jnellerose

Hi All, I know this site is lacking info on Mazatlan weddings, therefore I am sharing my delayed review to help any possible Mazatlan brides out there. I recently got married on 10/12/14 in Mazatlan Mexico at the Pueblo Bonito emerald Bay. It was a completely last minute change of plans, as we were supposed to have our wedding in Cabo San Lucas at the Pueblo Bonito sunset beach. However, due to the hurricane that hit Cabo in September, we were forced to change our wedding location 3 weeks before the wedding. I expected everything to kind of fall apart, being that we had to change most of our vendors at the last second - but I honestly believe that our wedding turned out even better than it would've, had we stuck to the Cabo location. So here is my review, broken down in categories: THE RESORT: PB Emerald Bay is a beautiful place, however to our dismay, there was no beach available for us to use. Though the resort overlooks the water, the beach has deteriorated ànd washed away. This impeded on our plans to have a beach bonfire welcome party. (However, the resort made up for it with the welcome party we ended up having. See below for welcome party details). Other than that, the lack of beach didn't affect us much, as we were aware that in Cabo, the beach is not swimmable anyway. Also, on the plus side, there was a free shuttle bus that takes you to the sister resort, Pueblo Bonito mazatlan, which did have a nicer beach. You could also eat at the restaurants at this resort if you purchased the all-inclusive option. Food at the PB Emerald Bay was decent. After 10 days of being there, I definitely started to get tired of eating the same things over and over again. But overall, the food wasn't bad. A few negative things I can say - although we purchased the all inclusive option, this resort makes you wait for a receipt after you eat or order drinks. It always had a zero balance, but we still had to wait for it and sign the check (and include tip, if we wanted). I guess it's because they have the all-inclusive option, so they do this to ensure that they properly charge people who do not have the all inclusive. I also found that they have annoying rules about ordering room service. We attempted to order room service for a group of 15 or 20 of us, and they had to ask for all of our room #'s, as each room is only allowed 2 items. And on top if that, they charged a service fee. Furthermore, the all inclusive had an expiration. Apparently, it ends at 11 or 12pm on the day of checkout, regardless of what time your shuttle comes. So if your shuttle comes at 5pm, you need to pay for all food and drinks after checkout. Even for my husband and i, who had a guaranteed late check out, were hassled at 1pm at the pool bar and grill on the day we were leaving. I had to call our wedding coordinator, who had to call her manager to have some strings pulled, in order for us to eat before we left. We have been to many all inclusive resorts and never had to deal with such strict rules. Usually, I am pretty easy going about things like this - but this was my wedding week. It definitely was not fun to deal with such annoyances. WEDDING COORDINATOR: We worked with Wendy, and she was wonderful!! I cannot say enough great things about her. For starters, when we first arrived, she made an appt with us and brought us to a rental company in town where we could pick our table cloths and napkins, etc. They even set everything up on tables outside so we could visualize how it would all look together. They did not nickel and dime everything like Sunset beach was attempting to do. We were able to pick any color table cloth at all the same costs, and we received gold Tiffany chairs at no extra cost. It was so unexpected but so appreciated that she brought us there. Wendy understood how difficult it was for us to have changed our wedding venue at the last minute. She listened to all our requests and tried so hard to make our wedding up to our standards. When we found out that we couldn't have our bonfire welcome party on the beach, she came up with various options and presented them to us. She also helped us with non wedding things. When my husband got injured by the pool, we could not find crutches and the front desk did nothing to help. Wendy was able to locate some for us at the sister resort, and she drove over to get them for us. I truly believe Wendy is the reason our wedding turned out so well. She always went above and beyond and showed how important