exquisite02

JennS, So very sorry i didn't answer this question sooner. I am no longer getting updates from this forum and I have only been checking this thread once in a while. Thank you for the lovely comment! I bought all my starfishes from another Canadian bride on here and I coloured them myself using food colouring. I tried to buy all my decor items second hand to keep the budget down.

I know this question wasn't for me but i would like to say that they didn't even mention the new vendor fees to me and i didn't bring up the fact that we had our own photographer with us. i really hope for the sake of new brides that they go back to the idea of if you photographer is a paying guest then you don't have to pay and if you use an off the resort photographer then it's only $80 vendor fee. not this crazy $800. my photographer was a paying guest because he was there for our wedding and another Canadian couple's wedding. My package only includes 200 hi resolution photos with only 40 special effect editing on a cd disk. he is not making an album for us. i plan on doing my own wedding album. So for a disk of 200 photos and he worked about 6 hours on the day of the wedding and about 4 hours on the trash the dress day. I paid $1750 total for photography. if you read back a few pages a go another bride used the new resort photograther and she paid much less. if i didn't book our photographer so in advance I would have probably just got the resort photographer based on the other bride's review and seeing my own 5 free photos.That's just my own opinion though and photography isn't a big deal for me. i would make sure you know what exactly the new fees are before booking anything in advance.

@Futurekeese22, I think i bought my sky lanterns from the place that JayKay did if i'm not mistaken. https://www.theskylantern.com/shop/index.php?osCsid=a92cf3a4336113497fb016447b6512a3 they were very quick to ship and they worked well. More importantly, they were 100% biodegradable which was important to me. i had some staff ask me if i had left overs because they wanted to try them.

Thank you JayKay! that means so much to me since your review really helped me out!

Part 7 Pictures I have attached the free package photos from the resort and I have attached the link to the photographer that we brought with us from Toronto. We didn’t tell the resort about him and we didn’t pay any vendor fee because he stayed the week. Here is the link: http://paulnelsonimages.com/gran-bahia-principe-runaway-bay-jamaica-ashley-and-len/2012/06/ I forgot to mention that we did do a trash the dress seesion on the friday at the coyaba gardens. it cost $10 dollars person to get in plus taxi service there and back for $80 dollars. all dallars in my posts are US DOLLars. Again if I can help, please feel free to contact me or post questions. Thank you again to all the brides before me who helped out and those brides to be that helped me on this thread.

Part 6 Weather As I talk about the weather I will just remind you that we were there between May 19th and June 2nd. During the first week the weather was great. It was sunny and warm, although humid, and only sprinkled rain a little bit. In fact, our wedding day had the best weather of the whole week. It was sunny all day which made for some great bright photos. The second week was another thing all together. The Saturday everyone else left, it started pouring like an hour after they left. And it continued raining the whole week. It was alright when we did our shopping though. We felt bad for brides during the second week because they definitely got rained out, so hopefully they could re-schedule a time for the gazebo. Just a note, we were told hurricane season starts in June and ends in November, for people going during that time. Summary Overall, we had a fantastic time at this resort. It is a very nice resort and the people are very friendly. Although, there was a few hiccups along the way they can be easily ignored. The resort had an excellent fun vibe and was very clean. Our wedding was perfect and we couldn’t ask for a better wedding. I wouldn’t have changed a thing. On a best destination wedding note, I got to meet Kristo/imjoseph couple of days before our weddings. I saw her on her wedding day and she looked stunning! So glad that I got to share my wedding journey with her through this website and through email. Please feel free to ask any questions to me and i will try my best to answer them. Don't worry about the wedding! Just Relax and have fun!

