calchik

i live in calgary and i got married at the bahia principe bavaro in may 2009 it was $1600 for the all inclusive hotel package and flight from toronto. but we had to pay another $400 to fly from calgary to toronto as there are no direct flights from calgary in may we also got legally married in calgary to avoid the hassle. originally we were getting married in mexico where they require blood tests so no way we were doing that. the only difference was you pretend to sign the marriage document in punta cana. plus the renewal of vows or symbolic ceremony was cheaper than the legal ceremony

i got married there in the Picsas resturant in may 2009 i can't remember my whole menu but i do remember all of it was good cesear salad - which was big and yummy mixed grill - pork, steak, chicken, sausage. only bad thing about this was depending on what part of the animal you got served would be different level of doneness for the meat. some had really good steak, but not great pork, others had vice versa. but still good overall, i never heard any complaints from my guests check my review, i think i have pics of my dinner. lol for drinks, everyone pretty much stuck with the wine that came with dinner then after dinner, some ppl were asking for different drinks (beer, gin and tonic) from the waiters and they got them. i didn't get charged anything extra. then after the reception was over at 10:30 we went to the disco where you could get whatever drinks you wanted

i just wanted to mention that they can customize your flowers they give you a book to pick flowers out of (i have a link to the pics somewhere, i'll have to find it when i get home then i'll post it) i picked a bouquet and asked if i could have purple flowers put in instead of the orange ones that were there, they did it no problem and no extra charge for changing the flowers. and i got offered 3 different boutouineers (however you spell that) as my WC didn't know which pink i would prefer and the flowers were more than enough for centerpieces imo, but then again i had one big long table instead of a bunch of little ones.

we did travel mugs, ordered them plain and then i made stickers with our logo on it. i figured people are more likely to use it again at home once they peel the sticker off. my guests took their travel mugs everywhere, on the beach, in the pool, in the ocean. so i think having the lid was much better than just a cup, kept water and sand out of the drink. ours were insulated and worked pretty well keeping the drinks cold considering how hot it was outside. the mug was still bigger than the dinky cups they give you at AI. we also saw about half our guests right before we left for the trip to give them their OOT bags, less for us to pack.

we did our sand ceremony at our AHR but we stole sand from the dominican beach for one of the colors. we put it in a ziplock plastic container with the screw on lid then put it in a big ziplock bag. we put it in our checked luggage and never got searched coming home so we had no issues taking our sand. it didn't spill either. sorry i'm not much help with bringing it once the ceremony is already completed

we got married at 2-2:30 pm and our reception was at 6:30. by the time we were done our pictures it was almost 4 and aside from the last 30 mins or so our guests were with us while pics were being taken. we didn't plan anything for our guests in that in between space. me and hubby went to have alone time before the reception. i think most of our guests either went back to their rooms to relax or went to the lobby bar for a drink or two. but nobody went to the pool cuz they didn't want to deal getting dressed again. and nobody showed up hammered for the reception. even my biggest drinkers were fine and just started drinking hard at the reception. i had the same concern about people being super drunk for the wedding events but my guests had lots of respect for our day. that and we got married on the 5th day there so everyone was pretty much tired of being super drunk by that point. lol. they got that out of their system within the first 3 days there.

ooh fun, and informative for those who are still planning although some of the online stuff is american 1. Registry: Home Outfitters 2. OOT bags: Dollarama, Michaels, Walmart, Coffee Mugs, Shot Glasses, Wine Glasses, Beer Mugs, Promotional Products, Tote Bags, Champagne Glasses, Wedding Favors , Sports Bottles, T-shirts, Promotional Pens & personalized Glassware., My Store Supplier - Wholesale General Merchandise & Novelty Items!!! 3. Wedding Attire: my dress - Blissful Bride, shoes - Cinderella of Boston - Womens Petite Shoes (i have tiny feet, have to special order heels, so annoying) his suit - Pinstripe at Sunridge Mall, Silk Ties - Silk Neckties - Silk Neck Ties - Men's Silk Neckties - Silk Neckwear - Discount Neckties - Cufflinks For Mens Ties, flip flops - Aldo 4. Rings: engagement ring - not sure of the name but he had a jeweller in Regina make it my wedding band - Luu Goldsmith his wedding band - The Scottish Shoppe (it's a celtic knot band) 5. Invitations: Powerpoint DW invites made our own AHR invites, materials from Scrapbookers Paradise and Michaels 6. Flowers: Costco for our AHR 7. Decor: n/a 8. Travel Arrangements: Marlin Travel - don't use them, they're terrible 9. Are you active on any other Canadian Forums? (if yes which ones): nope 10. Other: sand ceremony - Pier 1 and Michaels wedding jewellery - Claires (yup i cheaped out on my jewellery) Tiara is from Mylee's Bridal Fashions though

