Hi Ladies Here is my review finally! My wedding was on Nov 11th… We had 60 people attend.. the wedding itself was ABSOLUETLY PERFECT but I did have many bumps along the road. I would do it all OVER in a HEARTBEAT! This part was a letter we sent to the CFO of AM Resorts.. ( I happened to meet him on Sunday the 14th as the resort was getting ready for the owners visit) Check in was a nightmare… we didn’t even get champagne when we arrived but many of our guests did. This seems to be very inconsistent. See an excerpt below: On Sunday, 7 November 2010, my fiancé and I arrived at DRC and were escorted to the Preferred Club by Gerri. She introduced us to the two women behind the desk and took us into the waiting area. We then waited 40 minutes, while we spoke with another couple and waited for someone to get us to check in. I asked my husband to see what the delay was since Gerri told us we were next and he found two other people checking in that had been walked in after us. I went up to ask what the delay was and my fiancé walked me back to the couch and then went back to the desk and another man cut in front of us and the woman took him rather than asking him to wait. He had a room problem and it was 15 minutes before we finally sat down. The woman apologized for the delay and said she wasn’t aware that we were waiting at which time I pointed out that our name was starred on her paperwork and that she knew we were waiting. She began to check us in and told us that we were staying from Sunday 7-11-10 until Wed 10-11-10. I told her that we were staying until Sunday 14-11-10because we were getting married on Thursday 11-11-10and that we had specifically booked the Master Suite for the entire stay. She then told us that we were supposed to check out of the Master Suite on Wednesday and “Go to another roomâ€. She did not say the other room was the Presidential Suite which I understand because our friends the Parkers (who stayed in the adjoining Governor’s Suite) asked that it be kept a surprise but she also did not say we had been upgraded and both my fiancé and I believed that she was telling us that we were being downgraded on Wednesday. I was upset about the long delay in checking in and told her she was wrong and that we were not leaving the Master Suite as I had specifically booked it for the view. She then asked us for “proof†of our reservation at which time I asked her to call her manager while searching for our travel documentation. The Manager, Hernan, arrived and listened to our concerns and got us checked in and asked the woman who checked us in to bring us up to the Master Suite. She then called a bellman and asked the other woman to escort us up telling her in Spanish that she couldn’t deal with us any longer. (My husband does not speak Spanish very well but he understands the majority of what the staff said and purposely does not make anyone aware until his patience is exhausted) The other woman and the bellman took us up to room 1501 and told us that it was her room. I told her that this was not the room I reserved as I had asked for and confirmed room 1502. (My fiancé and I had visited several resorts from 29 January to 1 February 2010 to choose a resort for our destination wedding. We toured all the room types and asked that if we chose DRC that we have our wedding on the left side of the resort and that our room be all the way to the left due to my love of photography and my knowledge of lighting with sunrise and sunset.) After a 5 or 10 minutes going back and forth on the radio the PC hostess and the bellman then brought us over to room 1502 where they promised someone would be up in 5 minutes with our new keys. Thirty minutes later after we had unpacked my fiancé called the front desk to inquire about our keys. They told him the keys would be up in ten minutes so we got ready to go to the pool. After waiting 30 minutes we left to room and went to the Oceana Café where we sat with Pete’s family. The bellman, Carmillo, saw us in the stairwell and asked if we had received our keys. We told him that we had not and he returned ten minutes later with keys for us. He was excellent. So on with my review.. BTW we had no amenities in the room when we checked in and the refrig was empty. The hotel staff doesn’t communicate with each other and the language barrier got in the way during several conversations during our week stay. Every day I went to the front desk to drop off the welcome bags so they could be delivered to our guests that were arriving rooms. We were ok with the surcharge but not ok with the service. No one wanted to help and everyone kept pushing us off to the next person. I found out that our bags weren’t delivered so asked to speak to the manager. I was told they didn’t have my credit card on file!!? Are you serious? I told them I assured them that they had my cc as I was getting married there on Thursday! Anyway long story short the manager apologized.. and sent us a bottle of champagne and the bags were delivered later that night.. Before I left I set up a romantic dinner with Maria for the 8th.. (this was me and my hubbys two year anniversary). I went to check with the front desk at 4pmthat day where we would have to be at 8pm. They advised me that it was canceled! I asked them what they meant and said because we didn’t pick out our menu they cancelled our dinner! They told us that we should have picked out our menu at check in but I advised them no one asked us so how would we know!