Tuesday, January 10: Arrival Day

This morning you will depart from your home city to Cancun, Mexico (Cancun International Airport). On arrival, meet your fellow colleagues for the 30 minute transfer to the Secrets Maroma Hotel. Check-in begins at 3:00 PM.

After freshening up from a day of travel and perhaps taking a quick swim, meet your colleagues and their guests for a welcome reception.

Welcome Reception and Dinner: 7:00 PM at Gazebo Terrace

Wednesday, January 11 – Friday, January 13

Meetings

For the following days you will be meeting and working with your colleagues at the Secrets Maroma Conference Center. During the mornings and afternoons various group and interactive sessions will be held. At the end of each day you will have time to enjoy the hotel and its surroundings at your leisure.

Evening Events

Each night an event is planned for the entire myON sales team. The events are as follows:

Wednesday, January 11:  Group Dinner on the Beach at 6:30 PM

Thursday, January 12: Dine-Around and Game Night

Friday, January 13: myON Awards Dinner in Maroma 1 & 2 at 7:00 PM

Saturday, January 14: Volunteer Day & Departures

Today you will have the opportunity to work alongside your colleagues by volunteering in the local community. Please see the Volunteer Day Flyer for more details.

Option 1: Early Departure

For those not participating in Volunteer Day, your group transfer will be arranged to depart after breakfast. We plan to have you at the airport two hours ahead of flight departure time.

Option 2: Volunteer & Late Departure

If you choose to participate in Volunteer Day and depart Mexico the same day, then a transfer will be arranged for you from the volunteer site to the airport. We plan to have you at the airport two hours ahead of flight departure time. Please coordinate with Nyla at Remarkable Journeys a flight departure after 4:00 PM.

Option 3: Volunteer & Extra Night (January 14)

If you choose to stay an extra night (January 14), the hotel costs will be at your own expense. The costs for an extra night: $280 for a double and $395 for a single. Please arrange the reservation through Remarkable Journeys.

Saturday, January 14: Volunteer Day and Arrivals

Today is the scheduled arrival date for the team. It is also Volunteer Day, an optional event which gives you the opportunity to work alongside your colleagues while volunteering in the local community. If you are arriving early the hotel costs will be at your own expense. The costs for an extra night is $280 per person for a double and $395 for a single. Please arrange your room reservation through Remarkable Journeys. Please see the Volunteer Day Flyer for more details.

Please see your 3 options below for this day.

Option 1: Afternoon Arrival (No Volunteer Day)

For those not participating in Volunteer Day, this morning you will depart from your home city to Cancun, Mexico (Cancun International Airport). On arrival, meet your fellow colleagues for the 30 minute transfer to the Secrets Maroma Hotel. Check-in begins at 3:00 PM.

Option 2: Same-Day Early Arrival for Volunteer Day

For those choosing to participate in Volunteer Day, you will depart very early this morning from your home city to arrive in Cancun by 9:00 AM. From the airport, you will be shuttled directly to the volunteer site. (This options is only possible for those departing from select cities with early flights to Cancun.)

Option 3: Volunteer Day & Extra Night (January 13)

For those choosing to participate in Volunteer Day who are arriving a night early, please work with Remarkable Journeys to arrange an additional night at Secrets Maroma as well as schedule your flight to arrive on January 13. On January 14 you will be shuttled to the volunteer site with the rest of the group.

Everyone

After freshening up from a day of travel (or volunteering) and perhaps taking a quick swim, meet your colleagues and their guests for a welcome reception.

Welcome Reception and Dinner: 7:00 PM at Oceana Terrace

Sunday, January 15 – Monday, January 16

For the following days you will be meeting and working with your colleagues at the Secrets Maroma Conference Center. During the mornings and afternoons various group and interactive sessions will be held. At the end of each day you will have time to enjoy the hotel and its surroundings at your leisure.

Evening Events

Each night an event is planned for the entire Library sales team. The events are as follows:

Sunday, January 15: Group Dinner on the Beach at 6:30 PM

Monday, January 16: Library Awards Dinner in Maroma 1 & 2 at 7:00 PM

Tuesday, January 17: Departure Day

After breakfast, your group transfer to the airport will be arranged for you. We plan to have you at the airport 2 hours ahead of flight departure time.

Secrets Maroma Beach Riviera Cancun

www.secretsresorts.com/maroma-beach-riviera-cancun

Check-in: 3 p.m.
Check-out: 12 p.m.

Tucked away on one of the most pristine and famous beaches in all of Mexico, this AAA Five Diamond Resort is the most luxurious of Secrets’ seven resorts in Mexico. Surrounded by warm crystal waters, pure white sands, vibrant coral reefs, and rich tropical foliage, this hotel is the perfect all-inclusive haven for relaxation and adventure.

Dining

This large main building contains all of the restaurants (except for the Oceana and Seaside Grill, which are by the pool). The largest is World Cafe, a buffet-style venue for all meals. Also in this building is Portofino for Italian, El Patio for Mexican, Himitsu for Pan-Asian, and the Bordeaux restaurant, which adopts dark woods and rich merlot shades to evoke the setting of a vintage wine cellar. Dishes are inventive and flavorful with nontraditional techniques. All told, few guests will complain about lack of diversity in dining. Guests also have access to the restaurants at Secret Silversands Riviera Cancun, Secrets Capri Riviera Cancun and the new Secrets The Vine Cancun, as well as at all the Dreams resorts.

Nightlife

Seven bars scattered across the grounds means guests are only a few steps from a drink, but conspicuous overconsumption—the norm at many all-inclusives—is rare here. A big open-air theater stages evening shows and a DJ spins up the action in the music lounge.