this is where i got my purple/hot pink ties from when i couldn't find them anywhere else Silk Ties - Silk Neckties - Silk Neck Ties - Men's Silk Neckties - Silk Neckwear - Discount Neckties - Cufflinks For Mens Ties and you can sort by color, and they're cheaper than buying a tie in a store. good luck, hopefully something matches your colors

We had a champagne toast after the ceremony and as we were taking pictures off to the side our WC was sneakily giving our guests flower petals and setting them up along side our aisle. Then she announced as a gift to us she was adding some Dominican flair to our wedding. Dominican music started to play, we walked down the aisle as our guest threw flower petals in the air as we walked, we kissed half way, then did a little dance the rest of the way. This was a pleasant surprise for us and the pictures and video of it were great. And like everyone else our room was decorated after the wedding with balloons, rose petals, bubble bath, towel swan and some of the flowers from the ceremoney.

i used Florian for my wedding video. he's fantastic, i LOVED his work. i got the video and photo package with michael and it was well worth the money. i orginally didn't want video at all but am i ever glad that we did. imo if you spend money on anything it should be pictures and video. i was actually watching my wedding video again last week. lol. here's my video review from my wedding review Video – - A++++++++ We didn’t even want a wedding video but it came with the package so we went with it. For the same price as a Claudia Rodriguez (our original Mexico photographer) package for 3 hours with a CD and prints we got a CD, photo book and video. Claudia did email and ask if we needed a Punta Cana photographer once all those weddings got cancelled in Mexico. I thought that was great that she still offered her services in a different location, but by then we already booked our photographer so we declined. Much like the photographer it was a bit unnerving to be followed around with a video camera at first. But aside from when he was asking for a comment and putting the camera inches from your face, I didn’t notice our videographer, Florian. Since we confirmed our photographer 2 days before we were leaving, he asked us to come up with 9 songs for the video. It kept us up late one night because we were trying to prepare everything else and had this new task and we knew we had to pick great songs. He used almost all of our songs and very appropriately. Everyone commented on how great the video showed our personalities with the music choices. We thought our wedding video would be cheesy and we’d never watch it again, but I’ve seen it so many times and I could watch it over and over again. This is pretty much the layout of it and the songs that went with it Girls getting ready – I could not ask for more – Edwin Mccain Boys getting ready – Ladies and gentlemen – Saliva Wedding ceremony – Canon in D (song I walked down the aisle to) -Nothing else matters – Metallica orchestra version Taking pics after the ceremony – celebration – kool and the gang Taking beach pics – I love you – martina mcbride Florian got comments from everyone about our wedding, it was so great to see what people said. Our video captured our wedding day very well, I love watching it. I wish I could figure out a way to post it online. It came in a DVD case with our pictures on it and has a menu like most DVDs so you can skip to different chapters, it even has ending credits like we were in a movie. Lol. And just like the photo book and CD, we got the video the very next day. He even brought a mini DVD player so we could watch it right then and there. Again, so so so impressed. He asked if wanted any extra copies, we got 2 more for $20 each for our parents. He came to the resort and delivered the extra copies to us the next day. The service from them was amazing, we were totally blown away at what they delivered to us the next day. We showed our wedding video at our AHR and lots of people told us how much they loved it. It was entertaining and funny at parts, plus they got to witness our wedding and hear our vows.

for our private reception we were only drinking the wine they provided but then people started ordering other drinks and i think the waiters went and got them at another bar and brought them over. not sure but we didn't pay for an open bar but my guests were getting other drinks besides the wine or beer. gin and tonic, stuff like that. although we were good with only going til 10:30 so maybe that's why the open bar option wasn't offered to us? i'm not sure what the gazebo 2 is either. once we were there we were only offered gazebo or beach, we weren't given a choice of which type of gazebo

yup there's reception set up pics in my wedding review link in my signature ours was one big long table for 24 people. but i saw them setting up a wedding in a different restarurant and they were doing 5 tables in the shape of a U.

