Once upon a time, four friends went to the Golden Parnassus All Inclusive Resort & Spa in Cancún, Mexico. Three of them went in blind, trusting the travel agent to do her job. Another did not. When the four friends pulled into the driveway, the one who looked up the resort in advance said, “This does not look like the pictures. I think we’ve been catfished.”

As the four friends disembarked from the taxi, they hoped that perhaps the inside was better than the out, but they quickly learned that was not the case. For one thing, there was no air conditioning in the lobby of the hotel. For another, there were two people behind the desk but only one was actively checking in customers. Yes, even when a line formed, that did not change. But again, the four friends held out hope.

Then, it came time to go up to their rooms. The first half of the friend group (MT) went up to their room and then came back down after the other half (AN) had just finished getting checked in. It turned out that the keycard did not work for MT’s room, alas. But they held out hope that it would be fixed (it was).

The second half, AN, had their own adventure. For, lo, of the two elevators in the hotel, one was broken. So AN waited patiently for their turn on the one working elevator. When their turn finally came, AN rode from the lobby up to the second floor where the working elevator stopped working, for the doors would not close all the way no matter how many times AN or the other people in the elevator, including the employees, pressed the button. Seeing that it was a futile endeavor, AN got off of the elevator, hoping that perhaps the fact that they pressed the alarm button would send someone to fix it. At some point, the doors to the elevator closed and they watched the elevator go up and then down so they pressed the button hoping to continue onto their room. The elevator came again, so they tried again, and it did not work. So they stepped off again and waited, then watched as the elevator, finally working, stopped on their floor, but this time it was full of white people.

So the elevator was possibly racist.

But maybe not! For then the elevator decided to work, so AN were able to finally make their way up to their room which was on the top floor of the hotel. When they got to the room, they discovered that it was clean, yay, and also that the view did not suck.

AN and MT then met up for dinner and had a delightful time, enjoying their meals of steak and potatoes. And then off to bed they went, excited for a day of delightful beach time ahead.

So now it was time to go to the beach, which our group of friends did. And, lo, the outside was magnificent. Great beach, plenty of places to sit, a server that walked around the pool and beach to take drink orders. A delight!

But the hamburgers at the poolside grill were not good. And for some reason the grill area also lacked air conditioning or any kind of breeze, so that one of our heroines wounding up sweating more in that covered area than the entire outdoors when she was in direct sunlight.

However, our heroines prevailed, moving from the beach to the pool. And then! Time for dinner! So our heroines went to wash up and then go to dinner only to discover a sign on the working elevator that said that it now was broken.

(Did I mention our heroines AN were on the sixth floor and MT were on the fourth?)

So now the hotel had not one working elevator but zero working elevators! So our heroines did what they had to, which was made due. Luckily for our heroines, none of them had mobility issues for if any of them did, they would have been, as they say in the vernacular, shit out of luck as the elevators did not work for the rest of the day and for part of the next morning.

But their night went on and found them first at the crepe station and then! They discovered that the resort had a club of sorts. So into the club they went where people were dancing and drinking and having a good time. Our heroines people-watched until one of them (your intrepid narrator) heard the siren call of “Cha Cha Slide” so made her way to the dance floor and proceeded to dance all of the line dances until the DJ switched to the Mexican version of “Achy Breaky Heart” at which point she found her way to the sidelines to watch as the mostly Mexican crowd slayed at the line dances to follow.

Then to bed for more beach and pool time the next day. And also! A spa visit for massages.

Things were going grand the next day (minus the elevator, but you already knew about that) until it was time for lunch. AN went inside to eat and N, who went to get her food first, came back to the table and said, “We must leave now!” A, who was hungry, wanted to still check out the offerings, but N insisted that they leave that very moment. A knew that meant something had happened out of her line of sight. However, N would not disclose until they were well clear of the dining area when she started to hum “La Cucaracha.” For it turned out she had seen at least one marching along the buffet area as though he belonged.

So that also sucked.

Our heroines then decided to eat only food from the grill.

Then, that night, one of our heroines had a hankering for some late night sushi/Asian offerings from one of the resort restaurants. So our intrepid group went to enjoy some of these offerings. But alas! They would not be served! In fact, they saw the servers arguing over who would be stuck with their table! The youngest of the group, N, cautioned that she had overheard other guests saying that service for them sucked after they complained about the service, you know, sucking, so suggested that perhaps their group should not be so vocal in their dissatisfaction of the service they received (or didn’t as the case may be). Much to N’s chagrin, the other three did not heed her warning, though they insisted they were not loud (N begged to differ). Not that it mattered because, since it was close to turnover time in the restaurant (they were switching to a late night snack bar), the powers that be decided the best way to empty the dining area was by turning off the air conditioning.

On the plus side, the elevator was working on the day the three friends checked out of the hotel.

On the other plus side, our heroines were very happy to be headed home.

Now that their time at the resort was done, our four heroines headed to the airport where one, your intrepid narrator, had an epic adventure. But that is a story for another time! Stay tuned for part two…

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In case it wasn’t obvious, we do not recommend the resort. Also, one of my friends spoke to a woman on the elevator who said that the resort has a Facebook group and in the group, there are people who love it and people who hate it. The woman on the elevator said that she was there because a friend recommended it to her, to which we all replied that we probably wouldn’t be friends with that person anymore, so that tells you which camp we fall into re: the resort. One of my friends said it’s possible the resort has changed management and used to be great, but that was definitely NOT our experience. I mean, seriously, an air conditioned lobby is the least you can do to make sure your guests are comfortable. I would give it 2/5 stars. The staff was generally very nice [minus the late night servers who clearly hated our table, though the person who waited on us was pleasant], the rooms were clean, and the outside area was wonderful. But, you know, eventually we had to go back inside, so.