damitAPRILurCOOL

The wedding package you purchased when you reserved your wedding date includes: The minister/officiant (you do not pay extra for this) The chair setup at the ceremony Toast after your ceremony Ceremony music played from CD Day of coordinator (Allibe) who is there all day coordinating the events Everything extra is what you will pay extra for: Flowers (bridal bouquet, groom bout, other bouquets/bouts, centerpieces, ceremony decor, reception decor, etc) Cake $20/person for a cocktail hour and dinner. Cocktail hour includes sparkling wine and appetizers while dinner is a 3 course meal (which is an amazing price if you have compared pricing at other resorts). This also includes table and chair setup with white linens. Ceremony gazebo/chuppa Ceremony aisle runner Ceremony chair upgrades (to tiffany chairs) Other ceremony decor Live music Reception linen upgrades Reception lighting (if you don't have it in a location that has it's own lighting) DJ Photographer Videographer Hair and makeup From what I understand, Allibe can book everything for you if you don't have any problems with who she books or the pricing.

Hi Kelly! Congrats! For the DJ, I am using Bijan Zade with www.mayanvibes.com. I heard good things about him from a bride who got married in the Riviera Maya (do you read the weddingbee blog?), so I contacted him and he ended up giving me a better rate than the DJ Allibe was giving me. He's Canadian living in the Riviera Maya, so another perk is not having a language barrier. If you contact him, tell him April referred you! I'm going through Allibe for the flowers. From what she told me, they don't allow outside vendors for flowers. I'm not doing a mariachi, sorry I don't have any information on that.

Personally, I don't think it's very much compared to other wedding packages I've seen at other resorts and the cost of extras that other resorts charge. Also, taking into account that it only cost $20/pp for cocktail hour and reception, makes it pretty affordable for me. You may think you're paying $900 for just the pre-planning (or lack-of on her end) of the wedding, but you should remember that she will be coordinating everything on the day-of also. I think they offer the package to make it easy on people who don't really care to book everything separately and don't care about price.

I'm sorry that you're having a frustrating time getting your answers from her. She's always done a pretty good job of answering my questions. If I don't get the answers I need through email, I call and she's always been able to answer. In regards to the flowers, I actually got her to quote me on everything I needed AFTER I got another quote from a different florists (off-site). It worked to my advantage though because she met/beat the prices I initially got which made me super happy. Maybe you should do that to try to get it more cost-effective? As for the cake, she quoted me ~$250 but it will always depend on the number of people you have. I'm expecting at least 50 and maybe up to 100... which is what I told her, so the cost of ~$250 can change. I assume if you have a smaller wedding, your cake would (should) be less expensive. As for the ceremony package, I had it written into my contract what is included in the package that I'm paying for. This is what my package comes with: Booking of a symbolic ceremony Email assistance, in order to arrange the ceremony in advance Performance of the symbolic ceremony Fees, microphone and speakers, table for minister, chairs for guests, set up and toast after ceremony The following things are not in my contract, but I had asked her about them: she will (or have someone) start/stop the music for the processional and recessional, she will line up my wedding party and queue them on when/where to go, and if I decide to have a wedding rehearsal she will help with that. I think the complimentary wedding luxury package that they list online his this: "Real Love Comes Naturally—Wedding Ceremony starting at $4,900 USD per couple: 7-night, Endless Luxury All-Inclusive. Additional night’s stays are subject to extra charges. Blackout dates based upon availability." It comes with the accommodations and other items in the package (listed online), so they say it's complimentary but essentially, you are paying for it; they are just grouping the cost of the wedding package with accommodations. Let me know if you need anything - I'm pretty anal with my wedding planning and contact her constantly so I may have the answers you need!

I love Allibe! She responds very quickly considering all the weddings she is in charge of! She's been awesome! Under my room block (I went through a TA), I put down a 1000.00 deposit and it gets used toward my stay OR anything we are planning on ordering for the wedding (the wedding package, flowers, etc). I blocked 20 rooms also (which I know I will fill), but we are able to add to our block at any time. We are able to release rooms until a certain date without penalty. Regardless, the deposit gets put toward the balance of what we owe!