Part 5 Spa The day my hubby went zip lining, I tried to book something at the spa with one of my bridesmaids. Unfortunately, we couldn’t book the day we wanted due to lack of staff. We booked the Reflexology and wanted to get gel manicures on the same day. The Reflexology was great and cost $80 but because we were golden club we got 20% off so it only ended up costing $63. They were out of the gel on Tuesday and didn’t know when they would get a supply of gel so we were told to just cancel our appointment. It was a disappointment because I wanted it done for the wedding. Excursions Most of our guests ended up doing two excursions: Chukko zip lining (on Monday) and Dunn’s River (on Wednesday). The younger crowd including us did the booze cruise and snorkelling Dunn’s River excursion, while the older crowd did the Ocho Rios shopping + Dunn’s River excursion. Everyone really enjoyed the zip lining and they even took pictures while you were doing it, so we got a cd of pictures of everyone. It was $120 for 60 pictures. We all split the cost. The actual cost of the zip lining was around $88 per person. The booze cruise was awesome and I highly recommend it. First, you go on the catamaran to Dunn’s River where you can do some snorkelling. Then you arrive at Dunn’s River falls. It was an amazing thing to see, but remember, if you aren’t adventurous you don’t have to climb it. You can just take the stairs. My hubby actually injured his ankle, but it wasn’t serious, just a little swelling. This was on the Wednesday, the day before the wedding so if it was more serious it would have royally sucked. He was able to walk fine after a little bit and everything was fine. Then after you get back on the catamaran and that’s when the party starts. They start playing the music and dancing and drinking. It was so much fun. We also got pictures from the booze cruise. We got a CD for $70. We haggled down the price from $100, and then $80. The booze cruise was around $100 per person. My hubby and I also just did the Ocho Rios Shopping Shuttle the second week. We didn’t book the excursions in advance. While we were at the resort we went to the tour room which was beside the Golden Club, we booked the excursions with the Transat rep. One thing to note is that excursions are only offered on certain days. Our friends couldn’t book the Dolphin Cove because it conflicted with the booze cruise. So you really have to prioritize which excursions you want to do.

Part 4 Resort The location of the resort is perfect. It is close enough to the Montego Bay airport while still being close enough to Ocho Rios to do excursions there. There are excursions within 15 minutes of the resort. The Gran Bahia Principe is supposedly one of the biggest resorts in Jamaica. When you arrive it definitely looks large and luxurious. You definitely get the idea of how big it is as you as you walk…and walk…and walk around the resort. There are a lot steps. There are elevators, but for instance in the building we were in, 2 of the 3 elevators would not work most of the time and one was out of service the whole two weeks. Our room was also one of the furthest away from the lobby, so the walk from room to lobby took a few minutes. There were only a couple ramps so accessibility for the elderly and those in wheelchairs was poor. For example, the area where you watch the night shows had no accessibility as you had to walk up stairs to reach it. The drinks were great at the resort, and were made very strong. So if you like strong drinks, you’ll love it. Some of our favourite drinks while there were the Gran Bahia Principe, Miami Vice, and Jamaican Bum Bum (not the actual name of the drink but what the bartender jokingly called it). We enjoyed most of the night shows were pretty good. Our favourites were the Steel Drum Band and the Romantic Show. Unfortunately, the same shows were repeated the second week my hubby and I stayed. Everyone had issues with room keys. Whether they didn’t work to get into the room or the air conditioning didn’t work consistently. My mom’s room and my hubby and I each had to change our keys a few times and we even had to get the lock re-programmed for the key to work. Another problem was the toilets. My bridesmaid used our toilet first, the day we arrived and came out the bathroom saying our toilet didn’t flush. We had to call maintenance to fix it who didn’t come right away obviously. It happened again twice during the 2 weeks as well. My mom’s toilet ran the whole week. Our photographer’s toilet also leaked the whole week. They are constantly doing maintenance on the resort buildings and some of the maintenance people even try to sell you things like sea shells or even marijuana sometimes. A good solid “no†works well with this. Also, there were cats on the resort as well as one dog. The cats are there to control the mice and the dog is there for security. We heard the dog barking at night. Like 2 days before the wedding while walking back to our room, a black cat literally crossed our path. We’re not too superstitious but we were already about the weather being nice on our wedding lol. I’m not sure how other people tipped at the resort, but we were told that or $1 or $2 was acceptable per day for the maids. So that is what we did. Although, we didn’t get Pringles every day as snacks being part of the Royal Golden Package, we did get some perks as being a Bride and Groom. My hubby told one of the maids that we were getting married. So the night of the wedding they made up our room extra special by putting flower petals all around the bathroom and bedroom and on the bed. They folded the towels in the shape of a heart. They filled the bath tub and had flower petals floating inside, and they gave us a bottle of Champagne and glasses. They also gave us a large bottle of the clear Rum. Apparently, after my hubby told the maid, she said they would do something special for us, but I’m not sure if they would have done it anyways without my hubby telling them. Room Service was a bit of a disappointment. Most nights you could only get sandwiches and a couple pieces of fruit, while some nights they offered hamburgers and hot dogs with fries. Plus, it took up to 45 minutes for the food to get there. One last thing to note, a couple of the guests told us that the resort had lost its 5 star rating and been dropped to a 3 or 3.5 star rating which we didn’t find surprising to hear.

