Jilly's Dreams Cancun review-LONG!

[TA Jill]

Ohhh, I feel like I have so much to say I don't even know where to begin.

First off, I know I've said this before but everyone on this forum helped me out so much with every aspect of our wedding and I thought of all of you each day! We were so busy everyday with people arriving and meeting with the WC & photographer and just enjoying Dreams that I didn't have a second to jump on the computer. But I did think of all of you!

Okay, so Monday night we stayed in Boston so we could sleep a little bit later in the morning and got up at 4 to get ready and get a cab to the airport.

Its at this time that DH's brother realizes they forgot their tickets and passports at home!!! Unnecessary stress for us as we're ready to leave!
So we left for the airport and left them to figure things out, they called DH's dad and he drove out to the airport and met them with their stuff and they were fine, no problems, but poor DH was so worried he was making himself sick. Rest of the flight stuff was fine, we flew USAir with a layover in Philly.

Arrival at the airport - I was SOOO nervous about the airport because of the whole OOT bag stuff and checking the bags. So we're in line, my mom is in front of us, she pushes red, I think "great" "they must not do two red lights in a row??!" DH pushes the button, red again! So we move through with our 8 bags and there were a lot of people that pushed red before us so there was no room for us at the counters so we kind of just kept wheeling and no one was paying attention. I just wanted to go out the door because really no one was watching, but there was a guy with a gun not too far away, so DH walked up to him and asked where we were supposed to go and he pointed out the exit door, Soooo thats where we went, lol!! So all of my anxiety was for nothing! I don't know how it would have been if we did get searched, but I'm glad we didn't! We strolled right through to the outside where our transfer company "American Express" was waiting for us and got us packed up quickly and on our way to Dreams.

Our arrival at Dreams A+++ - I knew it was a good sign when DH said with 5 minutes of our arrival at dreams how he "loved all of this special treatment". It really was great, we had a tour guide who gave us a brief orientation of the resort as we walked to the club tower for private check in. When we got to the check in desk we were immediately greeted with cold towels and a drink from the bar. Check in was quick & easy and our room was ready when we got there so we headed up there next.

Our room was BEAUTIFUL! We stayed in a jr. jacuzzi suite, we walked in and were just in awe! The rooms are so pretty and they had champagne on ice for us in our room, a fruit plate, the honeymooners sign on our door, and the swan towels and rose petals on our bed. It was so nice to come around the corner and see the honeymooners sign, it made me so excited for everything! Our room had a jacuzzi on the patio, we were on the second floor, we had a gorgeous view of the gazebo.

Everything about dreams was wonderful, the staff work so hard for you, everyone is pleasant and wants to accomodate you in every way.

The explorers club - If you have children or will have children at your wedding, the explorers club at dreams is fantastic!! I was leary about leaving our daughter with people we didn't know, but we brought her there one day and she didn't want to leave there the rest of the week. It was nice that we could relax and check in on her every now and then and the staff there is wonderful

Delphinus- Dreams now has dolphins. I know this is a controversial topic, but I did want to touch on it because our daughter did it and I can safely say it was the most amazing thing she's ever done, the look on her face is priceless. We also met Susan (Susan101207) and her hubby Matt, they were swimming with the dolphins with Hailey. The dolphins there are so well taken care of and loved, it really was a great experience for her.

The Restaurants - We ate at World Cafe a few times, it was good, buffet style, there were some things that were really good and others not so good.
We ate at Oceana once, it was very good seafood and steak. We also ate at seaside grill for lunch one day, it was good. We tried Himitsu one night and I really liked it, it was really good as well. I'm not really into the raw sushi, so for me it was perfect they had a lot of rolls and the chicken curry was yummy!

You have to try the Coco Loco's at Barracudas bar (its the bar with the swings) they only have them from 4-5 and when they run out of coconuts thats it, but you can keep getting them refilled. They were so good, we planned our days around coco loco's, lol!

Claudia the Wedding Coordinator - A


Claudia called me a few hours after I arrived at dreams to setup a meeting to finalize everything, we met the next day and reviewed everything.

The day of the wedding I packed up all of the decorations in a suitcase and brought it down to the lobby. I brought sticky notes with me and I went through and wrote on the sticky notes where everything should be and what they would be used for, that worked really well, everything was where it should be.

Wedding day - DH and I stayed together the night before, we went to the pool with friends in the morning and then around 11 we headed up to the room so I could shower and head to the salon and he could shave and relax for a little while.

I had requested Christian for my hair & makeup, he was EXCELLENT - A +! Very, very nice, he did a great job. I did bring pictures of both hair and makeup. I do wear makeup most days, but not a lot, so I felt really done up, but it was perfect for pictures so I left it alone. Two tips, it is extremely windy at the gazebo, make sure they use enough bobby pins in your hair, I think my hair needed a few more because a few pieces were falling out right after the ceremony and I would tell them you'll do your own lipstick, he did my lipstick and it freaked me out I had to wipe it off right away!

