jmhein

Quote: Originally Posted by misskaytee This is SO helpful! Thank you so much! Is there anything to advise us about? any glitches (besides your honeymoon mix-up) to warn us about? Overall we had a really, really great time! I think some things you might run into if going with a group for your wedding are: - it seems to be much easier to get a table for 2 at the restaurants than a table for a group. We would often get seated before groups because there was just the 2 of us, they have to wait for enough tables and chairs to open up in order to seat a group, so some patience may be needed if you want to eat with your guests on different nights of the week. - Certain restaurants you will need to line up before 6 in order to get in. San Genarro's and Valentino's are both Italian and we never made it to either because we didnt want to spend our vacation waiting in line! - Selection at buffet breakfasts is good, but service at your table is not usually great, we would often be almost done eating before someone would offer to fill our water glasses or coffee cups! Maybe we were there during the busiest times, maybe we had bad luck, I am not sure... OK, those were the only negatives though really. There ARE some areas showing age, but I dont think it affects the beauty of the resort. Overall we found the service excellent, grounds absolutely GORGEOUS, beach is decent, small but good, ocean warm and inviting and clear, and food good! Order a dirty banana and a hummingbird and a Jamaican smile and your life will be great!! When you want a bit more rum for later evenings, go for a Rum Runner, Mai Tai, coconut rum and pineapple juice, etc, etc....!!! We had so much fun!

MORE! The gazebo on the ocean boardwalk where weddings can also be done: Our Villa: Our Villa pool: Our one night at the disco... the disco is only open 3 nights of the week and it is NOT air conditioned, so we didnt last too long in here before needing some air to cool down! A wedding in the boardwalk gazebo - they are proceeding down the boardwalk:

OK, Photobucket is giving me some trouble but I did get some photos uploaded and here they are: I saw a beach wedding! It was just the two of them and they didnt do any extra decorations, just them on the beach, but this is the location for the beach weddings, it's the beach by the pier on the Beach Club side: We had a Honeymoon Plantation Villa, this was our bathroom: Bedroom: We had Concierge so had in-room liquor: I will try to keep fighting with Photobucket and get some more up later! It was beautiful though, I loved the expansive lush grounds with the tropical flowers and greenery everywhere. Dont go expecting EXTREME 5-star luxury, this is more 4 star comfort, but it is wonderful and you will have a great time!!

I am back and we had a great time! I will try to post some pics tonight as requested. I never did get pics of any restaurants though, sorry! But others were taken and will be posted later!

I watched it and know who the new Bachelorette is, I'm so HAPPY!!! Her hometown is 2 hours away from where I live, and we live in a small little corner of the world!

Yuck Icky Grossness. Does anyone else just feel DIRTY watching that?? Like we were totally screwed over by ABC. They think their viewers are STUPID!!

BAHHHH, what the hell was he thinking?? Seriously!! I dont even know if I want to watch anymore. ARGH!!! OK, well he better pick Melissa because I cant believe Molly stayed over Jill!

I agree with all of you, I hope the final two are Melissa and Jillian! I LOVE Jillian but I too have a feeling he might be more into Melissa, but who knows, they edit things so that we will be surprised at the end, lol! I like Melissa too so either would be a good choice. I do NOT like Molly, just something about her really bugs me. I hope she gets the boot next week!

I agree with all of you, I hope the final two are Melissa and Jillian! I LOVE Jillian but I too have a feeling he might be more into Melissa, but who knows, they edit things so that we will be surprised at the end, lol! I like Melissa too so either would be a good choice. I do NOT like Molly, just something about her really bugs me. I hope she gets the boot next week!

oooh, just watched tonight's episode!! I dont want to spoil it if you havent watched it yet, but it was sooo gooood!! And Kiki, your words were marked....

Will do!!

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! I love your dress and the beautiful red colors and the ceremony setup and everything! I havent gotten to the dancing on the bar pics, I will have to check those out later! Definitely brought back some great memories! You looked beautiful!

I gotta cheer for Jillian too, she is originally from a town just north of me! I think she's funny and down to earth! GO JILLIAN!

Hi ladies, I am already married, had my dw last year at the Riu Ocho Rios, and we honeymooned for a second week at the Sandals Whitehouse. We have just booked ourselves a slightly belated 1st anniversary trip to the Sandals Grande Ocho Rios! We actually had a voucher for three free nights for a Sandals of our choice because they messed up our honeymoon booking. We were supposed to honeymoon last year at the Sandals Royal Caribbean and even though I had vouchers and an invoice, our reservations were not in their system! We had to wait for 3 hours at the Montego Bay Airport while they figured out where to put us. It wasn't the best start to our honeymoon but we did enjoy our time at the Sandals Whitehouse, even though we didn't get the same room category, etc, that we would have at our original planned honeymoon. SOOOO, long story short, LOL, we complained and got a voucher! With the amazing sale Sandals is having and SGOR being the "most discounted" we have decided to go there for 10 days and I am very excited. I really did love the great service that Sandals provides. I know how it is to be a destination bride and want pictures and info of just about EVERYTHING, so feel free to ask me to take pictures of specific things, and I will do my best to take them while there. I'll post a review for you ladies when we're back!

