We moved on up to Bahia Candeleros today where we had promised the kids the most awesome kid pool ever. Silly stupid parents—never promise anything to kids.

After anchoring the dinghy in the shallows we waded ashore in front of the all-inclusive resort that had welcomed all cruisers with open arms last year. Up the stairs we went on a beeline for the pool. At the top of the stairs a security guard walked towards us and I got that sinking feeling.

“Hola. Have you been here before?” he asked.

Taken aback—happily—I replied, “Yes, last year.”

“Bienvenidos.” Welcome.

All right. We threw our junk onto a couple of lounge chairs complete with oversized fluffy towels and went straight for the kiddie pool. Within minutes Ouest was doing full-on mermaid swimming, diving underwater and coming up face first, smiling as the water poured off of her face. Lowe was giddy, doing his own brand of swimming which includes full paddling with feet and hands, but does not include the floating part yet. He is nothing if not enthusiastic though. He and Ouest are going head-to-head on the who loves the water more competition.

After about ten minutes a waiter walked up and asked if we were guests. I told him we were here on our boat and he informed me we needed to go to the front desk for day passes. Okay, no problem.

At the front desk I happily told them I needed day passes for my family.

“Yes sir, a day pass is $65 U.S. per person, half for children.”

“I’m sorry, a what is a who. What?” I replied calmly.

“If you’d just like to have lunch I can give you bracelets for that for free, but you must leave after your meal. You are not allowed to use the facilities. Our policy has changed since last year.”

Keep in mind that this is not Disneyland. The price may have you thinking that, but in fact it is just a hotel with a pool. Not even a pool with a slide either. Just a nice shallow pool with a couple of weakly spouting fountain jets.

Back at the pool I had to break the news to Ouest who was in the middle of having pretty much the most fun she’s ever had in her life.

“Honey, we’re not going to pay $200 to swim. Therefore we must go now.”

“But I don’t want to go now. I want to swim. I want to keep swimming. (crying) Why Papa? Why can’t we swim no more? No, I’m going to keep swimming. (tears and snot) Why Papa? I don’t want to go.”

Then I broke down and paid the $200. No, not really, but holy cow was she the saddest little thing ever for ten minutes. Then we distracted her with her party dress and she more or less got over it. Party dresses refers to any of her dresses, which is all she likes to wear these days. She can squeeze out tears for that too if we present her with shorts and a t-shirt instead.

And yes, we still had lunch there. After ten days of cooking Ali wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of that. We did however dinghy across the bay to the tiny village for the kids’ ice cream. The resort wasn’t getting our dessert money too.