SunBride

Quote: Originally Posted by donandcorri She actually didn't even charge me for the extra flowers we ordered (BM bouquet, hair flower & extra boutonnieres). Really? Wow! One of the reasons I'm going with real touch flowers is that it only cost me about 200$ versus 120$ for extra real flowers at the resort (2x35$ bridesmaids and 2x25$ corsage) plus I am assured I'm getting what I want, and I can use them again. I wonder if she just forgot to charge you, or if other people had similar experiences

Quote: Originally Posted by sgbrown GREAT NEWS - Don't worry whatsoever! I JUST booked my wedding at Dreams Tulum on May 7, 2009 (looks like we'll be seeing eachother!). I don't have a flight number or anything like that, but both Sandra and Landy allowed me to make my reservation, no problem. I found Landy got back to me a bit quicker than Sandra. You might try emailing her instead! Good luck and keep in touch. I'm in the midst of trying to figure out which wedding package I want... it's so confusing!!! Another Dreams Tulum bride from Ottawa, wow, that's crazy! I'm next from this forum to get married there, April 1st! I can't believe you 2 are there at the same time, and over a year from now, my wedding is just over a month away and I haven't found one other bride getting married at the same that I'm there.

Quote: Originally Posted by DreamsTulumBride At night, yes men to have pants + shoes but I did see some people have sandals. As for the lunch, men need a t-shirt + dry bathing suite + sandal Women can keep their bathing suite but need something to cover it. Think of it, would you like to eat next to someone in a bathing that you do not know? (lunch buffet, Mexican restaurant and Sea side grill/ lunch + breakfast meals) If you want to stay on your beach chair, their is always a cook next to the quiet pool, on the sand so you do not need to get dress to eat. What we did sometimes was to ask our beach waiter to get us some things from Sea Side Grill... he just loved us with our 20$ tip ! So he just came over to our beach chairs with our plates ! Dreams Tulum staff is amazing! Not all restaurants require men to wear pants and closed shoes at nights. It use to be clear on the old website, but they put up a new website a couple weeks ago and now the info isn't there (I saw it there about 2-3 weeks ago). It used to clarify that some of the restaurants were casual (shorts and sandals okay) and some were semi-formal (pants and closed toe shoes for the men). There was a little link for dress codes that you clicked on which clearly explained the dress code for each restaurant. I can't remember which are which. I'm guessing Portofino and Bordeaux are semi-formal, and I specifically remember Seaside grill being casual, but I don't remember for the others. I'll get in touch with the concierge to ask

Quote: Originally Posted by DreamsTulumBride NO, you can no longer do that ! ! ! That is why they are building a ball room next to the kids club ! ! Right, I forgot about that. Although I hear that there are 1-2 restaurants closed everynight anyways, I wonder if they will stop doing this now if the wedding groups aren't there? I know some resorts close restaurants on location because they don't want to have to staff restaurants that aren't full.

Congratulations, I'll add you to the list! Check out the thread: http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t7767 people have attached the pdf documents we have gotten from the wedding coordinators, so most of your questions are answered in those documents, there are also tons of other Qs&As that will be super helpful. Yes there would be other people in the restaurants unless you pay 700$ to have the restaurant closed. You cold alternatively have it on the beach or on the terrace, which would probably be more private (unless a bride chose the same dinner location the same day - but you could find that out from the coordinator when you get there and then you could change your plans if you wanted)