hi girls, i got married there in may click on my wedding review link for lots of pics of the resort and our wedding. we had a private reception in Picsas restaurant next to the pool. dinner, waiters, drinks, and cake. then we hooked up our ipod to the sound system for dancing after. our dinner was at 6:30pm and it took until 9:30 pm to finish dinner, speeches, and the cake cutting. so there wasn't a lot of time for dancing. i'd definetly go the ipod route instead of paying extra for a dj. we just had whatever music they gave us to play during dinner, nobody was really paying attention to the music at that point anyways but if you're willing to put together a playlist for during dinner then you can ipod it. a microphone would be nice though, we just talked really loud but it was raining the whole time so i'm sure everyone could hear us but a mike would have helped. we didn't have a rent a sound system but maybe it varies depending on which restaurant you use? we paid $600 for our 24 person reception. our WC told us to ignore the extra per person charge. not sure if it's cuz we were only 24 people but you might want to clarify that with the WC as i balked at that charge when i first saw it too. sounds like the prices went up a little bit from last year

we had our reception in the Picsas (might be spelling it wrong) restaurant which is outdoor and next to the pool but has a big hut roof over it. we had 24 people and it was $600 for the meal and liquor. my WC told me to ignore the part about paying for extra people, so maybe confirm if you have to or not? they clear out all the tables and chairs normally set up for the lunch restaurant so it's only your wedding tables in the middle of the huge hut. i think it'd be enough room for 50 people. We had half that and it seemed really empty when we were dancing. we hooked up our ipod to do the dancing after. we stayed up late making a play list and barely used it, we had only maybe an hour for dancing so keep that in mind. we started dinner at 6:30 pm. and was done dinner, speeches, cake by 9:30 pm. they close your restaurant at 10:30 pm, then we just all changed and went to the night club after.

i use the clear and clean blotter papers too, pretty gross when it's see through cuz i'm so oily by the end of the day i got this HD translucent powder for my wedding and it worked great. no shinyness and makes your skin feel silky smooth. i was aiming for bare minerals but the sephora ppl talked me into this since i couldn't tell them how dark i was going to be tanned by my wedding day Sephora: MAKE UP FOR EVER HD Microfinish Powder: Loose Powder

Quote: Originally Posted by KPEG Calchik, congrats on the wedding! You looked beautiful. Tell me about the experience. That was one resort I sort of sat on for awhile. I know you're from Cgy, but can I ask about the pricing you got from there? I'm on a budget and so are my guests. thanks!! thanks!! my mexico package was about $1500 a person but when that got cancelled we got transferred to punta cana so i'm not really sure what the price of punta cana was originally. and they don't fly direct from calgary to punta cana in may (which is why we picked mexico even though punta cana was our first option) so everyone had to pay for a flight to toronto which was another $400. my guests were on a budget too but i told them all a year in advance so they could start saving. and when we had to pay the extra flight to toronto everyone somehow managed to find the cash so those who go will really want to be there for you my wedding package was $1350 USD then $600 for the reception and i had 22 guests so it might be less if you have fewer guests. the only extra cost i paid was for additional flowers and that was $50ish.

$1500 on top of the $1350 wedding cost you get 5 pictures with the wedding package but i told them i didn't need them cuz i had my own photographer

congrats! i'm canadian on the west side though (calgary) we got married at the gran bahia principe bavaro in may...although we didn't really get a choice in which resort since our mexico wedding got cancelled. our wedding was fantastic anyways. click the link for my wedding review for info and pics. and my photo book link for even more pics. lol

thanks everyone! i hope it's helpful to someone i was slowly writing the review over a few days but it did take hours kristina, i never really saw a wedding take place on the beach it was at one end of the beach so even though it was surrounded by beach chairs they were mostly empty cuz ppl were too lazy to walk to the end of the beach...and i don't think there was a bar nearby either as for the hands in sand pic, i saw it on some photographer's website so on our last day there DH and i went and did it ourselves oh and if you're going to steal sand from the beach to use at your AHR, try to dry it out before pouring it. otherwise it clumps and is harder to pour without making a mess. lol

