Disclaimer: This post 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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AMResorts® recently announced the grand opening date of December 14th for two new Secrets® branded properties, Secrets Moxché Playa del Carmen and Secrets Impression Moxché Playa del Carmen.

These two adults-only properties are luxurious, adjoined, all-suite resorts located on the white sandy beaches in the heart of the Riviera Maya.

Courtesy of AMresorts

Together, these gorgeous, romantic resorts will offer various upscale amenities including:

• Gourmet cuisine by world-renowned chefs

• Three man-made cenotes

• Seven heated pools

• One interior, beach-inspired pool designed for intimate social gatherings

• Nearby snorkeling and diving excursions, as well as the famous 5th Avenue in Playa del Carmen, a 5-mile pedestrian-only walkway dedicated to tourists

• Breathtaking rooftop sky wedding gazebo that overlooks the Caribbean Sea

• Amphitheater-style indoor theater for entertainment and corporate events with top-tier sound system and digital technology as well as state of the art meeting rooms

• Contemporary sports bar

• Expansive Spa focusing on wellness using innovated and traditional treatments in a natural environment that is conducive to self-healing and recovery from daily stress

Courtesy of AMresorts

Secrets Moxché Playa del Carmen will feature 485 uniquely upscale rooms with chic amenities that will come with the following Preferred Club and signature Unlimited-Luxury® concept guests know and expect:

• Contemporary ambience to experience a wide variety of spaces for gatherings of all kinds, from large meetings to intimate moments

• Stunning suites with relaxing rain showers, Nespresso machines and large terraces that feature attractive architecture and the finest comforts that pair perfectly for private celebrations, cocktails, events and tranquility

• Nine unique dining experiences that each provide endless options for every appetite, including seven a la carte restaurants, one buffet, a wine cellar, Barefoot Grill, and Coco Café

Courtesy of AMresorts

You can’t miss the upgraded offerings in addition to the accessible Unlimited-Luxury® offerings for Preferred Club guests at this resort, such as:

• Enhanced suites, including extravagant and upscale Paramount Suites that offer an unparalleled, luxurious experience

• Rooftop terrace that offers captivating Cozumel views with a private lounge, bar, infinity swimming pool and exclusive restaurant

• Upgraded mini bar

• Special access to Secrets Impression Moxché Playa del Carmen’s author’s signature restaurant (for an additional cost)

Secrets Impression Moxché Playa del Carmen will feature 198 stunning suites with contemporary, rustic-chic designs that introduces Impression’s concept of exquisite exclusiveness to the Secrets brand. The new Impression concept gives a brand-new meaning to Unlimited-Luxury® vacations with spectacular suites and villas with ocean views in addition to a more private, personalized experience for the most discerning travelers.

Courtesy of AMresorts

All guests staying at this resort will be granted the same free flow access to Secrets Moxché Playa del Carmen and its Preferred Club areas listed above, as well as:

• Oversized suites that begin at 947 square feet with furnished large balconies with marble soaking tubs, a full marble bathroom with the soothing rain shower, Nespresso machines and more

• Elevated concierge and butler service when reserving a Master Suite, Ocean-Front Panoramic Suite, Two-Story Penthouse Suite or Presidential Villa

• Three exclusive Impression restaurants in addition to the nine options mentioned previously that include the rooftop Impression restaurant, complimentary access to the author’s signature restaurant with a daily rotating menu with wine pairings, and a beachfront restaurant

• Complimentary access to exclusive, on-site dining experiences like the Omakase experience – a 12-seat sushi bar located within the Japanese restaurant and a taco tasting, Mezcal & Tequila bar located within the Mexican restaurant

• Access to the premier dedicated beach area with exclusive wait service

In addition, these elevated resorts have a plan to follow green practices to do their part working towards zero emissions using solar panels, wind energy, and sound water processing.

Courtesy of AMresorts

Contact me to book your stay at one of these exclusive properties today!

Disclaimer: This post 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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LONDON AND PARIS ITINERARY

Recommended 7-day London and Paris itinerary:

London (3 nights)

Paris (3 nights)

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Total days: 7

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LONDON

DAY 1:

Upon arriving into LHR, grab a taxi, take the tube, or get in your scheduled car service and head to your hotel.

If you arrive early enough, then you have a full day to explore the city! Check into your hotel and drop your bags. If you arrive early enough, then make a reservation at The Gallery for high tea and lunch.

After lunch, check out the London Eye or just walk around and acclimate yourself with the city.

In the afternoon, you could do a Jack the Ripper Tour and learn more about London’s dark past.

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DAY 2:

Grab breakfast at Peggy Porschen and then meet for your tour of Westminster Abby.

Once your tour is complete, grab lunch at Seven Dials Market in Covent Garden.

We opted to see Harry Potter and The Cursed Child in theatre. You can get your tickets here. If you chose to see Harry Potter in theatre, then I would recommend either eating at the theatre or grabbing something quick during intermission between the two parts.

If you chose an alternate day 2 activity, then I would recommend making reservations at Little Georgia (Georgian food- get the hatchapuri!) or Dishoom (Indian food).

ALTERNATE DAY 2 IDEAS:

There are so many options for Day 2. You could do a full day city tour, take a day trip to see stonehenge, see a play at a local theatre (Hamilton or Harry Potter), tour Buckingham Palace and watch the changing of the guards, or do a Harry Potter themed tour.