` They told us they left us messages that day but I informed them there was not a message and that if they contacted the wedding planner who originally booked the dinner they would have found me as I was there from 10 am- 4pm meeting with each vendor. I was pretty upset that yet again the resort let us down. We booked the dinner for the following night. The romantic dinner was SO NICE! Hugo was our waiter and we loved him.. all he said was “it is my pleasure!†about 500 times.. but he was outstanding . He even brought us a blanket at the end of the night. Plan it being at least 2hrs. We had to meet our friends so we declined but we could have fallen asleep there it was that romantic and the food was excellent! So on to our PHONE: All of our guests told us they were leaving us messages but we didn’t receive any of the calls. We called down to the front desk and they told us the phone was fine. After 90 min and 3 different people visiting our room they fixed the phone but told us they deleted all the messages. The originally told us the voice mail was full. Our groomsmen and bridal party were getting mad at us because we didn’t return anyone’s call. This explains why the front desk never received a call back from us. VENDORS: Anita from Deco Cancun: I highly recommend this company. She will take care of everything and will not have to worry! We rented lounge chairs, the large bamboo lanterns that were one of my favorites, candles of all sizes (which I wouldn’t rent because it was too windy and couldn’t be lit) maybe just get 2 more bamboo lanterns… OUR CYLINDER CENTERPIECES were my favorite!!! GORGEOUS!!!!!! I will provide pictures. They weren’t able to be lit because it was windy but it didn’t matter they were so BEAUTIFUL and everyone loved them! FOR THE PRICE YOU CANT BEAT IT!!!!! BRAVO TO DECO CANCUN! I wouldn’t bother getting the lights under the tables if you have the sheer overlay because you can’t see them… Anita ended up refunding the money for those which was nice! People were coming up to us telling us how beautiful our wedding looked!! Deco Cancunprovided us the linen for the ceremony arch.. so CHEAP and it was SO PRETTY! (We had hot pink and orange sheer linen!) Thank you ANITA!!! DJ: IVAN FROM DOREMIXX! He was fantastic!! Everyone at my wedding had sooooo much fun! He brought these tall white balloons and masks and all my guests loved them! We had the lit up DANCE FLOOR! It was the biggest hit of the night!!! Everyone loved it!!!!!!!!!!! I bought extra cold fireworks but I don’t remember even seeing any of them go off. and to think of it not one picture captured them so maybe they forgot to light them.. it didn’t even matter! The night was MAGICAL!!! The bad: I spent so much money because a bride on here told us to bring our own music but in the end I didn’t need it! Don’t download your whole play list! It’s a waste of time and a lot of money. Just make sure you have your important songs.. ie.. cake cutting.. mother .. son dance and so on.. Ivan did a great job! We did have some MAJOR MISHAPS tho… We rented the projector and screen from him through the resort for our welcome white party the night before our wedding.. we told Magedelina (maria) we would be using a MAC she assured us it was fine. At the welcome party they couldn’t get it to work! They kept trying but our slideshow would only play for a second and then stop.. I paid 350.00 for this… I was disappointed but they said they would bring it to the wedding... didn’t help lol because at the wedding it was windy and the screen blew over.. when it blew over it then broke the MICROPHONE . We didn’t realize any of this and they didn’t tell us so when they started to play our cake cutting song we were like WTF? Later we were told the MIC broke so he couldn’t announce anything else! They finally chased down another MIC but it took some time! Let me tell you.. We didn’t stop dancing all night!! Resort Photographer: Adventure Photos! I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND using them even if you bring your own photographer. It was part of our pkg but we upgraded and was well worth it! They came to the Welcome White Party for a few minutes.. then to the room while I was getting dressed.. It was WORTH it because you get those pictures back within 2 days! We got to pick 86 pictures of 403 that they took. They also gave us a slideshow as well of about 122 pics! I was VERY PLEASED with their work!!!! We will also get a photobook in the next few weeks! http://web.mac.com/vallarta_adventures/WeddingsDRERC/BOUDO/ Videographer from Resort ( Blue Channel) OK again I have to take the good with the bad…. My hubby and I met with 3 people who would work on our video on Monday and told them we wanted to upgrade our pkg to a 1hr edited video. I told them that I didn’t need them there from start to finish but wanted them to be there for certain parts of the reception.. ie.. first dance.. cake cutting etc. I guess because they spoke little English they didn’t understand what I told them. Well they were about to leave our wedding until security had to chase them down. I told him he had to stay for our first dance and cake cutting.. anyway they ended up DOING AN AMAZING JOB WITH OUR WEDDING VIDEO IN THE END! I will fill you in with how we got the video later…. Our Photographer from NY: Nick Carter Photography Inc.. WOW!! All I have to say is NICK and JOY are AMAZING! No wonder why he won the Knot two years in a ROW!!! I have only seen about 70 of the 1500 pictures they took but I cant say enough about these two!! They even did a Trash the Dress SHOOT 2 days later! It was soo much fun! My hubby and I even jumped off the dock! That