yay i'm married i can join in the fun would do again: - have a destination wedding. spending the week with my family and closest friends was the best decision ever - get married in the gazebo. the beach location was seriously in the middle of hundreds of beach chairs. besides we went to the beach to take pics after the ceremony - get legally married at home first it really simplified things to not do it legally there - not upgrade our suite we didn't bother so we could be in the same complex our guests were. we were barely in our room anyways - spend the money on a good photographer - have a wedding video done! we didn't actually want this but it came with our package. it far exceeded our expectations, was funny, entertaining, captured our wedding ceremony and all the picture taking time. it had all our guests say something to us about our wedding. we provided songs for the video and they were used very appropriately and you can tell our personalities from the music used - do OOT bags. our guests loved them and was totally surprised that we did this for them. the travel mugs were used daily by almost everyone. fully worth the time and effort putting them together - completely trust the wedding coordinators they are experts at their job and it shows. they had every detail under control and surprised us with another walk down the aisle with our guests on both sides throwing flower petals for us while dominican music was playing. the pictures and video of this were fantastic - not have kids for the trip lots of our guests have kids but we requested that no kids come, we only had a baby because well it's a baby. the parents really enjoyed their time for themselves. it was all inclusive so everyone could drink without worry. several couples said it was the honeymoon they never had - assign one of my friends as my reception photographer after our professional photographers left she had my camera and specific instructions to capture all the reception events. she did a fabulous job and then i didn't have to worry about whether i was going to have pics of everything that happened - not bring decorations i didn't need them, everything was well decorated, i didn't need centerpieces or bows or fabric or anything. depends on your resort i guess - not worry about my guests and how much fun they were having i focused on my trip, my fun and whoever happened to be around me. sure i didn't spend a lot of time with DH's cousins but they were never in the same place we were. they still told me they had a fantastic trip - not plan meeting points and dinners, and drinks and etc. we didn't want to restrict anyone's trip to meeting our schedule of events. so we didn't have any. everyone ended up going to dinner at about the same time anyways. then meeting in the lobby bar after. everyone always found each other somehow - wash my wedding dress in my bathtub with Zero instead of paying $150 to have it done professionally i had to wear my dress again for my AHR but it was dirty at the bottom. i had no issues washing it in the tub, then lying it flat to dry. then hanging it up to dry once it was practically dry. best $150 i ever saved. lol wouldn't do again: - use Marlin Travel as my travel agent they were terrible. see my wedding review for my rant about them - try to plan every single little detail over email with the wedding coordinator this may only work if you're easy going and don't demand perfection. this was actually not by choice since our very well planned mexico wedding got cancelled because of swine flu and we went to punta cana with just our wedding date picked, nothing else planned. wedding was planned in 2 hours once we were there. we could physically see everything and it's much easier to make decisions. again, the WC were pros so we had nothing to worry about and the exceeded our expectations - get way too drunk on the snorkeling trip the day of my girls night i missed my own girls night because i was sick in the room. i felt really bad about that. if you're having a girls night, make sure you're in good shape to actually go out. lol - forget about my glow in the dark ice cubes for the reception until 20 mins before it ended oops. then it took us another 5 mins to figure out how to make them glow - make a hard fast rule that no friends of guests were allowed to come to the wedding stuff again this depends on how many friends of guests are coming. we made the rule in the beginning with zero exceptions. ended up only 2 friends came and i felt bad that i excluded one of them because we spent a lot of time together before the wedding. and she helped do my MOH's hair on the wedding day...then she had to hang out by herself while we were all at the wedding. not sure: guest excursion - i had one planned in mexico but then didn't have one planned for the dominican when it got moved. we all still went on a snorkeling trip together which was loads of fun. nobody seemed to care that they had to pay for the trip themselves and we didn't provide it. i'm all for the group excursion with all your guests, we had a blast. i'm on the fence about the time, effort and money planning it for everyone. since i did all that planning for mexico and it didn't happen. then i did zero planning for the dominican and it still happened, kind of made it seem like planning it wasn't necessary. i'm sure my guests would have appreciated our planning it if we did and if we paid for it or part of it. but they didn't seem put out that we didn't plan anything or front the cost for it.