her job was to her. WELCOME PARTY: We ended up having the welcome party indoors at a location surrounded by windows. Wendy had rented lounge style furniture for us, which we were able to pick out when we went to the rental company. They set up a bonfire right outside the doors, and we had brought all the ingredients for s'mores, which Wendy had set up at the tables. She also set up a dj, which was a surprise to us, as we did not request it, and he was great - he broke the ice among all our guests by playing games, such as name that tune. There was also a bar set up and waiters serving drinks, so no one had to get drinks on their own. The service that night was great, and our guests definitely enjoyed it. CEREMONY/COCKTAIL: We had the ceremony at the gazebo. It turned out beautifully, however it was definitely hot and humid that dAy. Also, there were tons of misquitos! We had a violin and guitar duo play, and they did a great job. Cocktail was at the gazebo courtyard, which we ended up cutting a little short because it started getting dark and the misquitos were definitely swarming. I can't comment on the food at cocktail hour, as we were busy taking pictures and missed all the food. RECEPTION: it was held at the Cordeliere Esplanade, which is basically the terrace rooftop of the Cordeliere restaurant. What a beautiful location!!! Service was great, food was good... it was more beautiful than expected. We just kept our same menu choices from Pueblo Bonito sunset beach, which worked out perfectly. VENDORS: MAKEUP: I had Alma Vallejo, who I had booked for the Cabo location. Thankfully, she was already in the Mazatlan area, since she fled there after the hurricane. She flew in her hair person, Mabel, since I was weary about her having someone in Mazatlan (who she was not used to working with) do my hair. They both did a great job! My only complaint it that she did not have her air brush equipment with her, and she did not tell me this until she showed up for my hair/makeup trial. I would've preferred airbrushed makeup, being that it was so hot and humid. Other than that, they were professional and got the job done. FLOWERS: Ave de Paraiso Florist. They did a good job on such late notice. I had calla lilies for my bouquet. my bridesmaids and groomsmen had rose and lilies in coral and yellow hues. Upon delivery the morning of our wedding, we noticed we were missing a bridesmaid bouquet. Wendy got in contact with them, and they delivered the missing bouquet, however the ribbon wrapping the bouquet was in a different color than the other bouquets. This ended up being fine, as my matron of honor held that one. DJ: MPI productions. They were by far the worst vendor we went with. We gave them a song list, however we thought they would also play some of their regular song repertoire. Instead, they ended up replaying many of the songs on our list, twice or even 3 tines. (Since we didn't give enough song choices to last all 4 hours). Also, instead of playing the exact songs we chose, they played many "house & ekectronic remix" versions. Also, they played the list exactly as written. My husband grouped all the line dances together, so they played 5 line dsnces in a row. And 10 slow songs in a row - instead of mixing it up. Maybe if we had more time, we could've planned accordingly or had better communication. on the positive side, the provided us with a cool light up dance floor and under lit tables. They also played our slideshow as requested and made a gobo for us that was reflected on the projector screen throughout the reception. PHOTOGRAPHER/VIDEOGRAPHER: We had booked Enrique Morales for our Cabo wedding, and he and his team agreed to fly to Mazatlan to continue with our wedding. They did a great job and were extremely fun and professional. Within a week or 2 of our wedding, they had already provided us with a rough draft of our photo book and 5 minute highlight video. They took over 1200 photos, and they did an amazing job capturing all the special moments of our wedding. All in all, everything turned out wonderfully. It just goes to show that you can plan for things so far in advance, but it doesn't always mean that that's the only way it has to be. We had to be really open minded to enjoy our Mazatlan wedding, but it all worked out in the end. If anyone is planning a wedding in Mazatlan or at the PB emerald bay or has questions, please feel free to send me an email or private message. I can also provide pics as needed. Janelle