Quote: Originally Posted by christenew Oh no you had to stand in line. The table opened at 9am. I was down one morning at 8:15 and was 5th in line. I didn't get out of there until close to 10am and didn't get the reservation I wanted for 4 people. It was a joke. My dad actually called one of the ladies "Miss "$%@$ING congeniality" to her face because she wouldn't cancel his dinner reservation. The manager came up to him and he explained the situation. The manager apologized on how rude the staff member had been. My dad encouraged them to recommend further customer service to their staff. Wow. That SUCKS. I wonder why they would have changed their policy, this one seems so much more cumbersome and NOT guest-friendly. We were all able to make reservations by phoning from our room in the morning. Granted, sometimes the line was busy, but if we kept trying for a while we eventually got through. So dumb that they changed it. Maybe a few complaints on tripadvisor and emails to management might get them to change it back to the way it was.....

GORGEOUS pics, you were GLOWING girl! I LOVE the colours you chose, your bridesmaid's dresses are beautiful. And how cute are you flower girls? So cute!

Sorry you were disappointed with your experience Christine! Your pictures look beautiful though and I hope you do have a lot of happy memories to look back on! Just wondering - have they changed the restaurant reservation policy? We were able to get reservations to the Japanese, Chinese, etc, by just phoning from our room? I never stood in any lines...?

Quote: Originally Posted by sarah.cullen Hi JM If you don't mind passing on the benefit of your experience at the Riu: 1. Did you originally book a junior suite & they upgraded to the jacuzzi suite when you arrived? 2. If you have any tips for myself & any future brides to maybe say the right thing when we arrive?? I was going to bring my Riu Class reward card, heard it is useful? Thanks a million for any advice you can give, congrats again!! Sarah x Hi Sarah, Yes, we did book a junior suite and were so lucky to just have been upgraded to the jacuzzi suite. I did sign up online for a Riu Class Reward card, I am not sure if that helped, but it certainly wouldn't hurt! One thing I did do was, about a week before we left, I sent the resort a nicely worded email saying we were very excited about our trip and upcoming wedding and our 40 guests were excited too. I said we would "truly appreciate an upgrade to a suite if it was at all possible." THAT might have helped...

Quote: Originally Posted by dinzers Sorry to swing the topic back to the dj, but did you have to pay a deposit ahead of time? I've secured DJ Prince with Chandlyn, but she hasnt said anything about a deposit amount to ensure he's there. Hi Dinzers, this is a little fuzzy in my memory... I do think I had to give Chandlyn the DJ fee in cash and she then gave it to him?? But this happened once we were there, I definitely didnt have to send a deposit ahead of time. Hope that helps?

We had a two year old attend our wedding who drank milk, they had regular containers of 2% and 1% available - absolutely no worries!

NYCChik - we used the resort's florist, I made all arrangements through Chandlyn, the wedding coordinator. I picked those decorations out of a catalogue she showed me when we got to the resort. I told her I wanted the teal/turquoise color accent and the color they picked worked perfectly. I did pay extra for those decorations, but I just loved it!

I agree with the other ladies, shop around, try some different travel agents! You could also wait a few months, the resort wont book up this far in advance. Also, right now, with the economic troubles of the world, the resorts are slashing their prices and tehy may continue to do so if you wait a couple of months. Another option - are you getting your quotes through Sunquest? Slightly more complicated in that it wont be a direct flight, but you could look into booking flights through WestJet and negotiating a group land only rate directly with the Riu... just a thought that you can try! Good luck!

I agree with the other ladies, shop around, try some different travel agents! You could also wait a few months, the resort wont book up this far in advance. Also, right now, with the economic troubles of the world, the resorts are slashing their prices and tehy may continue to do so if you wait a couple of months. Another option - are you getting your quotes through Sunquest? Slightly more complicated in that it wont be a direct flight, but you could look into booking flights through WestJet and negotiating a group land only rate directly with the Riu... just a thought that you can try! Good luck!

Thanks ladies, it's neat to see my wedding thread be revived every once in a while! My wedding was almost a year ago now, time sure flies! T and D I hope you got the info on costs from one of the other brides on here. I know there should be a pricing thread somewhere. I would have to dig out the pricing, and I still can if you want me too, but I would be concerned mine would be old pricing, they may have made some changes in the past year. We have just booked a flight to Jamaica to go back in March for a belated anniversary trip! I am very excited! We loved the ROR but we might try the Riu Tropical Bay this time! YAY!!!

Also check out jamaica.com, Jamaica's tourism website! It's been updated and you can search the Riu Ocho Rios and come up with a clickable map with photos and virtual tours! VERY helpful! ETA: Here's the link for the resort map: http://travel.wwte1.com/pub/agent.dl...hotel-pictures