Pics Pics Pics -- Not Just for DR Brides

Hey everyone, is anyone else baffled at the 17$ per person per hour open bar cost? Haven't our guests already payed thousands of dollars to eat and drink unlimited all week? I am struggling to justify spending 1800$ for drinks at an all inclusive...any thoughts? reccommendations? Foxy, can you tell me if there are any pool bars, etc near the Marino resort that everyone could just go get drinks at?

We used the Gabi beach bar- and its right next to the marino restauarnt.

Our reception was at the albufera restaurant. It was amazing. I highly recommend it at the restaurant. We orginally picked marino but the new restaurant manger said no to make it private. So, we went back and forth with pricing and viviana got it for almost the same cost. It came out to 50.00 for the reception per head for 3 hours and we had a bar in the restaurant. We didnt do a traditional cocktail party. Everyone just went to the bar and hungout until our pics where done

Thanks, Tami! I think I've fallen in love with that sunset cruise/reception idea. It looks absolutely beautiful...

Welcome back, and congratulations by the way! I can't wait to see some pics Did you do all of this bargaining before you arrived? also, did you get an opportunity to have a tasting to choose your menu, or again was that decided before you arrived?

I fought w/ Viviana on this upon arrival b/c none of her emails indicated that the bar was extra with the beach reception (although that was clear with the restaurant receptions).

Otis1230 is right, Albufera is right by the Hibiscus bar and Marino is by both Hibiscus and Gabi Beach Bar ... so either option would work perfectly in order to avoid paying the extra bar fee.

We had our per person open bar fee waived b/c I made Viviana find an email detailing that cost and she couldn't (b/c there wasn't one) and I asked repeated times via email if my figures for the cost were accurate. Our initial invoice was like $8300+ for the ceremony and reception. I got her down to $3800 ... which was just a few hundred dollars more than I anticipated.

Even w/ a beach reception, if you do it near the Gabi Beach Bar ... I would skip the private bar cost. It was great for us since we didn't have to pay it and our beach reception was off from the restaurant and bar areas a bit.

I was confused by the cost per person for the bar as well. Most of our guests are arriving on thursday (wedding is sat) so we wanted to have everyone meet at a common bar thurs nite for a kinda "meet and greet". When I asked Viviana about maybe sectioning off a part of one of the bars for us, she was like, "No problem. $16 per person per hour." I was like, "What" It's an ALL-INCLUSIVE resort! That's insane. So we decided to just let everyone know where to meet, but not to have it formally sectioned off or whatever.

 

The ONLY thing we could think of is maybe they charge b/c your guests may not necessarily be staying there??

Great post, THANK YOU.

OMG I AM HAVING A HEART ATTACK!!!!!!! I just got an email from my US planner that Miguelina sent her a fee chart for "privitization" of the restaurants, and it is $5,000 plus 26% commision!!!! THAT IS MORE THAN THE ENTIRE COST OF EVERYTHING ELSE I AM BOOKING. Was anyone else approached with this outragous charge? We have a group of 47 people and the restaurant only holds 50, am i really supposed to pay them $6300 to not seat three people? This fee has NEVER been mentioned before and is no where in the romance calculator...HELP!!!

Where did you purchase your umbrellas?

It's b/c if you privatize anything they have to have separate staff that service only your group. It's so much easier just to tell everyone which bar to meet up at. We had no issues and none of the bars were ever super crowded (except for the lobby bar at night (like after 9pm) when they had a band and dancing).

The 26% commission is listed in the Romance Guides and in other places. The beach reception was a better deal for us, personally, with 40 people.

You can have her reserve you seats at a restaurant and NOT privatize it, which would be your best bet if it's just for dinner and not dancing, etc. That's what we did for our rehearsal dinner and it didn't cost us anything.

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