My husband, four boys (ages 13, 9, 5, and 1), and I recently returned from a week-long stay at the Royal Sunset, and overall we had a wonderful time. We did the all-inclusive and loved it (less than $1200 for the six of us), although it did cause us to stay close to the resort. It was our first trip to Cancun, though, so we enjoyed staying close.

We rented a car one day and took a couple drives, but mostly walked down to the shops, took the water taxi or shuttle to the other resort, and took the bus to the mall and aquarium (a great place...more interactive than the Shedd in Chicago, and although not as extensive, it was a very inexpensive and they had the best dolphin show I have ever seen at the Shedd, Brookfield Zoo, or Sea World).

The car rental was a huge scam (a large car was out in front of the resort, but that was not the car we got AND we paid over twice what was advertised). The water taxi was wonderful, but we were frustrated by the unadvertised time changes (I was told it went until 8:30 and was angry when my oldest son and I were done with scuba diving at 4:15 and told we just missed the last water taxi.) The shuttle was a tad frustrating as well. They changed their hours without notice just as the water taxi did.

The biggest disappointment was the room. While spacious (we had a one bedroom suite), it was really disgusting in some respects. There was mold on the drapes and one of the dining chairs. The couches that pulled out into beds had rust stains on them, The floor was disgustingly dirty. My one year old's feet were grey after only a little walking around. The rest of us kept our flip-flops on. Opening the sliding glass doors were like wrestling an alligator, but it was so hot and humid that the desire to open them was infrequent. One of the ceiling fans wobbled so badly it made us nervous to have it on. The room was definitely in need of updating. I complained to the front desk and was told we could move to a different room the next day; however, the next day I was told by the manager that there were no rooms to move to. I found that inplausible, and I would have made a bigger stink about it, but in that 24 hours, I found some definite advantages to the room. Most significant was that it was on the first floor right and right outside was a great atrium restaurant. In the morning, I could sit at a table 20 feet from our room, go get coffee and relax in the quiet without disturbing my family, but WITH assurance that they would not be wandering around looking for me when they woke up. Also, we saved hours by not having to wait for the elevator! A first floor room meant easy, quick runs back and forth among the room, pool, and beach. Additionally, in those twenty-four hours, I had come to appreciate how large the rooms were. Were able to leave out each boy's bed and not feel cramped. We left the three couches made up as beds for the boys, so we didn't see the stains.

I was mildly disappointed with not having free in-room Internet access. The lobby was a hotspot, but it was inconvenient to take our laptop and sit there.

Wonderful aspects of the resort were the pool and beach; those were excellent! My kids loved the pool because it was the same depth all the way around, with a wide edge of very shallow water. The pool at the lagoon resort was also beautiful, although a bit deep. The slide was fun, but very tame (great for my three younger kids). The beach was breath-taking, and there was plenty of space. Numerous empty lounge chairs due to the swine flu scare.

Some of our best memories, though, were with the staff. They were friendly and accomodating (excluding the front desk manager and car rental person). Nelly was the best, remembering each of my boys' names after the first meeting (no easy feat as they all start Br-)....my five year old has officially had his first crush. Pablo was an excellent scuba instructor. Brian ran bingo and water volleyball every day. Each night, we went to the buffet and show, and still laugh about the emcees and presentations (if you've been there, you'll remember "Applause, applause, applaus-o!" and "D-d-d-d-deejaaaay" and "Buuuul Dog" said in their accent. We loved it, dining with a great breeze and enjoying a beautiful sunset.

The worst, however, was the sales presentation. I know times are tough, but our salesman was relentless. Even though we had recently purchased a vacation club and truly could not afford the money or the time to take other vacations, he would not let up. The salesman actually expected us to get rid of our other vacation club and buy his! Patiently I explained we hadn't even been on a trip with our club yet, so I was not about to get out of the deal. Ninety minutes turned into three hours, and I finally got rude, demanding to see the manager. He started to try to sell me the most expensive package (over $1500 per month...more than my mortgage!). I got ruder, the baby was now crying, ready for a nap, and the manager knew I was at the end of my rope. He told me the best deal he could do was $158 per month...quite a difference, but we still were not interested. The most annoying part of it all was that my husband was given the trip accomodations as a prize for a fundraiser he participated in. When I registered for the trip, I was told we could take our kids for a small fee, but more importantly, we could not stay at the resort covered by the prize because our family was too large. So we really had no choice but to endure the high pressure salesman, unless we wanted to pay for our free nights. The three hours were worth the trade-off.

All in all, life is full of disappointments and aggravations. Pefection is hard to attain, and although parts of the trip fell well short of perfection, many more WERE perfect. We chose to roll with the disappointments and not let them sour our trip. We focused on the positive, of which there were many.