After my hair & makeup I headed back to the room to finish getting ready, I got a little stressed because I decided to do hailey's hair myself, its usually pretty easy to do with a curling iron, but her hair was so tangled from the pool!! I started to stress out with that, so her hair didn't really come out very good, but she still looked beautiful.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the first stress of the day. I got a call from Claudia Rodriguez's studio first thing in the morning, Citlalli, my photographer had some type of food poisoning or something she was very sick and didn't think she'd make it to my wedding. Erick is Citlalli's husband he was also sick, so she was sending Roberto in place. I just said okay and tried to forget about it, I didn't want to stress out.

I took a few pictures with the photographer and then headed down, everything looked beautiful. I enlisted the help of my brother with our docking station and he did a great job. I had written our ceremony, but never really talked to claudia about it (I forgot!) so I threw it in the bag and said if the officiant could read our ceremony instead that would be great, if not, no problem. Well, the officiant spoke english, but had a hard time reading english. He was the sweetest old man, he had such a good heart and he threw some prayers in there which were very nice, but he had such a hard time reading everything, he tried his best he really did and I appreciated that and thought he did a great job. But I would email your ceremony ahead of time if you are writing it.

After the ceremony we did some group & family pictures and then headed off to do our own while everyone went to cocktail hour.

Everyone LOVED the mariachi band, we made it back for the last few minutes of cocktail hour and got to see a couple of songs.

Our dinner was fantastic, the food was so good, and our servers were great, especially Sergio, he was running all night for us.


We used our docking station for music and it worked out great, I stressed out so much about putting songs in an order to play them, but all of our friends totally took initiative with the IPOD and changed it if they didn't like a song or told us if they wanted a certain song, it was so much fun, I wish I was still there!

The cake was good, not the one I picked, but I didn't really care. I forgot to use my cake topper!!! I found them in the bag a few days later and realized I forgot about them, all that hot gluing my fingers for nothing! I did smush cake in DH's face, that was fun!

Lets see what else, oh, our bouquets were gorgeous. The centerpieces were very pretty. I was sad I forgot our bouquets at the resort when we left, I knew I couldn't bring them home, but I wanted to bring them to the next resort and enjoy them for a few more days.

I think thats everything but if you have a specific question please ask me, I've written so much already! All in all, we had a fantastic time, we'd definetly go back to dreams, it was perfect for our group, the perfect size, we could easily find everyone everyday and spend time with them. Our guests had a great time too.

Almost forgot, our photographer. Well, I know I said Citlalli was sick, so Roberto was our photographer, he did a nice job with our pictures, I was really excited to have Citlalli because I liked her style of photography and Roberto did have some similar shots so that was good. I wish I didn't feel so sweaty in the pictures, lol! Oh, and he delivered our pics and video to us the day before we left, so that was fantastic, I can't believe we already have our pictures!

Also, the package at dreams includes a video, well I kind of forgot about the video until this guy came up and introduced himself to us as our videographer. I had very low expectations of our video because it was part of our package and I thought it said unedited footage. Well, we got our video and it is fantatic! He did such a great job with it. He used the song I walked into in the beginning and then the song we walked out to he used and then he just picked a song for the rest of it. He walked around with the photographer and shot footage as we did pictures. It came out really great, i'll have to figure out if I can share it.

okay, I've gone on long enough, DH thinks I'm crazy. I'll post a couple of pics and then write a review of our honeymoon at EDR.

[TA Jill]

heres the table


DH with his Coco Loco


Hailey


gazebo


bouquet


mariachi


me & DH


me & DH


me & DH


DH

[Tammy Host]

you tease!! your pics didnt work...they don't from kodak...i think they do from shutterfly though

[TA Jill]

I'm sorry! You know I can always see them on my computer when I use Kodak, but no one else can!

Be right back, have to upload some to photobucket...

should be fixed now!

I'll post the links to all of them later once I upload them all!

[CancunBride07]

I love your pictures, they turned out really nice. I love your DH's outfit, worked out really well!!

I am so jealous that you already have your pics! they said it would be two weeks until we received ours

I love your pictures, they turned out really nice.

And woohoo for Coco Loco's!! here is my little sister helping our older brother with his, hehe

[TA Jill]

Originally claudia had told me two weeks for our pics too, but then Roberto asked where we were staying and he said he'd bring them to us before we left mexico, so that was a nice surprise!

[michelle08]

Awesome reviw Jilly!!!! Awesome pics too!! You look so beautiful!!! :)

[RoSean]

WELCOM BACK JILLY!!!

Congrats!
Thanks for writing a thorough review.
It's very helpful.

[Lizz]

Congrats! It sounds like it was a wonderful wedding and I love your pics, you look beautiful!

[Jackie]

Great Review and I love the pictures of you by the old boat. And your daughter is buetifull, and the set up was goreous and I could go on and on but really you just made me sooooo excited to get married you looked so happy!