Pics from my Cabo Wedding and TTD!

[ACDCDCAC]

Click on this link to view the B&W pics from my Cabo wedding!

More pics to follow tomorrow!

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/w...=2CctmbFozZOUg

 

At the moment I am waiting on Shutterfly to magically make my computer upload pics faster so I can post a link for you, but meanwhile I will write a review of my Cabo Wedding!

 

We ended up leaving on a flight to DFW LATE Saturday night, and then flying with Doug's Bro Trevor and Trish and baby Evie on American from DFW to Cabo. We got first class (YAY free champagne!) on the DFW segment, and it was a great way to start out the wedding week. Had NO trouble hanging my dress on Alaska or American in the closet.

 

Got to Cabo about 11am, we were in row one and zipped thru customs (got our first passport stamps! cool!), but then had to wait on T T and E who were OF COURSE! in the last row After we all got thru we went right outside and took an airport taxi van for $95 (private, they said would have been $90 if we shared, whatever!) straight to the RIU Santa Fe (oh with a stop for cervezas, you know it!)

 

HOTEL- RIU Santa Fe Grade A-

The ride went quick, and soon we saw our hotel. Man this place is so cool! It has 1400 rooms, and the Santa Fe theme is carried thru to every detail. The grounds are gorgeous, cacti and desert-y looking plants and flowers everywhere. I LOVED how all the buildings looked like adobe with that distinct Santa Fe look. All 20 of us were very close by eachother in building 4, the closest building to the beach and infinity pools other than building 7, but we all thought it was perfectly centrally located for our needs. We ended up spending most of our time at the main pool that is surrounded by buildings 1-6, without the amazing view of Land's End, but with the convenience of food and room access at all times.

 

The reason I gave the hotel an A- instead of A or A+ is for a few reasons that the hotel should improve on but nothing that was too dire to take away from our overall fantastic impression of the actual hotel/ammenities.

 

#1 con-(for me) restrooms were not close enough to most of the pools. Only one of the 3 infinity pools on the beach side of the hotel had a restroom nearby, the other 3 pool areas had QUITE a walk to get to one, and when you gotta go cause you've been imbibing too much of the "free" A/I alcohol, you gotta go NOW!

 

#2 con- the public restrooms didn't have rubber floor mats and I almost bit it just about everytime I walked in one. The floors were SOOOOO slippery, covered with pool water from dripping wet bathing suits, and I never once saw anyone mopping the water or sopping it up with at least a towel or something.

 

#3 con- the outside walls of the stairways up and down each building did not have hand rails. you might be thinking WTF does she care about hand rails for?? The morning after the wedding, Doug's mom lost her footing going down to breakfast, reached out for a railing and proceeded to tumble headfirst down the entire flight, hitting her head and shoulder on the hard tile landing, and breaking her shoulder in FOUR places.

(We ended up spending that entire day back and forth to the hospital and, most of the rest of the trip was spent back and forth to her room, worrying, and making sure she was taken care of. Completely NOT the hotel’s fault, BUT if they had hand rails, she might have been able to catch herself, and the rest of our trip might have been salvaged so I felt I had to mention it.)

 

#4 con- the bathtubs were SO hard to get in and out of, 3 of us slipped and got huge bruises on our thighs. The wall of the tub was REALLY high, and once us shorties climbed in, the width of the basin wasn’t even a shoulder width apart, so you had to stand funny or sideways the whole time. The shower head was good and the water came out as a nice and full spray.

 

Pros-

The food was excellent! I've been to a hundred A/I's, and this was by far the best food I have ever had the luck to experience at one. The breakfast was outstanding, tons of selection and was open from 7am-1030am. There was also a continental Bfast from 1030am-1200pm. Lunch was in several places, it was the same selection pretty much every day, but yummy stuff so no worries. Dinner was the main buffet, always new things to try and everything was great. We ate at the Steakhouse, Mexican, Asian AND Italian “reservation” restaurants and they were ALL fantastic. (Edited to add: my mom came down with a horrible case of Montezuma's Revenge her last night there, she was the only one of 20 to eat the pork selection at the italian restaurant, and man was she sick she was up all night and the next day running to the restroom. poor lady )

 

The staff was so friendly and accommodating. Before Joyce’s fall, we already thought how nice the employees were, always saying “Hola!” with a smile whenever they walked past. After the fall, we really saw how they went above and beyond to make sure we were all taken care of and had everything we needed to make her comfortable. She even got a visit from the head chef, and he brought her meals to her room with items he picked out specially for her. The rest of the week he came and spoke with us every morning at breakfast. They also moved her room to a ground floor unit, no questions asked, and worked with National car rental to let us keep our rental car longer than we should have so we could deal with hospital stuff.

 

The grounds were pretty much immaculate, there was always someone cleaning or sweeping or scrubbing or mopping something.

 

The rooms were so nice, I told everyone they were my favorite ones of all the rooms in Mexico I’ve ever stayed in! The beds were comfy, firm but soft at the same time, sheets, pillows and bedding were nice and new. Our view wasn’t the best, but we weren’t in the rooms during daylight a lot, so whatever. There was an electronic safe and we used it with no troubles. Lots of drawer space, and we had no trouble getting cots in the rooms with kids/extra people.

