May 4th-13th was a whirlwind travel experience. We visited two countries in one week- Scottsdale, Arizona and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Scottsdale, AZ
From May 4th to the 8th, Karen, Rose and Linda went to the Annual Mast Conference taking place in Scottsdale, Arizona. Several hundred travel professionals, suppliers, vendors and guest speakers attend every year.
We spent the weekend (Thursday to Monday) in meetings, listening to some great motivational speakers and break out rooms. Overall, it was a wonderful weekend of networking, learning and talking in advanced classes, like the Sandals Workshop. We are always educating ourselves on behalf of our clients.
The evening events included a wonderful Bar-B-Q with line dancing at a local venue. We all enjoyed wandering around Old Scottsdale.
We took a day tour to the wonderful Tonto National Park, where we toured this massive 12,000 acre park via Hummers. Tonto National Monument is in the Superstition Mountains, in Gila County of central Arizona.
Our last day, we actually took a rare personal day. We played a round of golf at the McCormick Ranch Golf Course and relaxed.
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
We left Scottsdale and flew directly to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for an award trip with Mark Travel. We flew in a day early and stayed at the Villa Premier Hotel which is an upscale adults-only property. It’s beautiful and very close to town, and the gourmet restaurants were wonderful.
The event was held at the Grand Fiesta Americana Resort which is a beautiful, adults-only property.
There was a few hundred professional agents, hotel managers and our
personal BDM in attendance who wined and dined us with great dinners,
entertainment and fireworks. We earned the 500 Club GOLD Status (an award we have received for many consecutive years).
On May 13th, we flew back to Chicago with an information overload from all the training, education and adventures we absorbed from our busy, week-long trip.