I asked the resort about updgrades and was told that they would try hard for the bride/groom (to a dreams junior suite gardenview, or maybe oceanview if there is availability, but not honeymoon suite), but not for guests (so if it happens that your group is upgraded it's just luck that either the hacienda rooms are all full that day, or that they have lots of dreams suites available and want to be nice). I was told that if my guests wanted to upgrade, they would get 50% off the cost of upgrading from a deluxe gardenview room (i.e. hacienda room) to a dreams suite since we are a wedding group (even though we only have 5 rooms!). Dreams junior suites gardenview are usually 40$ extra per night per room(so 20$ with the discount) and Dreams junior suites oceanview are usually 60$ extra (so 30$ with the discount) Dreams junior suites oceanfront are 80$ extra (discount does not apply). So total cost for upgrade to the dreams gardenview suite for one week is 140$ for the room (it would have cost us 400$ extra per person to do it at the time we booked through air canada vacations!!!) These upgrades are just requested when you arrive, not reserved in advance, and are based on availability. I'm just crossing my fingers we'll either get free upgrades. Otherwise, assuming there is availability, 140$ per room is really cheap in my opinion, and I know my parents at least will pay it if the room is much better. If there isn't availability the day we arrive, they can tough it out one or two night and then change rooms as soon as a suite becomes available. I would try not to worry to much about the rooms until you get there and see for yourself. Maybe the people who complained where being overly difficult. I'll be back in April, and I'll take pictures of the different rooms so that you can see. Nobody is getting married before me anyways so I'll be able to help all of you.

Quote: Originally Posted by amy706 DreamsTulumBride- were there other weddings the weekend you got married? I am getting married Dec 5th and Sandra told me she had 2 or 3 on my date and 2 or 3 the day after. YIPES! I totally want the upgrades for my guests!! I'm thinking its not likely Early December is pretty slow at the resorts, the rush usually starts at Christmas vacation time or in the few days before (which would explain why dreamstulumbride said it was so busy when they left on Dec 15th) so you should be okay.

I just emailed Landy to ask about tropical flowers last week, I asked about the availability of bright pink hibiscus or fragipani (google them if you don't know what they look like). I haven't gotten an answer. In the meantime I went ahead and ordered with angels. she didn't have time to make them so I bought the stems and am having my aunt put them together. In the future, maybe you could post here: http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t7767 to keep all our questions together. I think it would be more helpful for future dreams tulum brides to have all the info in one place. Just a suggestion Edit: just noticed you did that!

Have a look in this thread, you'll find lots of info http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t7767 and by posting future questions here you'll help keep all the information together for future brides to find easily

Post your questions here, you'll get lots of help from upcoming and past dreams tulum brides http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t7767

Updated the list with more brides and also links to review from past brides.

Hey, if anyone could send me a copy of their video somehow, either mail me a copy of the DVD (I will pay you for costs of DVD and shipping) or upload it on utube or any other idea you have to share it, I would be forever greatful. This is the item I'm most stuck on right now, I can't decide if it's worth the 380$ for one hour video.

Quote: Originally Posted by RyanAmanda highheels, do you mind sharing what the extra $620 was for? Was it the blood tests or other things? We're just starting to plan our wedding and are looking at Dreams Tulum. I thought that everything was included in the package - I looked through my info package but didn't see anything about extra fees to make it legal. I can tell you exactly what the cost is at Dreams TULUM because I'm getting married there and after reading the thread I was worried so I emailed Landy and asked her about all extra costs for a civil wedding. The costs are: 150$ + tax (10% I think) for blood tests (done at the resort, paid directly to doctor) 50$ (+ tax I think) for judge's transporation 100$ + tax if you want to get an apostille for the marriage certificate (to make it legal, I think it's like a "stamp" or something that certifies that the document is a legal document). this is optional, as you can get it done in your home country at the embassy if you prefer. If they do it for you, it will take a 3-6 months to receive your mariage certificate. The fee includes the cost of mailing you the certificate.

there is another thread on the first page of this forum with that exact topic, check there, the moderators are trying very to keep the forum organized and avoid repetitions http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t15066

I decided to get palm fans for each guest (they are only 1$ each) and get umbrellas for the women only since I figured the men wouldn't want them, although I was just looking at somebody else's pictures where the men were using them! I actually bought them mostly for the pictures without really thinking they would be that usefull for the sun, but now I've read a few people said they are very usefull for the sun

I'm impressed that your review is quite objectively critical. Most brides just say everything was perfect, and that's not always helpful (although it soothes our nerves) because we don't know what to watch out for and what to try to improve. I'm not doing a rehersal since we are only 9 people, but based on what you say I will give everybody instructions on where they should be.