was so liberating! The few photos I have seen are breathtaking!!! http://www.nickcarterweddings.com/ Please look under the Featured Wedding Gallery!!! Rehearsal /Dinner/Welcome Party: Rehearsal went well.. if you have it I would start earlier then 5pm. It got dark quickly so it was rushed…..We all went to Portofino’s after.. They closed the restaurant for our party. ( this was another challenge as we had confirmed letters stating a party of 40 at Portofinos was allset for the negotiated price of $10 per person. We were originally told we would all be able to sit together but on Monday when we met with Walter the Banquet Manager and Maria they said it was impossible and other guests would get mad. Our emails stated it was confirmed but it hadn’t been communicated to Walter previously and the weekly restaurant schedule was already set up from Sat so they wanted to change our venue because of their miscommunication. I stated that it wasn’t possible and I had 20 emails stating the venue was confirmed. After a half hr of going back and forth Walter told us he would get back to us later that day to let us know the outcome. They ended up closing the restaurant which worked out well. Again, they came through but only after a lengthy discussion. The food at PORTOFINOwas EXCELLENT!! Service was outstanding! We even tipped the bartender 60 bucks but I have to say all of our shots were not even chilled! Welcome White Party: It was held at Desires Terrace. All of our guests wore white which was really nice! Everyone loved the Candy Buffet!!! (I left the candy vases for other brides with the scoops) They couldn’t get our screen to work so we couldn’t play our video slideshows… make sure if you have children you confirm that this is ok.. I had confirmations for 8 months and the week before they told me I had to switch venues because children were not allowed. (This is SILLY! I saw children in there playing pool all week long!) Our wedding present from our Officiant and Bridesmaid was an upgrade to the PRESIDENTIAL SUITE for the remainder of the week! This was given to us at our Rehearsal Dinner… We were very surprised! They couldn’t move us while we were at dinner so we were told we could move after the wedding… WEDDING DAY: We woke up and went to breakfast and the pool for a bit.. then headed back up to my MASTERSUITE (ROOM 1502!!) best room in the hotel!!! I ordered food and champagne for all my BM’s and we got ready. Hair and makeup for 8 takes some time! LOL My flowers arrived and they were STUNNING! The hotel did a great job! They used the ribbon I gave them and I just loved them! I brought jewels for mine and my sisters! I did ask Maria to make sure the stems were cut but when we got them they weren’t. Luckily one of my bridesmaids came to the rescue and cut all of them! I did freak out a bit as realized they weren’t going to put a cloth on the ceremony table! We called down and they took care of it right away. My hubby made sure they also cleaned the beach right before.. it really didn’t matter because after an hr there was a lot of seaweed bk on the beach. It was so cute though that he tried.. The ceremony itself was better than I expected.. we had our friend officiate the wedding and he did such an amazing job! The chairs were decorated by Anita at Deco Cancun.. and the linen on the arch.. We bought our sand ceremony frame from linens and things.. I love it!!!! We had pink and orange parasols.. I had hot pink pashminas in a nice box at the beginning of the aisle for my guests! They were a COMPLETE HIT as it was a bit windy at night!!! We also put raffia fans on every other chair. We had Edguardo handle our Ipod for the ceremony music.. he did a good job but I did notice when the officiant pronounced us husband and wife we had to wait before we walked down the aisle before the music started. Then when I watched the video I did notice my wedding party walked out to the wrong song.. but it was fine, no big deal. Don’t forget to pick music for after the procession because you and your guests have champagne. To me nothing could have ruined that moment! IT WAS PREFECT! They gave us champagne .. but we were in a hurry to take pictures as the sun was setting… When we finally walked over at 530 to the cocktail hr I noticed that the Caribbeantrio was leaving? I asked Maria why and she told me that they started early. I was a bit piturbed because I told her I didn’t want the cocktail hr to start until 530 as our programs stated. We did this so we wouldn’t miss it! She ended up having the C Trio stay a bit longer but we weren’t able to have any appetizers… She asked me if we could start dinner as it was already ready and I said no what do you mean???!! WTF?? Anyway we had to start early because the food would get cold.. it was fine but I did want to relax a bit and take it all in… (I would advise her to let the guests know that they could get drinks at the beach bar)…. Wedding entrances went well! Food was EXCELLENT! STAFF WAS GREAT… I think Maria left around 9pm.. I didn’t even realize dessert was out the whole night until looking at the pictures.. needless to say I didn’t have any of it! What I did manage to have is a bite of my wedding CAKE! Delicious! Tres leches was soooo good!!! We had the bottom layer tres leches and the top vanilla. (We never got to even keep or eat another piece.. they must have thrown the cake out L oh well… They did a good job!) If you want to take this back to your room advise them ahead of time. I had a bunch of candles on the tables for my guests …the staff while dancing took