Whatever you choose, it is sure to be an exhausting fun-filled day!

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DAY 3:

Breakfast at The Parlour before your Harry Potter walking tour. Harry Potter not for you, then, try a half day city tour or another option mentioned above.

Lunch and then you can do a World War II history tour if its up your ally before dinner or just chill and take in the city.

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PARIS

DAY 4:

Spend the morning exploring Notting Hill or chilling at a cafe for your last few hours in London.

Head to the airport to catch your flight to Paris. I find flying is usually cheaper and faster than taking the train. I like to check out low-cost air carriers like Ryan Air or Easyjet for intra-Europe flights.

After arriving and dropping your luggage, jump on with a tour to better acquaint yourself with Paris. We opted for the Hidden Gems of Paris tour. You can then grab lunch near the Effiel Tower and make that your next stop for exploring the city.

Alternatively, you could go to a local market and pick up some stuff for sandwiches and have a picnic lunch by the Effiel Tower instead.

Spend the afternoon exploring the city before having dinner at Juvenilles Wine Bar.

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day 5:

Grab breakfast at FTG Paris before heading to explore the Louvre and Musee d’Orsay. If you start the day early enough, then head to Montmartre for a tour of the area.

Lunch at the famous Pink Mamma.

In the afternoon, spend some time at the Moulin Rouge or catch a show before dinner at Septime.

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DAY 6:

Day trip to the Palace of Versailles.

End the evening with dinner on a Seine River Cruise. For the best view, book either the premier or privilege package.

alternate day 6:

Grab breakfast at HolyBelly before heading to see Notre-Dame and do some shopping in Le Marais. In the afternoon, tour the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower.

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DAY 7:

Say goodbye to Paris and head to the airport for your flight home.

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WHERE TO STAY:

LONDON:

Raddison Blu

The Hoxton

The Strand

PARIS:

Les Bains

Charles V

Hyatt du Louvre

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This itinerary is action-packed! If you prefer a slower traveling pace or just like to get to a place and enjoy the vibe, then that is totally ok too! I usually only go to a place once so I like to hit everything possible in a short amount of time but it is anything but relaxing and I usually need a vacation from my vacation! HaHa!

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ABOUT ME:

I am currently a practicing Inpatient Pharmacist with a love for traveling. I love to get off the beaten path and go places/do things that are not the normal “tourist” thing to do. I love hiking and adventure travel!

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Follow me: @thatblondetravels

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Disclaimer: This post 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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I travel A LOT. I own three bags currently from LO & SONS and they are the best! They fit so much in them and they really help to keep you organized while traveling abroad. I really love the small Waverly cross-body that can transition to a belt bag. It’s super convenient and small!

I just noticed that they’re having a sale (up to 60% off) a lot of their bags.

Here are the ones that I would recommend:

THE OG 2 LARGE

I have this one in black with the gold hardware. Originally 333 - 338 and on sale for 170.10 - 179.10.

The O.G. 2 Large: Lightweight Overnight Tr...

The Lo & Sons O.G. 2 is a lightweight yet super functional overnight travel bag designe... [More]

Price: $236.60

Buy Now

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THE CATALINA DELUXE

I have the onyx. Originally 153 - 158 and on sale for 86 to 112.50.

The Catalina Deluxe Large: Women's Weekend...

The Catalina Deluxe weekender is available in 13 different colors: dove grey, thistle, ... [More]

Price: $158.00

Buy Now

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THE WAVERLY 2

I just bought this one. I have been on the hunt for a small cross-body/belt-bag for when I travel. I bought the black with gold hardware (sensing a trend haha) in the saffiano leather. I got the saffiano over the nappa leather since the saffiano is specially treated to be scratch and weather-resistant so it doesn’t show as much wear. Onsale for $84-88.

The Waverley 2 Large - Convertible Leather...

The Lo & Sons Waverley 2 was designed with an adjustable strap which allows to convert ... [More]

Price: $175.00

Buy Now

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If you buy one, let me know what your thoughts are! :)

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!

I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve been reading a ton during this pandemic (or should I say listening 😜). These are some of the books that I have read and enjoyed most recently. If you’re looking for a good book to help pass the time, then check one of these out!

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THE UNHONEYMOONERS

Just finished this quick, fun read! Great for the summer and to help squash your travel woes.

IN FIVE YEARS

Sad but good!

THE HENNA ARTIST

Super intriguing book about a local henna artist sub cumming to the local gossip.

THE NIGHT TIGER

People become intertwined as an old Chinese superstition is played out.

CITY OF GIRLS

Coming of age story.

THE LOST GIRLS OF PARIS

Hidden women who helped to win the war.

THE SCENT KEEPER

This book was so different than what I normally read and I really enjoyed it!

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ABOUT ME:

I was born in Mississippi but raised a Tennessee girl! I attended undergrad at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where I received my degree in Biochemistry. I then proceeded to go to pharmacy school at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center with my last 3 years in Knoxville. (Go VOLS!) 6 years ago I followed my sweetheart to Dallas, Texas, where I have been ever since!

I am currently a practicing Inpatient Pharmacist with a love for traveling. I love to get off the beaten path and go places/do things that are not the normal “tourist” thing to do. I love hiking and adventure travel!

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Follow me: @thatblondetravels

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Disclaimer: This Good Books to Make it Through a Pandemic 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!