 

The pools were great, so beautiful, the only complaint was the water wasn’t cold enough! But again, whatever. The drinks were pretty weak, the only ones of us who had too much were the beer drinkers, the rest of us just had to ask for more liquor in the drinks. We did use our To-Go-Cups that I paint-penned, and the bartenders loved them cause it was less work to fill one big cup than a million small A/I cups, and other guests all loved them too, we had people asking where we bought them, thinking we got them in town or something! The kids all had fun getting nino slammers and other kiddie drinks.

 

The location was AWESOME, about 2 miles into downtown Cabo, and only about 15 minutes from “our” beach, at Santa Maria Bay, and 20 min to Chileno Bay, about 30 min to San Jose Del Cabo.

 

I don’t really have any vendors to review, I forgot I was going to get a bouquet and use my something borrowed starfish from carly again, but we were just too busy, and I did my hair and makeup myself.

 

We did find out that we had a great amateur photog in our group, Doug’s other Bro Scott, so instead of spending $ on a Pro, we just trusted him, and we’re very happy we did. All of the Black and White pics are from my camera, a family friend took them of me getting ready and the wedding; We will have 2 sets of color ones, one from my Mom’s camera, and another from Scott’s camera (not yet posted); and we had 2 camera’s at our TTD, one was Doug’s new one (his Sis Brenda took those) and Scott did those for us as well.

 

WEDDING- Santa Maria Bay A+++++++++

We are so happy we chose to go DIY and stress free, and not use the hotel for the ceremony. Since we already had the BFW at home, we already got all the pomp & circumstance at that one and the Cabo one was so amazingly nice and beautiful. All we did was show up, walk to the spot we wanted, gather together, and get married! We did a completely different ceremony than the one we had at home, Trevor did an awesome job again, it was so nice, short and sweet, but enough so that our guests felt it was worth coming all the way to Mexico for! Hahaha! The color at 7:00pm was just amazing, so both the B&W and color pics turned out awesome. It was so magical to say our vows with the waves crashing and the sand between our toes, and everything was exactly as we envisioned it. We even had a crowd of looky-loos who gathered around from all over the beach to watch, and they cheered and clapped when we kissed, it was pretty cool.

 

TTD- Chileno Bay A+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This place is so freaking beautiful, even tho we didn’t have a pro photog, it didn’t matter because the scenery was just so fantastic that the pics are just awesome. The ones I will upload soon for you are from Doug’s new camera, an Olympus Stylus 850 waterproof job, it is AMAZING! His sister Brenda acted as our “assistant photographer”, and did a great job taking over 100 pics! I can’t wait to get the CD’s from Doug’s Bro Scott, I saw them tiny on his camera screen, and I know they will be gorgeous, over 400 of them! We got up and got to the beach at 7:30am on Thursday morning, and started shooting right away, and were done about an hour later. There was only one other person on the beach, doing her morning walk. The lighting was perfect the whole time, and Doug and I both count this photo session as one of our 2 favorite moments on this trip. We had SO much fun doing this, at first Doug was not as into the idea of a TTD but did it for me, but after a few minutes he really warmed up to it and you can tell in the pics. He was helping “direct” the shots and pick the locations and poses in the rocks and water, it was really cute. My dress was SO heavy when it got wet, even tho I snipped out ALL the poofy lining before we left Seattle, left the bra and panel from the corset in Seattle too, and was SO much more comfortable than at the BFW. Doug had to help me up onto my feet a couple times when I almost got too water logged to move, it was pretty funny.

 

The last night there, Doug, his son, his dad, and nephew all went go-karting at a place right up the road from our hotel, it was a nice moonlit walk, and they had so much fun, it was $29 per person for 14 laps, and the go-karts didn’t have governors, so the boys were happy speeding around the track at 40 mph. Doug won! We noticed that they had more safety regulations and protective gear than at some tracks here at home we’ve been to, so we felt completely safe letting Doug’s 12 yr old son and 15 yr old nephew do it too. They all had a blast and his sister Becky and I had fun watching our boys. Cabo Karting Center: Cabo San Lucas, Mexico - High Performance Formula Kart Racing

 

Off the top of my head that is about all I can think of to review, but if you need to know more or if I forgot something, just ask! I’ll be glad to add more info if anyone needs it.

 

I’ll be posting the Shutterfly link to the rest of the pics asap, and this week sometime we will be getting about 1000 pics from Doug's Bro Scott, our official-unofficial not-at-all-Pro photog. YAY for pics!

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

We just got back late last night! I only have a minute but I wanted to tease you guys with a couple pics from the Cabo Wedding and TTD! I'll go into detail and do a review late tonight, but I knew you need something to tide you over!

 

 

 

 

 

[rodent]

yay! welcome back & thanks for the quick pics!

[Carolyn]

Can't wait to see the rest of the pictures.

[jmiranda]

Congratulations Abbie you a Mrs!!! Cant wait to see the rest of the pics

[Martha]

I can't wait to see the rest!!!!

[Kat81]

Welcome Back!!!! I hope it was wonderful! Thanks for the teasers!

[Jenn]

Welcome back Abbie! Can't wait to hear all about it and see all of your pics!

[ErinB]

Welcome back Abbie! I'm so happy for you and Doug!

 

I can't wait to see more pictures!

[Christi]

Congrats and welcome back...the teaser picts are great...love the beach area you chose!

[KLC77]

Welcome back! Can't wait to read your review and see more pics. I am loving your dress...