQUE, A LUXURY COLLECTION HOTEL

PAROS

PARILIO

MYKONOS

MYKONOS GRAND HOTEL AND RESORT

MYKONIAN UTOPIA RESORT

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Contact me to plan your Greece getaway today!

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PIN FOR LATER!

Traveling with an infant requires a ton of preparation and planning. We have taken two trips with our infant now to Mexico. Here are the things that we used most while at the beach and I would say are essential to enjoying your vacation!

Disclaimer: This Beach Baby Packing List contains Affiliate Links for products I’m currently using. By using these links you won’t pay any additional fees but support me to keep this site running!

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ESSENTIALS TO BUY IF YOU DON’T ALREADY OWN THEM

• Guava Lotus Travel Crib

• Doona

• Mambobaby Float

• Uppababy Minu Travel Stroller

• Beach pop-up tent

ESSENTIAL PACKING LIST

• Formula/ Breast Pump + Storage Bags

• Baby food - oatmeal, purees, etc

• Bottles

• Bottle Travel Rack

• Disposable bibs and burp clothes

• Umbrella Stroller

• Car Seat - this one is only 7 lbs!

• Sound machine and charger

• Portable bottle warmer

• Sleep sack or swaddle

• Frida baby nose sucker or nose picker

• PJs

• Diapers

• Wipes

• Butt Paste

• Swim Diapers

• Sunscreen

• Swimsuits - I love these because of the snaps!

• Portable Fans

• Portable Tent

• Toys

• Baby bath stuff

• Lotion

• Nail clippers

• Medicines: Tylenol, Gas medicine, Benadryl, prescriptions

• Mosquito repellent

• Outfits - I like to have two per day

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Download your free checklist here!

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PIN FOR LATER!

We just returned from our 2 week babymoon to Croatia. What a wonderful country! From the people to the sites, to the food, it was all-around an amazing experience.

While traveling during normal times can have it’s challenges, traveling during a worldwide pandemic can especially be challenging.

Despite the extra hoops to jump through, my husband and I really wanted to travel somewhere before we welcome our new addition in January. This trip was planned and replanned probably 7 times at least. We started off originally going on safari in Kenya and then ending the trip in Oman. While Kenya reopened to tourists starting September 1, they omitted US citizens coming from Texas and California and a couple other states. Option 2 was Hawaii. I planned a full 2 week itinerary to Kauai as their quarantine was to be lifted on August 31st. Around mid-August, the governor instituted a mandatory inter-island quarantine for anyone traveling from Maui to Kauai. While we were not going to Maui and therefore did not need to quarantine, all the tour companies cancelled our excursions and restaurants began to close.

After planning several extensive itineraries, I began to get discouraged as it didn’t look as if any travel plans that I made were going to come to fruition. I told my husband ok so last ditch effort, we are going to Croatia! If that doesn’t work out, then we’re spending 2 weeks in Tulum in Mexico in a beach house haha. Putting together custom itineraries is a very time consuming process with all the research that goes into it, so as you can imagine, I was getting burnt out.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS:

I began to research the specifics on what we would need to get into Croatia and how we were going to get there. First off - COVID testing requirements. In order to enter Croatia, you can bypass the mandatory 14 day quarantine by getting a negative COVID PCR test within 48 hours of crossing the border OR you can enter the country with an “expired” negative result and retest on arrival. If you choose option 2, then you have to quarantine until the results are available.

This part isn’t super complicated unless you are leaving on a holiday (Labor Day) and all the labs are closed. Due to our flights, which I will talk about next, we had to take a test and have the results on the day of our flight, which was Labor Day. I had to find a place that offered COVID testing for people that are not experiencing symptoms that also had their own in house lab and that was open on a holiday. Are you overwhelmed yet? LOL. Anything is possible though when you really want to go somewhere!