Reception It started raining after our ceremony and kept raining all evening. I had my brother sneak into the maid’s closet and find me a big garbage bag so I could put holes in the bottom and protect my dress from getting wet and dirty walking to our reception. Set up – A We picked an outdoor restaurant and it’s a good thing that we picked the one with a big hut roof instead of the one with a lot of huts grouped together because it was pouring our whole reception. When the setup was explained to me, I thought it was going to be 4 tables in the shape of a square but instead it was one big long rectangle table. I was fine with how it was even though the other end was really far away. But it was still setup very beautifully so I had no complaints. They cleared out all the other tables and chairs from the restaurant so there was lots of space for us to do our dances. We opted to use an ipod instead of paying extra for some kind musical entertainment. It ended up a good choice since we only had an hour or so to play our own songs. I would have liked a microphone for our speeches though, I’m not sure everyone was able to hear being at a very long table (we were standing in the middle talking loud) and with it raining outside. When we got there we were all met with yummy blue drinks Cake – A We picked the flavor of the cake and picked the one shaped like a heart that fed 10 people. We didn’t mind that it didn’t feed all our guests because we figured our guests would be full from dinner anyways. We didn’t get a heart shaped one at all. Instead we got a way better more beautiful 3 tiered cake that was more than enough cake for all our guests. Again very pleasantly surprised and it was yummy too. Dinner – B The dinner was a chicken cesar salad and mixed grill which meant 4 different types of meat, steak, pork, chicken and sausage. I enjoyed all of them, but I guess depending what part of the meat you got was how well or rare it was cooked. Also some sort of pudding thing as dessert. The food was good, but not mind blowing. Conclusion All in all my wedding was fantastic. Would my Mexican wedding have been as great? Probably. I admit I had low expectations since it wasn’t planned at all until we got there so it was very easy to please me. Everything was more beautiful than I thought it would be. The wedding coordinators really are pros at their job and made our wedding memorable.

The windyness really helped my dress to take off which looked awesome in pictures and the sand blowing by was also very cool. Unfortunately some shots have water drops on the lense which can’t be photoshopped out but they’re still great pictures. Our photo book was given to us the very next evening, done in less than 24 hours! The photo book is so impressive, the pages are sturdy like cardboard and he told us how to clean if it we need to. We were given our CD of high resolution 434 pictures at the same time. our photo book Video – Wedding Punta Cana by Photographer Michael Weiler | Wedding Foto Packages | - A++++++++ We didn’t even want a wedding video but it came with the package so we went with it. For the same price as a Claudia Rodriguez (our original Mexico photographer) package for 3 hours with a CD and prints we got a CD, photo book and video. Claudia did email and ask if we needed a Punta Cana photographer once all those weddings got cancelled in Mexico. I thought that was great that she still offered her services in a different location, but by then we already booked our photographer so we declined. Much like the photographer it was a bit unnerving to be followed around with a video camera at first. But aside from when he was asking for a comment and putting the camera inches from your face, I didn’t notice our videographer, Florin. Since we confirmed our photographer 2 days before we were leaving, he asked us to come up with 9 songs for the video. It kept us up late one night because we were trying to prepare everything else and had this new task and we knew we had to pick great songs. He used almost all of our songs and very appropriately. Everyone commented on how great the video showed our personalities with the music choices. We thought our wedding video would be cheesy and we’d never watch it again, but I’ve seen it so many times and I could watch it over and over again. This is pretty much the layout of it and the songs that went with it Girls getting ready – I could not ask for more – Edwin Mccain Boys getting ready – Ladies and gentlemen – Saliva Wedding ceremony – Canon in D (song I walked down the aisle to) -Nothing else matters – Metallica orchestra version Taking pics after the ceremony – celebration – kool and the gang Taking beach pics – I love you – martina mcbride Florin got comments from everyone about our wedding, it was so great to see what people said. Our video captured our wedding day very well, I love watching it. I wish I could figure out a way to post it online. It came in a DVD case with our pictures on it and has a menu like most DVDs so you can skip to different chapters, it even has ending credits like we were in a movie. Lol. And just like the photo book and CD, we got the video the very next day. He even brought a mini DVD player so we could watch it right then and there. Again, so so so impressed. He asked if wanted any extra copies, we got 2 more for $20 each for our parents. He came to the resort and delivered the extra copies to us the next day. The service from them was amazing, we were totally blown away at what they delivered to us the next day. We showed our wedding video at our AHR and lots of people told us how much they loved it. It was entertaining and funny at parts, plus they got to witness our wedding and hear our vows.

