I can’t believe it has already been 2 weeks since we returned from paradise after a beautiful 5 day stay in Cancun with none other than the Backstreet Boys. I still can’t help but think about how grateful and blessed I am. How many people can say their favorite band has been together 31 years? How many people can say they went on vacation with their favorite band? How many people can say they spent a weekend in Cancun with Howie, AJ, Nick, Kevin, and Brian AND a bunch of our BSB Army friends? This was truly an incredible experience, one for the books.
As I headed home and checked in with family and friends from the real world, I was asked several times, “Was it everything you hoped it would be?”
My answer? YES!!!
And No…
There were certainly some ups and downs.
DAY 1
Moon Palace is a collection of hotels. Four to be exact, spread out on a rather large property alongside the beach. The Grand, which is where our group stayed, is the furthest away from the main resort area where all the magic happens, at least all the BSB magic. All of the planned events were at the Sunrise, which was about an 6-8 minute bus ride from the Grand.
Now that may not seem like a huge issue, and on face value, it’s really not. They have shuttle service (like a legit multi-line train) and a lobby to lobby bus. It’s fairly easy to get over to the Sunrise as long as you are not on a timetable. Sometimes waiting for that bus took some time…and walking the 2.3 miles over wasn’t a feasible option in that heat and on any time constraint. And think about this: there were a TON of activities all throughout the day, all weekend, all at Sunrise. There were a lot of things that I wanted to do, including the Backstreet-themed dance classes that were held each day. But in order to do that I would have had to shuttle over, attend the class, then shuttle back to change and get ready, then shuttle back again to participate in whatever the next event was for that day. All in all, it added almost an hour (or more) of travel with the wait times. That really limited what I was willing to do as far as the activities. The amount of things planned was great, lots of diversity and options, but I couldn’t really access much of it.
When we first booked the vacation, we did some research to get a better idea of what the resort set up was across the properties. We chose the Grand because we thought it would be nice to have an opportunity to leave the chaos of Backstreet world if we needed to or just for a more quiet environment. The Grand itself was beautiful. The rooms were large and overall, pretty nice. Our patio was as big as my college dorm room and a few times I considered just parking it out there and napping on our lounge chairs. The food at The Grand was fantastic. But to be fair, I really only ate there and 1 other restaurant at Nizuc, so they could have all been equally as good.
But regardless of what the Grand had to offer, it wasn’t enough to make up for the annoyance of travel between our room and all of the venues. If this is something we do again, we will be looking to book closer to the main event areas. The idea of being able to just wander over to my room from the pool whenever I want to drop something off, pick something up, or even just take a little break, is too tempting.
The first night, after some flight delays and trouble getting to the resort, we made it. Check in took FOREVER…even though it was after check in time, (just barely), they did not have our room ready and I spent over 30 minutes standing at that desk waiting to be told where to go. I would have been really frustrated, but they very kindly brought me a glass of champagne and I realized I was in paradise, so, my patience grew back.
Once checked in, I wandered over to guest services where I placed all of my activity tickets in the boys’ jars. Each boy had an individual event and we could submit our name to be chosen to participate. Brian and Kevin’s events did not have fan participation, so their names went right into the group Singled Out activity. I did submit to join Nick for volleyball, AJ for karaoke, and Howie for guac and shots. We were told to keep an eye on our emails for update. But I knew it was a long shot.
I wandered over to the merchandise area as I waited for a friend to check in. They had some great items, but had sold out of the things I really wanted. They said they had another store set up over at Sunrise which opened the next day, so I’d press my luck and see what was there in the morning.
Once in our room, we prepped for the Welcome Party with the White theme. We leisurely got ready and ordered room service to hold us over. And the steak and shrimp quesadilla was TO DIE FOR…we were pissed we had only ordered one. We knew better for next time.
We finished getting ready, and we started heading over to the shuttle. We planned for Backstreet time, with the event starting at 7, we assumed we had AT LEAST until 730.
We were wrong. Leave it to the boys to do the unexpected…being on time.
We left our hotel a little before 7, but couldn’t get a shuttle out. After some effort, we were able to get on the shuttle and arrived after 730, with the boys already on stage and the audience already packed. We searched for a spot in the back where we could at least see the stage. We found a spot on top of a wall which allowed us to see about half of the stage, and posted up there for most of the night. Two of my roomies wandered down to the buffet line which they had set up. It all looked yummy, but we were focused on the show. The boys had spent some time welcoming everyone, (which we missed) and were just chatting it up on stage amongst themselves and with the audience.
After awhile, the boys left the stage and there was a fire and light show. After that, the boys returned to the stage to introduce BSB Tributo.
I’ll be honest, when they were first announced a few weeks before the event, I was unimpressed. I was questioning the point of having a tribute band when the real deal was right there. Kevin introduced them by sharing the story of how he discovered this group. He shared that he heard them singing while in his room at the Vina Del Mar festival a few years before. He popped his head out of the room to check it out and then saw Brian doing the same in the room next door. They were so impressed with the group that they had to meet them. Thus led to the group joining BSB on this Cancun adventure.
And truly, they were a vibe. They were so in tuned with each of the boys’ mannerisms and from a distance, they even looked like the boys. At one point, the real BSB joined them on stage and real Nick paired with fake Nick was like doing a double take. Even his hair was styled like Nick’s.
The best part of this set was watching the boys watching Tributo BSB. Nick and Howie went live on Instagram during the show and it was so much fun seeing them taking in their first BSB show from the audience. They were pointing out the little quirks that we are so used to seeing the boys do and were laughing at themselves, just enjoying and taking it in. Real BSB then joined Tributo BSB on stage for “I Want it That Way” and it was just a fun time for all of us!
After Tributo BSB finished their set, the boys stuck around for bit. They had a DJ spinning and the boys were dancing and singing along to any and all songs they played. They went down into the crowd and said ‘hi’ to those fans up front, taking a few selfies and signing a few autographs. We moved down to the main area and stuck to the middle of that area for awhile, watching the chaos and enjoying the boys and time with friends. As we were dancing, we noticed a a few fans being removed from the crowd due to heat exhaustion. Brian noticed as well, and made a point to run off stage and brought a cooler of water back out with him, handing out all the waters they had. He and Kevin reminded everyone to stay hydrated in that heat. We appreciated the concern for the fans. Once the water was passed out, they went back to chatting with the fans, with AJ dictating what songs were on the playlist and singing along to them.
The boys trickled out one by one as the night went on and the fans began to disperse. Kevin was pretty clear we all needed to conserve our energy to make it through the full event. So we snuck off before the end as well, ending the night in our hot tub, which was a lovely start.
We had to get ready for Day 2!