hi, thanks for all the responses to my post. we ended up working with Shantal, because we were having such bad responses from Angel Garcia. Then Shantal didn't prove to be much better. However, I did have better luck reaching Shantal through Skype.. so if you don't have a skype account, definitely make one and search for her on there. at least you will have direct contact to her! Ultimately, we ended up canceling our wedding with Dreams because they were overbooked for our wedding week in October. We have since moved our wedding to Pueblo Bonito Sunset Beach, and communication so far has been pretty good. It's such a shame.. dreams is supposed to be top notch for destination weddings but my experience with them has proven to be anything but that.

wow... I wonder what is going on over there with them changing wedding coordinators so frequently lately. hmmm... shantal carrizales, that name sounds familiar. I think she was the wedding coordinator at melia Cabo real when we did our site visit in Cabo. if it's any consolation to you, she was pretty quick In replying back to us and was very nice. she seemed really young though but seemed to have experience. good luck! I hope it turns out well for you. when's the wedding?

I have heard that getting blood drawn is a requirement, I don't believe I've read any reviews about it. we are having a church wedding here In ny prior to going to Mexico, so we're just having a symbolic ceremony in Mexico, which does not require blood work or anything really. we thought about doing the legal ceremony in Mexico but there were too many rules about being there a few days before & having a witness there for a few days, etc. so that's why we decided just to do the symbolic ceremony.

thanks for the reply. it's somewhat comforting to know that I'm not the only one experiencing these problems contacting them. good luck with the wedding plans.. hopefully since your wedding is right around the corner, they will start paying more attention to you.

hi Tammy, thanks for letting me know. Teresa actually spoke to them for me, and the director of sales followed through and called me. she was great to speak to, and I was able to voice my frustrations a little to her. and afterwards, my WC Angel contacted me, and I was able to speak to him about a few of the wedding details. But i still get the feeling that I'm just one bride out of many, and they could care less about how I feel or what I need to get done. Angel promised better communication, but almost a week later, I still have yet to hear back from him on some of the important details I asked him to look into. I guess I need to learn to just let it happen in due time, but it's hard when I have things I need to get done as well and can't because I can't even get information from the WC!

Well.. I realize we have time, since our wedding isn't until October. But we had a few things to discuss with the WC. for starters, we need to set the venue for our rehearsal dinner. we also need to discuss our ceremony, which is supposed to be at the gazebo. We are expecting 80 guests and it seems the gazebo area may be too tight for 80 people. Also, I know the photographers from the past have since left and that a new group has joined Dreams. I'm trying to figure out if we need to hire a separate photographer or if we will just end up paying to keep the photographers included in the package longer. We also would like to proceed with hiring a DJ, florist, and hair and make up artists, but none of these things can be done until I get a chance to touch base with a WC. Basically, we have a lot of unanswered questions, and it's just bad business on their end to not even address our concerns. I understand that we have time before these things need to get done and that there are weddings going on that they need to focus their time/energy on, but I think we deserve to be able to have at least one conversation with someone, being that we've been booked for 2 months and cannot get a response out of anyone. I like to read the forum posts and have faith that my wedding will turn out just fine.. but I guess I expected more from dreams. They just seem so uninterested in having our business, which is far from what I can say about other resorts that we were considering.

Thanks Tammy. I am working with Teresa Stauring, who has already been notified and has begun to try to pacify the situation with the people at Dreams. She has been great at assisting in these situations, but I have not heard anything back from the WC at Dreams as of yet. This has truly left a sour taste in my mouth. Thank you for your reply. I hope the situation resolves sooner than later.

Hi! I too am an October bride at dreams. Ours is on oct 12, 2014. it's crazy to think we may all be at dreams at the same time. good luck to you all! janelle

Hi all, I have recently booked my wedding at Dreams Los Cabos for 10-12-14. Unfortunately, we are having an extremely hard time getting in contact with the WC there. Initially, we were working with Maricela who was amazing and quick at responding. Then she left, and we were redirected to Magda. When we went to Cabo to do a site visit, we stayed at Dreams and had a horrible first impression of Magda. She did not get in contact with us while we were there until our 2nd or 3rd day at the resort, even though we requested to meet with her on our first day there. We looked beyond that, and still went with Dreams - but when trying to get our contract done with her, she was very unresponsive - making up excuses and saying that her computer broke and that she is the only WC at the resort. Now we have been reassigned to someone by the name of Angel. He/she started off great by contacting us in early jan to introduce himself - & that's as far as it goes. We haven't heard from him/her yet, and actually we made an "appointment" for a phone call with him/her for today and have been waiting for the call. Almost 2 hours later, we are still waiting... Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing these issues and was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on how to proceed. Does anyone have any Dreams los cabos managers contact info that they can forward along? I'm beginning to get stressed that we made the wrong decision in choosing dreams. thank you! Janelle

I'm from NYC as well... i got engaged about a month ago and don't know where to start in planning a destination wedding!! I know i want something all inclusive, preferably with a church/chapel on site... however I would like to refrain from Cancun and Punta Cana (because we've vacationed there many times and it seems to have lost the excitement). Any suggestions?