Quote: Originally Posted by Juan Navarro I had just shot a wedding at the Hacienda Tres Rios and I was surprised at the many amazing Pictures spots I Could find here. It has a variety of different places where you can really feel the Caribbean at its best. I would have really liked to shoot a Trash the Dress session here. http://www.juanphotos.com/blog/?p=8613 Hi Juan, Thank you so much for posting photos from that wedding! They are awesome!

Quote: Originally Posted by Samantha88k Hi Ladies, I am working on hiring outside vendors and have already booked a photographer but before I book a DJ I was wondering if any of you had any issues booking outside vendors without going directly through Luis? Hi Samantha! I didn't have any issues, but I did tell Allibe (she works for Luis) that I was planning on bringing my own photographer. I also ended up finding a DJ that was cheaper than who she was suggesting and she was okay with that also. BTW, if anyone is looking for a DJ, I heard really great things about the guy I hired and he was cheaper than the company Allibe had initially suggested. He also includes emceeing while the company Allibe suggested charges extra for! However, I did try to book my an outside florist and she didn't allow that. I guess they are contracted with some vendors, so they have to go through the ones they use (flowers and lighted dancefloors). BUT I got cheaper price quotes from the florist I wanted to book through and Allibe had her florist meet/beat his price which was pretty cool (because other florists I got quotes from couldn't beat or even meet my florists' price). Hope that helps!

Mrs. M, THANK YOU for sharing your pictures!! EVERYTHING looked amazing - you're such a beautiful bride!! :] I'm so excited to be getting married there in Nov! I can't wait to see more!

Thank you sooo much becks!! The pictures were really helpful!! I'm trying to figure out the locations of our events. Right now, we are having the ceremony at the beach (the same location you are having yours at), our cocktail hour on the beach in front of the pool terrace (which I think is the area that you're having your welcome party at), and our reception at the pool terrace. I REALLY wanted to use the martini terrace for our cocktail hour, but Allibe said that it was a far walk between the martini terrace and the pool terrace. I considered moving the reception to the plaza, but it's so public and we are trying to keep it a little more private. Looking at your pictures, I may reconsider though... the martini terrace is just too pretty!

Hi Becks! Thank you so much!! That would be really helpful! If you can send me the pictures whenever you get the chance, that would be awesome... I totally understand if you can't get to it right away!! Is it easier to email me the pictures or post them on here? Whichever you prefer... my email addy is damitaprilurcool at gmail dot com. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Hi Mrs. M, Do you mind sharing your pictures from your welcome dinner, cocktail hour, and reception locations with me as well? We aren't doing a site visit before the wedding and I've been trying to figure out where we want to hold our events on the resort. BTW, CONGRATULATIONS!

I was just wondering if any of you brides purchased wedding insurance? If so, through what company?

Yay! It's official! My fiance and I are going to get married at the Hacienda Tres Rios on 11.11.11! I'm so excited! We signed the contract and sent in our deposit. Not sure what we do now though? Haha. Will Allibe start sending me information on vendors, etc? What are you all doing about airport transfers between the airport and resort for yourselves and your guests? I'm trying to find out more information on this, but I'm getting a slow response! Thank you!

Sorry for such a late reply icirelli.. I haven't been on this forum in awhile. I set up my site visit to Moon Palace through Jennifer Gamboa in the weddings dept (Miami). Apparently, she's the one that takes care of site visits: the actual room reservation and schedules the meeting with the WC on site. She completely screwed up everything she did for me though. She booked the wrong room rate for the site visit so I had a hard time while checking IN and OUT and sent me and the WC different mtg times! I have no idea how she got things messed up like that. The visit wasn't free.. it was a special rate though (I think $220/per room per night) and if you did go with through with your wedding at the resort, they would credit you for the site visit up to 2 or 3 nights after the wedding. Hope this helps!

Hi everyone! I'm so excited to find you all on here. My fiance and I were originally going to get married at the Moon Palace resort, but when we went on a site visit we ended up not liking the resort. We've been looking for a new one ever since and found H3R!! I've been in contact with Allibe and she is supposed to send us our contract for our room block and wedding soon. I'm a bit apprehensive about signing without going on a site visit, so hopefully we'll get to go on one sometime next year before the wedding (our wedding is *crossing fingers* 11.11.11). Thank goodness for everyone's great reviews on their site visits though!! Just wondering if anyone has any pictures of actual weddings that have taken place at the resort? The website doesn't really have great pictures of the locations and setup for the ceremony and reception. Also, would anyone mind emailing me information on the rental quotes they've received from the different vendors (for ceremony and reception setup, flowers, DJ)? My email is: damitaprilurcool at gmail dot com. I really appreciate all the information you've all posted!! If I could be of any help in any way, please let me know!