Hair/Make-up – A+ My MOH did my hair for the wedding since it was originally planned for Mexico and I didn’t hear great things about the salon there. We did 3 trial runs at home and then one trial run the day before the wedding to see how long it would take and how well it would hold up at the beach and in the sun. My MOH did a super duper fantastic job. My hair looked great from every angle. Only at the beach where there were gale force winds cuz of a storm blowing in did my bangs escape a bit. Otherwise it didn’t need to be fixed for the reception at all. One of my other friends did my make up and it was also very well done. So glad I had my friends there to help me out and I didn’t have to pay someone to make me look great. Flowers – A+++ I picked a bouquet out of the book and asked that the orange be replaced with purple. My bouquets were amazing, I loved my flowers! And all the flowers at the ceremony site were fantastic, which then became the flowers at the reception. And some flowers were put in our room after the ceremony. Also our flowers included pink star gazing lilies which were the flowers DH gave me when he proposed. I was given 3 choices for boutonnieres for the guys which surprised me, but she didn’t know which pink I would prefer so I got to choose.

Wedding details Wedding coordinator / Patricia & Claribel – A - Seeing as how we had to move our wedding from Mexico to Punta Cana in 9 days before we were leaving there was not much contact with our wedding coordinator. I called the second I found out it could be moved to Punta Cana to see if they had a wedding opening on May 13 so I didn’t have to change the week we were getting married. Somehow I magically got through and was told May 13 was free and to email her so she can email me documents I need to fill out. Yay I can still have my wedding date (which is also our actual anniversary date, DH was thrilled to only have to remember one date. Lol) so I email her and wait for her response. After a few hours I email her again because we needed to tell my TA if we’re moving to the Dominican or not. She responded to the second email and sent me some forms I emailed the forms back and didn’t hear anything for a couple days. So I started calling to get actual confirmation and a wedding time for May 13. It took at least 4 tries before I got my confirmation because they were out of the office or nobody was answering. So I sent an email to Claribel saying when we get to the resort and we’ll plan everything when we get there. Sure enough when we get there we have a letter asking us to meet with Patricia, our WC, the next day to plan the wedding. I’m a pretty easy going bride so planning was easy and done within a couple hours. That and I was just so happy to still have a wedding that anything would please me. Lol. As long as everything was either purple or pink I was happy. We did have to change our menu because some of the ingredients were out of season but that’s fine. We went from Mediterranean to mixed grill. The day before I gave Patricia our picture frame/ name cards and a seating chart, which they were a bit confused about setting up for the dinner but my MOH was there to help her out. Claribel was there on our wedding day, helping my hubby spiff up. She was also wearing purple to match our wedding which I thought was a nice touch. And Patricia visited us during our dinner to make sure everything was going well. The only hiccup of our wedding ceremony was that we told Patricia we had our own vows to say but it was Claribel who was performing the ceremony and it was technically a renewal of vows since we were legally married in Calgary. So she went through the normal ceremony and after everything I told her we wanted to say our vows too, which we did. It was just out of order since it wasn’t in the middle of ceremony like it normally is. We had a champagne toast after the ceremony and as we were taking pictures off to the side Claribel was giving our guests flower petals and setting them up along side our aisle. Then she announced as a gift to us she was adding some Dominican flair to our wedding. Dominican music started to play, we walked down the aisle as our guest threw flower petals in the air as we walked, we kissed half way, then did a little dance the rest of the way. This was a pleasant surprise for us and the pictures and video of it were great. Location – A+ One of the reasons I picked my Mexico resort was because I loved the gazebo. I was very happy to find that our Punta Cana had the same gazebo. I’m glad I didn’t pick the beach location since it’s smack dab in the middle of hundreds of beach chairs.