Part 3 Restaurants For day 2 of our trip (Sunday), I had arranged for a welcome /rehearsal dinner at the Japanese restaurant (Mikado) for the Japanese dinner show (which is referred to as Teppernaki or some spelling like that on the receipt. So if you see Mikado on one a la carte reservation receipt and Teppernaki on another, it is the same restaurant). I should mention that I booked this a week in advance. When I first tried to arrange this I wanted to have this dinner the day before the wedding but they told me that the Japanese restaurant was closed on Wednesday so then I asked for Sunday. They emailed me saying I could have Sunday, May 27th. I sent a reply reminding them that my guests leave on May 26th, so that wouldn’t work. So they finally agreed that I could do it Sunday May 20th. So when we arrived at the hotel, we got dinner reservation slips that the resort booked and the dinner I booked. When I looked at the dinner reservation for day 2 Sunday May 20th. We had all had different time slots for the dinner I thought I had already arranged. My hubby and I went to the golden club and asked them to change the time slots and they did this promptly when I had told them I had emails to prove that I had arranged this ahead of time. The dinner show did end up being pretty entertaining as the chef is very funny and talented. We all had the Royal Golden Package so we each had 4 a la carte dinners for the week. However, we all had different time slots and restaurants booked on different days. When we confirmed the Japanese Dinner Show, we also tried to see if we could match up all the group’s times and restaurants. The golden club staff member told us that she would try but due to staff members over booking the dinner restaurants that it may be difficult and that our whole group would have to come and change their tickets. That never happened, but we were able to get some dinners with a small part of the group. Other guests at the resort mentioned to us that they couldn’t even book any a-la-carts because of overbooking issue and lack of staff. The restaurants in general look very nice, and had some good food, but my hubby and I found they were not worth the hassle the second week during our Honeymoon and we just ate at the buffet. The big issue is that they are understaffed. This causes the restaurants to be closed on certain days because they don’t have the staff. Another issue was that they seemed to randomly enforce when you had to be formally dressed to eat there. My hubby was refused to eat at Don Pablo when he was wearing long shorts (passed the knee, a little above the ankle), even though the previous day we saw people go in there and eat in shorts and he was showing less leg than me and my hubby! One final thing is that they would not have certain things on the menu available to order. But that was a very minor thing. The buffets also had some minor annoyances. The smaller buffet Palmyra was only open for breakfast. They also were without air conditioning a couple days so you were sweating when getting your food because of all the people and the heat from the food and humid weather.

Part 2 Wedding We met with Chandlyn and a person from the resort photography company on the Monday. We saw her right after another couple’s appointment. Even though we do not agree with it, since we booked the wedding over a year in advance, we paid the extra $50 dollars for government/minister fees plus 10% tax. In total the free package fee was $275. We didn’t want to take the risk of anything going wrong over $50. We were told that we had to have our wedding dinner at the dolce vita because the grill (where we thought we wanted it) was closed that day. At the end of the meeting we gave the lobby a suitcase filled of all the supplies to her or Donalee would need for the wedding and reception dinner. Donnalee was with us on the day of wedding. My hubby-to-be was down at the gazebo at around 12:20 PM (our ceremony was scheduled for 1 PM) to make sure everything was being done properly. Donalee had brought all of the supplies. She draped the gazebo with purple fabric that we weren’t expecting. She set up all the guest’s chairs the way we wanted it with the purple chair sashes and green starfishes that I brought with us. The sand ceremony frame and 4 containers that I also brought down (2 filled with beach sand as we requested, and 1 with our purple sand and 1 with our green sand which we had brought) set up on the table nicely. Since I didn’t need a bridal bouquet that was in our free package they gave us a flower table centre piece in our colours which was great at no extra charge. She also had The DJ was there and he had the CD we brought with our ceremony and first dance songs. They played our cd for us and everything worked perfectly. Donnalee then went up and picked me, my parents and my two bridesmaids up in the cart as the resort photographer and the photographer we hired arrived and started taking pictures of the group. She was running late and I was early so I was dripping in sweat in the lobby waiting for her. Still no problem mon! The minister read from our ceremony script that I brought with us and gave to chandlyn at the meeting. Dinner at the dolce vita was great. They had the menu with our names printed in our colours. We picked our menu the day we met with chandlyn because of the issue with restaurants being closed and also the menu options have not changed in a really long time. They also had set up the tables and chairs exactly how I had wanted it. Also, since I decided not to use their bouquet, they made a very nice floral centrepiece using purple and green flowers to go with our décor. Everyone thought it looked fabulous. The cake was good but the raspberry filling was disappointing because it is like pink frosting. The free cake was very simple like others had posted. The cake wasn’t important to me but I did bring some extra coloured starfishes to decorate the cake with. The starfishes made the cake look cute. Dolce vita was semi-private but for most of our meal we had the restaurant to ourselves. After dinner, we did our sky lanterns that I brought with us. The resort doesn’t care about sky lanterns at all. Many couples do sky lanterns off the piers. We didn’t rent the gazebo because it wasn’t worth the extra money. The resort photographer is good. I think his work is just as good as the photographer we brought with us. If you don’t want to pay the new vendor fee just hire the resort photographer because the work is good.