Activities

The beach here is breathtaking, with superfine white sand and warm robin’s egg-blue water that is shallow enough for wading. There’s a massage palapa and watersports hut set up right by the water. A large infinity pool is set back from the beach, with a wedding gazebo and swim-up bar.

The Spa by Pevonia offers all of the esoteric treatments with both indoor and outdoor massage rooms. The hydrotherapy circuit is a big hit, as guests cycle through sauna, steam room, whirlpool, cool plunge, warm plunge, and various showers that involve cascade jets and high-pressure water hoses.

The hotel offers complimentary greens fees at the 18-hole Nick Price-designed golf course. There are also two tennis courts fronting the resort, a batting cage, bocce ball court, sailboards, windsurfing, kayaks and snorkeling.

Accommodations

Accommodations are in 13 separate buildings, each fronted with its own pool. Rooms, the majority of them configured as junior suites measure more than 600 sq ft. These bi-level units feature whirlpool tubs for two set up in the baths, but with curtained open windows onto the bedrooms, where there are four-poster beds, big modern armoires containing flat-screen TVs with DVD players and minibars. The living area on a lower level consists of a curving built-in sofa, a desk, round cocktail table, and sliding glass doors that open to furnished balconies.

All rooms are equipped with coffeemakers, ceiling fans, clock radios with MP3 docks, laptop-size safes and hair dryers. Baths, besides the whirlpool tubs, feature separate showers and dual vanities.

Weather in January

Average Temperature: 73° F
Low Temperature: 66° F
Sea Temperature: 81° F
8 hours of sunshine

Stretching from Punta Tanchacte, 17 mi/28 km south of Cancun, to the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, almost 85 mi/140 km to the south, the Riviera Maya is one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in the western Caribbean. It’s famous for white-sand beaches and crystal clear water. However, the area also offers ancient Mayan ruins and pristine ecological wonders to explore, as well as nature parks and resorts with all the amenities.

Extensive white-sand beaches, limestone caverns, underground rivers and freshwater pools known as cenotes form the Riviera Maya’s main geographical features. Parts of its coastline are covered in mangrove swamps, and other areas lie under low, scrubby forest. Offshore, a barrier reef that stretches all the way to southern Belize attracts scuba divers.

Playa del Carmen is the main town and soul of the Riviera Maya. It used to be where drop-outs from society would go to live the life of happy beach bums. There are still a few around, but the population explosion has brought in paved roads and many small inns, large-scale all-inclusive resorts and dozens of restaurants while retaining touches of the charming ambience that made it popular in the first place—including a pedestrian-only main thoroughfare.

You can swim and snorkel during the day or just hang out at an outdoor cafe and people-watch. When the sun goes down, there’s lively nightlife at funky venues, many run by expatriate Europeans and Americans, plus an increasing number of glitzy nightspots that used to only be found up the coast in Cancun. It’s also where you catch the ferry to Cozumel.

At Puerto Aventuras, you’ll find beautiful beaches and an excellent marina, with berths for up to 250 boats and facilities for sportfishing and watersports. It’s also home to the Riviera Maya’s only maritime museum, which exhibits wreckage and artifacts collected from famous shipwrecks along the Mexican Caribbean coast dating back to the 16th century.

Unlike Playa del Carmen, Puerto Morelos has, for the most part, retained its charm and tranquil village atmosphere. A playground dominates the main square, and fishing launches still line the town beach. Located 22 mi/35 km north of Playa del Carmen, Puerto Morelos is also home to a popular bird-watching haunt—the Dr. Alfredo Barrera Marin Botanical Garden (Yaax Che).

The Tulum area is the center of ancient Mayan culture and a good place to explore cenotes—underground sinkholes that are filled with crystal clear water. To explore the ruins in the jungle or to snorkel or scuba dive (with the proper certification) in the cenotes, rent a Jeep or take a guided tour. The ruins of Tulum, however, are overcrowded with cruise-ship passengers unless you arrive when the area opens in early morning. This way, you’ll also avoid the hottest part of the day. Tulum’s beach is, by most accounts, the best on the whole coast, with limited development helping it fare better during a series of hurricanes over the past decade.

Nearby are the little-visited Mayan ruins at Muyil. A stop at Muyil (about 16 mi/25 km south of Tulum on Highway 307) is a refreshing break from the main tourist route. Muyil’s structures—some of the oldest on the Yucatan Peninsula—are mostly unrestored and surrounded by towering trees, giving it the feel of a lost city.

Felipe Carrillo Puerto offers historic value and insight into contemporary Mayan culture, but there’s not much in the way of tourist attractions or related infrastructure.

Sian Ka’an is a UNESCO-designated World Biosphere Reserve that protects the myriad species of plant, bird (more than 350 species), fish and other animal life that have made up the rain forests of the Yucatan for millennia. The reserve supports research on preserving these species and stabilizing the ecology of the region, which has been threatened by development and destructive farming practices. Much of the reserve is open to the public, but it is best explored through a reputable ecotourism company, as the area is rather desolate and terrain is quite rugged.

Ecoparks such as Xcaret, Xel-ha, Tres Rios and Croco Cun offer a variety of watersports activities and more opportunities to explore the flora and fauna of the coast. The Riviera Maya’s offshore reefs, crystal clear waters and freshwater cenotes make it a paradise for divers and snorkelers. There are numerous reputable dive shops in Puerto Morelos, Playa del Carmen and Akumal that organize tours.