Hi! I'm considering getting married at the Grand Princess resort and have been talking with a TA, the group bookings manager, and the wedding coordinator on site. I am also having around the same number of people. See my answers below. Â Hope this helps! Â

Don't get me wrong.. the resort is nice, but we just weren't wow'd by it. It was very overwhelming to us because it was so big. There were a few things that happened to us and I think it was just bad luck because everyone else on this forum has said they had an amazing time: Â They wanted to charge me more than what my room rate was quoted at for the site visit. It was a mess and I spent so much talking to the people at the front desk at check in and check out instead of being able to enjoy the resort even though I had email proof of the room rate. This scared me the most because I don't want any of my guests to experience anything like this. We found blood on our bedsheets one night and they couldn't "accommodate" sending us new bed sheets because it was so late by the time we saw it. Instead they just sent us blankets to sleep on top of it until the next morning. At check in, they apparently didn't have a king sized bed on the nizuc side available even though they were only at 20% capacity that wkend - instead we got 2 double beds. With a resort so huge, this was just really disappointing that that they couldn't give us a king sized bed at first check in. After our site inspection with Kalena (the next day), she told us we can request to stay on the Moon Grand side with a king sized bed (which we preferred since the rooms are newer) and they accommodated that request. We really don't know why they didn't give us the option to move sections to get a king sized bed from the get-go. We didn't get the glass of champagne at check in. Haha, I know this is minor but everyone keeps talking about it, so I had an expectation that we would get it too.

hi ladies! Â i did a site visit to the moon palace resort and visited the cancun palace resort since it was a free shuttle away. we loved the cancun palace - the decor was so modern and the rooms (we peaked through while a maid was cleaning) looked soo nice. Â anyway, i requested information from our miami wedding coordinator and she sent me the reception site info right away, so email me if you're interested and i can send it your way: damitaprilurcool at gmail dot com. it's a list of all their reception site options with pictures. Â also, she mentioned that the ceremonies are at the beach. in my personal opinion, the beach water is waaaay nicer on that end of the cancun hotel strip than it is at moon palace. i have pictures that i took on my camera that i can send also. Â hope this helps!

Hi again! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to freak anyone out by my last post! I just wanted to add a little side note to my last post.. There are A TON of brides that had an AMAZING experience, so please don't base any decisions off a personal experience I had. I think my fiance and I just had a different expectation. Also I don't know if I ever mentioned it, but there were parts of the trip that we did like. Anyway, I'm responding to emails when I can Sorry again... if I freaked anyone out. Â

hi ladies! Â i posted this on the Moon Palace 2011 Brides, but i figured it might be helpful in this thread also... Â Â i just came back from a site visit at moon palace. my fiance were pretty much all set with having our wedding at MP (because of the catholic chapel), but so many things happened over the wkend that i don't think we are going to end up getting married here. anyway, i got SO MUCH helpful information from here that i figured i should pass it on. Â i have been REALLY lucky because both my coordinators have been great at responding pretty quickly. Â carilis felipe has been awesome. i had received two different group block rates; the cheaper rate from a TA and she was able to talk to her supervisor to meet that rate. she responded quickly to ALL my questions; most things i knew already after reading through this forum but i wanted to get it in writing from her (which i definitely suggest). we already had a deposit on our ceremony (11.04.11), but will most likely be cancelling it and getting our money back (so i hope that goes smoothly). i even requested a specific site wedding planner (kalena arroniz) and she worked to get her assigned to my wedding (1+ years in advance). Â kalena arroniz was GREAT. she didn't respond as quickly some times (probably the longest i waited was one week?), but when she couldn't her assistant (karen, i think) did. i got in touch with her early because we had planned this site and had a meeting set up with her so that we can go over wedding details. i also requested a menu and cake tasting which she set up (she even let us taste 2 different buffet options and you should see the size of the cake tastings!!!). she walked us through the resort to the different ceremony and reception locations and helped us finalize our selections for our cocktail hr and reception. she answered ALL my questions (i have it typed up and left it with her, but i have copies so if any of you need it.. let me know) about the ceremony, cocktail hr, and reception. honestly, i REALLY loved kalena just from our first mtg. she was very attentive to us through email and at our mtg and was very helpful. if the experience with the resort itself wasn't as bad, then i would have had my heart set with MP just to have her as my coordinator. Â if any of you are having a difficult time with your coordinators, i would highly suggest asking if you can switch to carilis and kalena!! Â if anyone needs pictures of the resort or the document of questions i asked kalena, please email me and i will send it to you. i don't go on here often (well, i will be on here more now since i basically have to start planning from scratch to look for a new resort), but i don't really like using the private messages option. email is much more easy and quicker: damitaprilurcool at gmail dot com. Â hope this helps and good luck all of you!!!

