Cancun 2014 6x8 Mini Album | part iii | Xel-ha

This is the last part of my 2014 Cancun travel mini album. I really enjoyed making this album, and it makes me want to book tickets right now to go back again!

Here is a look at the cover.

Album is Becky Higgins Project Life 6x8 album, Cancun stickers are from Scrapbook Customs Tropical Excursions Collection, and tags are from Pink Paislee Atlas Collection.

Maya loved seeing her name on EVERYTHING! (MayaAir, Animaya, Maya Hotel, Mayacoba, Junglamaya, etc.) We stayed at our hotel for Thanksgiving. I could get used to having bread pudding with mango sauce, french toast with vanilla sauce, yogurt covered strawberries and bananas, and sopapillas for my Thanksgiving Feast every year! Wow!

Friday we went to the sister park of Xcaret called Xel-ha. It was another fabulous ecopark with a natural lagoon. I really could have spent hours snorkeling, but the kids grew frustrated rapidly when their masks kept leaking water. I think being in the deeper lagoon panicked them a little more than the pool did at Xcaret.

As for an update on my Olympus Tough TG-850 underwater camera ... I used it a lot in this park. I was in the shade a bit when I took my pictures of fish, so the ISO is high and the images were dark and got grainy fast. I think in shallower water the pix would be more vivid, but I was happy overall with the quality. I also didn't spend as much time as I wanted tinkering around with it because the kids were having such trouble.

However, during this day I noticed that the camera developed water vapor on the lens inside where I couldn't wipe it off. As you see in the bottom photo below, there is a bit of condensation forming. I read reviews about this, and I guess it's pretty common in underwater cameras, and you just have to sit it open in the sun for a bit to let it dry out. Mine did go away after it dried, but in the moment the photo is ruined.

I also tested the camera on the zipline using the video setting. If you scan the QR code on my picture, you can see a video of us having fun. The colors are vivid (almost too much), but overall I am happy with the quality of the video as I am splashing down. I do need to get a float for this camera, because I was paranoid I was going to drop it in my adventures. Again in the bottom large photo you can see the condensation drop. At least it wasn't smack dab in the middle of the photo. One feature I did like was the ability to zoom while recording.

The page has a lot of transparent accents, which I love.

The pictures from the dolphin encounter are ones I purchased from the park for a hefty price! I purposefully did not enroll myself in the fun so I could take pictures, but I had to stand so far away from them that getting a good photograph was impossible! So I bought their digital package and their images were super saturated, so I had to tone them down a lot using Photoshop. But I'm happy for the precious captures that they got.