them off the tables so my guests weren’t able to take them home. I had to collect the candles 2 days later and hand them out to my guests. I would just make sure you let them know ahead of time what goes to guests and what you will be taking back. I have to tell you even though we had a bunch of MISHAPS people were talking about our wedding all wkd. we even had wedding crashers that were so much fun! We danced the night away! It was SPECTACULOR!! I couldn’t have asked for a better night!!!! What I would do differently; I came down on Sunday and my wedding wasn’t until Thursday.. I tried to relax but it was VERY hard considering all the issues before our wedding… I would suggest 2 days before and that’s it! Relax after the wedding!!!!!!!!!!! Make sure you go over every detail when you get there because it can get you crazy! Maria is leaving but others will be there. Make sure you print all your correspondence with the resort. That helped when we got there. Make sure you write out a list for the videographer and photographer with times and where to be! This is important.. and prices.. make a copy and give one to them and you keep one.!!!!!! Don’t forget to do this. They tried to tell us we owed 2.5 x more than what we agreed upon for the video by sending a letter in broken English stating they wouldn’t give us our video unless we paid them and that they didn’t deal with the customer directly. This was after they didn’t show up for our meeting with our dvd on both Saturday and Sunday. If we weren’t still in Mexico for our honeymoon the following Tuesday we may have never gotten our wedding video. If not for Valter, the General Manager of DRC, acting on our behalf Blue Channel Productions would not have held to the contract. My husband had already paid the agreed amount before we left DRC. We find their actions appalling considering they are filming numerous weddings for DRC weekly. The GM ended up sending our video on Wednesday and there was no additional charge. Our wedding video was FANTASTIC we were just disappointed that we had to put so much energy and time into getting it. We had two appointments and waited both times over an hr in the lobby for them. If you are staying in the Preferred Club bring your computer because you have free internet and then you will have all your files. We were able to upload pictures from our cameras and our friends… I loved that I was able to look at a few pics while we were on our honeymoon… All in all my wedding was perfect for us.. The bar was placed a bit far from the wedding itself (it was on the beach) but this was entertaining because someone would yell shots and everyone would run to do one! Hysterical!!! The white lounge chairs that were set up were a hit on the beach we only had two sets and it was perfect.. we had pillows matching our wedding colors and the table was set up beautifully with jewels and a glass cylinder filled with water and orchids! I loved them!! Extras: Spa: I went twice.. two massages on two different days once with my hubby and once with my make-up stylist. JACOB IS THE BEST!!!!!! I highly recommend him. My friend bought us the chocolate massage oil and it was YUMMY! Hair & Makeup at Salon: My mother in law used my appointments that were included in my package. She looked GREAT! Loved her hair and makeup! They did a fantastic job! FISHING: My hubby and a 3 others went fishing right from DRC. His name was PACO ( off resort to the left) . they caught a 50lb Barracuda, a King Fish, and several small Bonita Fish. It was a 4hr excursion and it cost them about $350. The crew cut up the fish and made ceviche right on the boat. We ended up going on board and eating it with the guys! IT WAS SO GOOD!!!!! EXPLOR: I highly suggest you do this excursion! It was sooo much fun! My hubby is 64’and 250lbs so this was the safest double zip line! I wish we did this with our wedding party.. If I could do over instead of getting them gifts we would have paid for this… You actually go through caves on rafts and swim plus there was about 18 zip lines!! This was SOOO MUCH FUN!!!! SUGGESTION: Take lots of pictures from one of your helmets.. not both! They charge you $45 if you want the pictures and use one helmet.. So if you take extra pictures throughout the park on one helmet it will be worth the price!! We ened up having about 48 pics put on this cool USB flash drive! LOVED THIS PARK!!!! DO NOT DO SHA’KAAN BIOSPHERE! WORST EXCURSION EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We left the resort at 630 am and didn’t get back to the resort till after 9pm. This was our last night of our honeymoon and we were so mad! They promised beach jeep ride and we got jungle ride w many back problems!!! DON’T DO THIS TOUR!!!!! XCARET IS SO MUCH FUN TOO! You can do so much at this park. 10 am-9pm.. Valter: GM OF DRC We should have talked to him to begin with. He listened to our needs and made sure he followed up with us when we had issues. He is the best thing that has happened to this resort! We thanked him for all his help!!! If I missed anything just pm or email me.. I am not on here much
[email protected] Given all my issues our wedding was PERFECT for us !!!!!! Future brides you will have an incredible wedding!!! Somehow they make it was work!! xoxo
LADIES I SENT YOU ALL AN EMAIL I BCC'D EVERYONE.. AS FOR REHEARSAL WE ACTUALLY HAD ONE THE NIGHT BEFORE. I JUST HAD ABOUT 40 BECAUSE MY WEDDING PARTY WAS LARGE AND THEY HAD THEIR SPOUSES WATCH.. IT WAS A GREAT IDEA HAVING THE WHITE PARTY AND SO MUCH FUN! GREAT PHOTO OPP. I WOULD DO IT EARLIER THAN 5PM THOUGH ...