hi ladies! Â i just came back from a site visit at moon palace. my fiance were pretty much all set with having our wedding at MP (because of the catholic chapel), but so many things happened over the wkend that i don't think we are going to end up getting married here. anyway, i got SO MUCH helpful information from here that i figured i should pass it on. Â i have been REALLY lucky because both my coordinators have been great at responding pretty quickly. Â carilis felipe has been awesome. i had received two different group block rates; the cheaper rate from a TA and she was able to talk to her supervisor to meet that rate. she responded quickly to ALL my questions; most things i knew already after reading through this forum but i wanted to get it in writing from her (which i definitely suggest). we already had a deposit on our ceremony (11.04.11), but will most likely be cancelling it and getting our money back (so i hope that goes smoothly). i even requested a specific site wedding planner (kalena arroniz) and she worked to get her assigned to my wedding (1+ years in advance). Â kalena arroniz was GREAT. she didn't respond as quickly some times (probably the longest i waited was one week?), but when she couldn't her assistant (karen, i think) did. i got in touch with her early because we had planned this site and had a meeting set up with her so that we can go over wedding details. i also requested a menu and cake tasting which she set up (she even let us taste 2 different buffet options and you should see the size of the cake tastings!!!). she walked us through the resort to the different ceremony and reception locations and helped us finalize our selections for our cocktail hr and reception. she answered ALL my questions (i have it typed up and left it with her, but i have copies so if any of you need it.. let me know) about the ceremony, cocktail hr, and reception. honestly, i REALLY loved kalena just from our first mtg. she was very attentive to us through email and at our mtg and was very helpful. if the experience with the resort itself wasn't as bad, then i would have had my heart set with MP just to have her as my coordinator. Â if any of you are having a difficult time with your coordinators, i would highly suggest asking if you can switch to carilis and kalena!! Â if anyone needs pictures of the resort or the document of questions i asked kalena, please email me and i will send it to you. i don't go on here often (well, i will be on here more now since i basically have to start planning from scratch to look for a new resort), but i don't really like using the private messages option. email is much more easy and quicker: damitaprilurcool at gmail dot com. Â hope this helps and good luck all of you!!!

Hi! I'm not sure if this will help you or not, but I was going through a similar issue trying to get the best guest rates that I could. I contacted a travel agent I had used before (for a previous trip I booked through her) and she provided me with the rates she was able to get at the resort. When I contacted Moon Palace, the WC in Miami gave me a little higher rate and I was actually able to negotiate getting the same rate that the travel agent provided. I just figured it was easier to go through Moon Palace's group contract because they provide me with a link that my guests can use to book their accommodations. Some people find that dealing with a travel agent is easier, so I don't know.. all personal preference I guess. The rates I got from the travel agent was: "Deluxe Resort View" prices at $184.00 per person per night based on double room occupancy for January 4 - April 30, 2011. For May 1 - Aug. 20, 2011 rates drop to $154.00 per person per night and Aug. 21 - Dec. 23, 2011 - $148.00 per person per night double."

Quote: Originally Posted by Woodsylou I emailed Marvin from Maya Diseno Floral ([email protected]) and he's been GREAT! he said we won't have problems with delivery (I'm only ordering four button holes and two corsages) as they will say that it was a gift paid for from someone in England and he's delivering them. They can't stop that apparently! so happy! and it's saving me more than 70%!!! Awesome! Thanks for the info! I'm getting married at Moon Palace and will definitely be contacting him too!

My name is April Joy and I'm getting married on Nov 4, 2011 at the Moon Palace resort in Cancun. Both my fiance and I are super excited! So far, this site has been VERY useful! Thank you to everyone who have posted!