Starting today with the food!! Karisma labels their resorts as 'Gourmet Inclusive Experience' and that it is. All our food, room service and drinks were included (except non-house wines). So we ordered room service every morning for breakfast.
I was introduced to smoked salmon bagels on this trip, and I've continued that at home - I liked them so much!! We tried to order something new each day to try everything, but this was our favorite meal that we ordered more than once - eggs Benedict with bacon, hashbrowns (tater tots), whole wheat toast and smoked salmon bagel.
P.S. I forgot in the room post -- they have these amazing robes (I'm wearing one here) and slippers in the closet waiting for you.
I don't remember what I ordered here with fresh fruit, but Austin had an omelette with lobster, cheese, and veggies-mushrooms and onions, of course with tater tots (but when you order don't call them tater tots because they don't know what that is -- they call them hashbrowns).
We ordered coffee with creamer every morning -- so good by the way! We had a coffee maker in the room, but we ordered it with breakfast anyway. This 1921 bottle is a tequila cream that they included in the room for us to try in our coffee. It was delicious! In our tequila tasting class we learned that the bottle is normally blue, but for Breast Cancer awareness it was pink for the time being.
Now onto the restaurants....
At Maroma there are six restaurants, and each night there is one or two of them open, to choose from. They offer Mexican, Asian, Italian, Mexican Caribbean, Peruvian (this one was closed for remodeling while we were there), and International (this was Papito's the buffet - they offered breakfast and lunch each day as a buffet style and they offered something difference each day). In our experience, the Italian and Asian serve 4-6 courses. Mexican was just whatever you wanted to do.
We tried the Mexican cuisine, Mexico Lindo, on our first night.
We asked for white queso dip (like here at home) and it was good, but very thick, and they gave us tortillas (top right) to break up into chips. Very different - but good! On the left side, we tried fried cheese sticks.
The second night (I think) that we were at Maroma, they hosted a full Mexican cuisine buffet, and had a live mariachi band, and local vendors set up carts to sell souvenirs. This was all located outside next to the main pool and Papito's, right off the beach.
Our favorite was the Italian cuisine, Mio's. We went there twice. Our first experience was great, second experience was amazing. (I also took the most pictures of food here, enjoy):
The second time we ate at Mio's, our last night there, we didn't make reservations (oops), and when we got there, there was a line waiting outside. Our new friend Agustin (we took a tequila tasting class with him, and had gotten his wine recommendation at dinner a couple nights before) was managing Mio's and he allowed us to sit in the 'wine room' that is normally reserved for special wine-pairing dinners (that you pay extra for). It was amazing. It made our whole trip. Wine on three sides of you, and a glass wall/door on the fourth side. Private, quiet, so nice.
We told Agustin what kind of wine I normally drink -- sweet wines -- and he recommended this one. We bought it different nights at dinner. It was amazing! The house wine was good, but if you love wine, I think splurging on it at least once is worth it.
Our second favorite dinner was Asian, Kiyoko restaurant. We had sushi, appetizers, and stir fry. We definitely ate too much at this restaurant - it was so good!
Dinners were definitely a favorite part of each day. Dressing up, trying new food and wine.
There are five bars at Maroma. We only went to two of the swim-up bars, Bar 24 and Mio's swim-up bar (the one that you can see the straw roof from our room's patio I talked about in part 2).
Mio's swim-up bar was in the main pool that we used almost everyday when we were not down at the beach. The bartender was nice (as was everyone there), and he usually remembered our drink orders. Sitting at the swim-up bar we met some new people - some couples on their honeymoons, one from St. Louis (we were on the same plane home as them!), one from Canada, and a couple from Texas that come to Maroma often.
Bar 24 is where we would go when it was raining - they had a nice covered-patio vibe. We also had lunch there one day in addition to our drinks.
Bar 24 is located by the Mexican restaurant, and also in the background of this picture are patios of some of the rooms - they can just walk outside and be at the bar and have a pool 10 yards away. Our choice drinks of the trip: mojito, pineapple and rum, tequila shots (in a champagne flute, yes).
Overall, the food was amazing. I just recommend that you dress up, make reservations, plan out which restaurants you want each night because not all six of them are open everyday. For next time, I definitely want to explore the other bars more - we only went to two out of the six! Rick's Bar had nightly entertainment, music and a DJ area. We should have watched the calendar of events closer to try some of the entertainment out - trivia nights, bands, etc.
Stay tuned for Part 4: All the Extras! I'll be talking about the excursions, spa, activities, and the tequila tasting class we attended.
xoxo love,
Christine