So very sorry that I’m late with my wedding vacation story but here it is…. Overall, I’m extremely happy with my experience. Okay, let me back track a bit. We stayed at the gran Bahia Principe from Saturday May 19, 2012 to Saturday June 2, 2012. My wedding day was on Thursday May 24, 2012 at 1pm. We had a group of 12 including me and my husband. We flew from Toronto using Transat holidays. I will break up my review story into parts. Part 1 Arrival/Check-in When we arrive at the Montego Bay airport, there was a large bus shuttle waiting to pick us up. Most of our group got on this shuttle, but me, my hubby and family friend had to go on the smaller bus because there was no room on the big bus. I had no problem with this as long as I got to the hotel. However, when we arrived we realized that the rest of our group got their welcome packages that included their golden club resort bracelets and room keys. The rest of the group got to go straight to their rooms while the three of us had to wait to check-in. Not the resort’s fault but after a long day I was tired and a little annoyed since we were the bride and groom. When we final got our room keys. We went to the fifth floor. We stayed in room 18519. The view was the beach views not the gazebo view/ pool views. The rest of our guests were on the 4th floor below us, No problem! When we tried to get into our room the room key wouldn’t work and we had to get the housekeeping person to let us in our rooms. Then I found out that my mum, family friend, and bridesmaid that was staying in triple room didn’t get three keys and did not get the third bed and my bridesmaid had to sleep on the room couch.

we are getting married at 1pm as far as I know. Hopefully, there isn't any changes to that. Are you getting married at 4pm on friday? I really want to be back in time for your wedding. I'm hoping our room looks onto the gazebo area. if not i'll be lurking around that area during your wedding.

Thank you Jaykay, your review really helped me to relax. I'm sure things will change and if it doesn't i will just go with the flow. like i said just want to move on with marriage life and start a family now. don't get me wrong i'm excited about the wedding but more looking forward to after the wedding at this point in my life. I hope marriage life is treating you well. You continue to be a great help on this thread! Thank you!

Yes, Kristo we will be getting married on Thursday may, 24th but my ladies and i are not getting our hair done at the spa. we are doing it ourselves. i'm not a hair person so it's a low on my to do list. @ Imjoseph/kristo, I believe our group we will be in the new block 23000 due to the fact that we paid for it when we booked our trip. this reason and the fact that we are leaving on saturday may 19 is the reasons why our flight and hotel package is more expensive than yours if I remember correctly in emails we sent eachother. Maybe we can meet up before my wedding. really hope i can see yours but we have the trash the dress on the friday. we are not sure if we are doing the trash the dress in the morning or in the afternoon because of the other couple that is getting married on the wednesday and using the same photographer. I'm sure everything will work out and we will meet up. I'm not stressing at all right now and kinda just want to get the wedding over and done with since we have been planning this wedding for over a year and half. lol I'm only a little, little bit worried about the weather. The weather network says thunder storms all week long! lol

So very sorry I have been M.I.A for the past couple of months or so but I do want to say congrats to all the new brides and thank you for keeping this thread alive. it has been much help and I will do my part to continue post on this thread. Kristo, so very sorry I did not respond to your last email a couple months ago. I hope all your planning has turned out and can't wait to catch a glimps at your wedding and meet you in person next week hopefully. I'm leaving for Jamaica on Saturday May 19th and getting married on May 24th the day before Kristo. We will be staying at the resort until June 2nd. so i think I leave on sbelland's wedding day. when i get back I will write a tell all for all you future brides that need your wedding fix! lol