I just wanted to clarify that I would be asking 600$ towards paying her travel expenses (which is much less than half of what I'm paying for her) and then you would have to pay Jodi 800$ as a photography fee. So for 1400$ total you can get a great photographer for the whole day, a trash the dress session on a seperate day, including all the pictures on CD and 300$ options credit towards buying enlargements, thank you cards, photobooks, etc. If you are at another resort, it would probably be 100$ or less to get her to travel anywhere in the mayan riviera area. daydreamphotography.com

You can always try another agent. Sometimes one agent isn't looking properly and another one who knows more or spends more time can find something different. That happened to me, somebody at selloffvacations said "if it says product not available that means it's sold out" whereas somebody at itravel2000 actaully took the time to call Air Canada Vacations to see and found the package, and was even able to put together connector air flights that wasn't showing online, for much cheaper than another agent had told me. My guests each paid 1500$ per person for one week with flight and transfers, from Ottawa. The guests from Halifax paid 1600. This are package prices with Air Canada Vacations. I had been watching the price for a while, and it was a few hundred higher for the rest of March and April, for some reason the week we are going was less expensive which is why we chose that week (we booked only 2.5 months in advance, so the pricing varies a lot depending on departure day. We even saved 200$ by leaving thursday instead of saturday). For my parents from Winnipeg it was going to be 2300$ so they are just flying from Ottawa with us and bought their own flights from Winnipeg - Ottawa for 350$ with air canada (so 1500$+350$). So it's less convenient, but way cheaper than booking the whole package directly with air canada. I found these prices myself by checking the selloffvacations and itravel2000 websites. I tried working with a couple agents who were getting me group quotes but they were always 200-400$ more expensive per person that what I was finding on those websites!!!

yes I'm almost positive you can have the civil legal ceremony in the chappel at dreams tulum because that's where I am getting married (civil ceremony) and I was told that the chapel would be my back-up location in case of rain (on a side note, I told them I wasn't really interested in the chapel, so I'm going to have it in the beachside restaurant on in front of the grand staircase of the main lobby if it rains). Their religious ceremony is a symbolic one only, not legal, so I think they know that people want a legal ceremony (not religious), but also want to be in the chapel.

I just added the names of everyone whose posted in the other dreams tulum threads, I hope nobody minds. There are so many of us!

I read somewhere that you can message one of the moderators and ask them for points. I don't know how to transfer them to you!

I was having similar problems with the coordinators at Dreams Cancan, I asked if they had 3-5pm available and they answered 5pm (which was later than I really wanted as my idea time was 4pm) and after calling I found out they had anytime available between 3-5pm but they were proposing 5pm because they thought it was best (less hot). You'd think they would have written back and said "anytime between 3-5 is fine, we suggest 5 because it's less hot" rather than answering "5pm is available". So you definitely have to ask lots of questions about different times and maybe even phone them. And never assume anything (i.e. when she says 5pm is available, it did not mean that 3pm or 4pm was not).

also with the price package just posted in another thread for dreams cancun, I noticed the price for the extras is a lot more. So it's worth comparing the price on the wedding packages and extras

thanks for the information both of you. I'll definitely consider gtting, I'm just not sure. If we get a family member (or a random stranger I meet at the resort if I can find somebody to do it!) to do it with our camera, I will add shots of the resort at the beginning, and also ask the person to film our photo shoot afterwards. Then we could put it together and edit it ourselves. I may splurge the 350$ though. We are using the free wedding package, so paying for the trio & video (the only extras we are considering) is 700$ versus paying 2650$ for the ultimate package (On a side note I think it's stupid that when you upgrade to a better package, you don't get anything as a reward for booking the honeymoon suite or for booking 5 rooms or more. You'd think they would reduce the price by 800$, which is the cost of the free package when you aren't eligible to get it free). There are other nice things that come with the ultimate package (i.e. spa treatment, gold dinner menu, floral centerpieces, hair and makeup services) but none of those are important enough to me to pay 2000$.

you could always phone the wedding coordinators and ask about the availability, that's what I did because I really wanted to book and couldn't wait a couple days for them to get back to me. They may only work Monday - Friday though so you'd have to call right away.