FLIGHTS

With testing figured out, next up was our flights. Due to travel restrictions and lack of travelers, flights were getting cancelled left and right. There are no direct flights from Dallas to Croatia and all the ones with stops had a very long layover (I’m talking 30+ hours to get there) and were also very expensive. A travel hack that I’ve learned is to find a direct flight into a popular European hub (such as London or Paris) and then search for a flight on a local airline such as Easyjet or Ryan Air. Flights intra-Europe can be extremely cheap if you use this option. For example, our flight from Pula, Croatia to LHR was 8 euro! For a flight that was showing as more than 2k on google flights to fly from DFW to Dubrovnik, I got for 70k AA points (~700 dollars) plus an additional 80 dollars pp.

We had originally booked a British Airways flight from LHR to Dubrovnik on the same day (so arriving on September 8th) but the UK re-instituted their quarantine coming from Croatia for their citizens so BA ended up canceling all of their flights to/from Croatia. Luckily, I was able to get a flight on EasyJet that left on September 9th from Gatwick to Dubrovnik. This is why we had to get our COVID tests the day of our flight to London since we wouldn’t be arriving into Croatia until 2 days later.

Excited about our first flight since February!

With flights booked and COVID test appointments made, the next thing to figure out was if we could transfer airports in London and how to do it. As I said, we were landing into LHR and our flight to Croatia wasn’t until the next day out of Gatwick. Gatwick airport is located south of London and there are several ways to get there during normal situations. One reason that we chose to fly into London was that US citizens can actually enter the UK, whereas, places like France and Germany we cannot. This was a contingency plan in case our flights were cancelled or there was a missed connection. If there is one thing I’ve learned from this experience, it was to have a backup plan for your backup plan. In order to figure out if we could transfer airports, I did a ton of research on my own but eventually resorted to trip advisor for some locals input.

UK BORDER CROSSING

In order to enter the UK, you had to fill out a locator form that had where you would be spending your time quarantining and for how long you would be in the UK. We were just staying for 24 hours so I filled out the paperwork with all of our information and submitted electronically 48 hours prior to arrival. The UK’s quarantine rules stated that you shouldn’t use public transportation in order to get to your quarantine location. When we arrived into London, we checked out prices on taxis (150 pounds is the standard rate) and then I checked Uber which was half the price. We ended up taking an Uber from Heathrow to Gatwick once we landed.

We were very nervous about the whole landing process and going through border control and then taxi-ing to our hotel. Concerns were: how strict will they be? how will we get food? what if our flight is cancelled?. The list goes on as I’m sure you can imagine.

Being nervous about everything, I had made and looked into several options if anything did happen. When landing in LHR, the border crossing was so smooth. It was like pre-pandemic except with less people. All the border guards were super chill. They asked if we’d filled out our locator form and to see it. I showed it to them and they asked where we were headed. We told them Croatia and they got very excited and wished us well on our journey. Like I said super easy! We made it through the border, grabbed our luggage, grabbed a quick breakfast, and then hoped in our Uber to head to Gatwick airport.

Hotels, EasyJet flight, and Croatia border crossing, to be continued in Part 2!

Back in July, we took a short trip to Gulf Shores, AL. The beaches here are beautiful! We were originally planning on going to Mexico during these dates but my work instituted a 14 day quarantine for anyone returning from an international trip. I then planned a road trip to California and also thought about Florida, but these were also meet with the 14 day quarantine requirements.

We decided to spend a short 5 days/ 4 nights at the Lodge at Gulf State Park. This hotel is in between Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, AL making it convenient to get to both places. When looking at hotels, we decided on the Lodge because it was brand new and in the state park so more isolated than the other hotels with crowded beaches.

Let me just say that this hotel was close to 500 per night and not worth it. The walls were super thin to were you could hear your neighbors having a normal conversation. The hotel was brand new and things were already broken and falling off the walls (more than likely, they were never installed correctly to begin with.) I really hate to write negative reviews, but I would not recommend this property (especially for the price!).

Although, aesthetically pleasing in photos, this was not the case in person. We didn’t let this ruin our trip, however. We really enjoyed eating at the restaurant in the state park that had tons of great food! It was called Woodside Restaurant and they had live music on the weekends with a ton of outside games. It was a really neat place. If you’re heading to Gulf Shores anytime soon, then you should definitely check it out!

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