Spa – manicure – B My MOH and I went to the spa for paraffin manicures. I’ve never had one before so I was enthralled with the wax part of it. I don’t think my manicurist spoke very good English though. The day before we left for Punta Cana, I broke 4 nails on my right hand opening a file cabinet so they were short. But I kept the nails that I didn’t break on my left hand long. She wanted to cut them down to match the right hand. Took a bit of explaining but she finally agreed to keep them long on my left hand because that would be hand that would be photographed more. The manicure itself turned out fine and my hands felt nice and soft after. Entertainment/Things to do – B+ There was a show in the theater every night, I only saw one but I heard the circus and Michael Jackson impersonator was good times. We went on a snorkeling trip that was way too much fun. There was 20 of us so the boat was only our group. We snorkeled which wasn’t exciting but then we went to a tank where we could snorkel with sharks and sting rays. Now that was super fun and cool. Sting rays feel neat when you touch them. After we went to a natural wading pool created by a past hurricane, the water was calm and warm like a bath tub. While wading around we were served coco locos which is pretty much rum, coconut water with chunks of coconut in it. So good but so dangerous. I got ridiculously hammered and missed my own planned girls night that night cuz I was too sick to leave my room. Haha, oops. Other people went on a horse back trip or deep sea fishing and enjoyed both excursions. There was a nightclub on the resort which was full and lots of people dancing all the time. I’ve been to a few other clubs on all inclusive resorts and normally they only have staff in it and nobody dancing, but this club was always busy and fun. The music was pretty good even if the strobe light was on too much. Many a night we spent there dancing til we were tired and went to bed. Travel Agency – Marlin Travel – F *Gets long and ranty, feel free to skip ahead. Lol I will never use Marlin Travel again. At first my TA Gary seemed like he’d do a good job, I really liked him. He helped me pick a resort, we started to arrange things. So I emailed Paloma (WC) and asked for my date, she sent me back some forms asking me to fill them out and then she’ll confirm my date. On one of the forms is a booking number which Marlin Travel is supposed to give me. So I fill out the forms as much as I could and ask Gary for the booking number and he tells me he’ll confirm the date with Paloma. That’s fine, it takes him 3 days but but he gets my date, May 13. Fast forward to 4 months later. I knew the WC’s didn’t really care to plan the wedding when it was so far in advance so I waited and then asked if I can pick my reception location. Paloma responds saying she doesn’t have my wedding on the agenda and to send her the confirmation number, which I don’t have. So I ask Gary since he “confirmed†my wedding date and he sends me an email from the Sales Director of the resort saying he’s tentatively booked my wedding date for me. By this point I’m freaking out thinking I don’t have a wedding date that I thought I did for the past 4 months. Everything revolves around my wedding date, I had a photographer booked, my AHR stuff booked. Gary spent the next 3 days “supposedly†calling and emailing to straighten out my wedding date. He claimed that the Sales Director is the WC’s boss so I have my date regardless. But I was arguing that the Sales Director doesn’t plan my wedding, the WC does so they need to confirm my date. Gary refuses to deal with Paloma since she reports to the Sales Director and continues to try to get in touch with the Sales Director. We’re talking emails, calling, even a Spanish fax to him. After 3 days of thinking I have no wedding booked and getting very annoyed, frustrated, and depressed, I email Paloma with the tentative confirmation we were sent. She sends me the same forms she sent me 4 months ago to fill out. Gary asks me to fill out the forms (even though I did 4 months ago and sent them to him then) which I do and Gary provides the booking number. Paloma then gives me my wedding date confirmation and assigns Jazmin as my actual WC. Had Gary dealt with Paloma like I was asking him to this could have been resolved in a few hours, but he refused and wanted to waste time trying to hunt down the Sales Director. Needless to say, my fiancé and I were pissed about this fiasco. We didn’t trust Gary to do anything with our wedding trip. We didn’t want to get to Mexico to find out he booked the wrong number of rooms or something equally as incompetent. So we talked to his manager, Wendy, who is really annoying to talk to in person. She’s one of those constantly nodding at what you’re saying kind of people and talks extremely fast. We called her the bobblehead. Anyways, Wendy of course backed Gary up and said he did the right thing by trying to deal with the Sales Director and not with Paloma. We told Wendy we didn’t trust him to handle our wedding trip anymore so she took over as our TA. In the transfer process from Gary to Wendy we had to give her a lot of information that we already gave Gary. Since he apparently didn’t keep very good records of our trip. Wendy did okay at organizing our wedding trip. I’ll give her points because she got our package moved from Mexico to Punta Cana when it got cancelled. But otherwise, I’ll never ever use Marlin Travel again.