Hello Ladies! Sorry I took so long to post but here is muy review I am doing it in sections, let me know if you have nay questions, I am going to try and read some of the previous posts and respond to questions after the review.
Resort
The resort was beautiful, and it is pretty big I imagined it would be much smaller but it wasnt. First let me start off with the bad, my aunt who came with the wedding party found roaches in her room. Not like the big flying roaches small German house roaches that will travel with you in your suitcase. This was an extremely hard thing to deal with, because she had a family room which is the 2 bedroom unit for her and her children. This is in building 3, they only have 8 of these rooms on the resort, but others in building 3 had problems with roaches, so stay away from building 3. They came in and fumigated twice but to no relief because the roaches were still there. They did not do well with accomodating her either. The manager tried to offer her one day complimentary when she was in her room with the roaches for 4 days before they moved her into a suite with her children, They had to bring in extra beds for the kids to sleep in because the suite was only designed for 2 people. So needless to say they were all cramped in one room. This basically ruined her vacation, so we are in the process of taking legal action against AM Resorts. They also had a flying ant and some other type of bug infestation going on because my in laws were in Preferred CLub rooms and they got 2 nights complimentary, a dinner and a spa treatment for flying ants! Well that ends my rant about that. The overall resort was kept clean and tidy, the swim up bars and the beach were amazing. The water at the beach is pretty shallow so you can go out far before it gets deep. They also have a grill by the beach and the hamburgers and chicken that they have during the day is pretty good.
Restaurants
Now the food is not all that great, but for it to be an all inclusive that is expected. The best restaurant is Bordeaux the french restaurant, they had really good steak and the lamb was awesome, along with the appetizers. I did not get to go to the Italian restaurant it was closed the whole time I was there for some reason. The seaside Grille is just okay, they have pretty good breakfast, the dinner is mediocre. Oceana would be my second best choice as far as food, but get the Surf and Turf everything else was not good. The Japanese restaurant is a joke the service is very slow and the food is horrible, stay away from the general Tso's chicken, they have some sweet and sour pork that I got substituted and asked for shrimp its was okay, better than what others had. World Cafe which is the buffet is not good, I guess its what you can expect for buffets. Jungle Cafe is just okay as well, they are supposed to serve Dominican food, which to me they dont. I lived in Miami for most of my life and I have Dominican friends so I know what Dominican food is and that is not it. My best advice about the restaurants is when in doubt order the beef, that was pretty much good everywhere and bring your Imodium and Tums because the food still has my system jacked up and I did not drink the water.
Service
Great pretty much. Excellent with the service staff they do what they can to please you. My problem was with management and concuerge they try to give you the run around. I had preferred club and they are supposed to work a lil harder and go the extra mile, well for I didnt get that service. When I first came I had all of my emails printed out, I suggest you do that if you are getting any room upgrades or free rooms. Well Shirley Sanchez told me that she would be placing a note on my account so that when I got there they would upgrade me to the honeymoon suite. Well when we first checked in the woman tried to tell me they didnt have any suites available and I would have to check back in again the next day because it is based upon availablity. I can spot bull when I hear it and when I asked her about the rooms she didnt even check she immediately said they weren't available so I saw the game she was trying to run. So the next day I decided to approach this in a different manner. I called the front desk, not the preferred club desk and asked them were any honeymoon suites available they said yes 1. So I walked down to preferred club and told them I called the front desk and they said they had a suite available and they stated the same thing. Long story short, I guess they figured that when I asked, I wanted to pay for an upgrade. Well they were not too happy when they realized that I was asking because I was owed a free upgrade, they tried to tell me the room wasnt available anymore. Well I went off! It wasnt until I cause a scene that they came over and said something about the A.c, was broke and that's why it wasnt available and they were getting a techinician in there and they moved me within a couple hours. So my advice is if they give you the run around you might have to go off on someone to get results, sad to say. My aunt didnt get moved until she made a scene in the lobby.
Yanna
Well what can I say about her but she is GREAT! I love, love, love this woman. She is very efficient once you get there so rest assured ladies she will make your vision and your dreams come true. We were supposed to meet the day after I got there but she was off the resort for business so we did not meet until thursday and the wedding was saturday so I was a bit nervous. We met and she had all the emails and we went over all the details and she showed me pics of flowers etc on her ipad so that I could pick exaclty what I wanted. She gave me a final budget and we picked out linens which she had in her office for me to go through. I was able to get all of the table linens free and they werent the standard white ones, I guess she just threw them in I ended up paying for the rosette table linens for the cake table and the bridal party table so that was fine. I guess they have linens there that you can use.
Rehearsal
This went fairly smooth, my aunt married us so we had the symbolic ceremony. It is good for all of your girls to rehearse in their heels because those rocks are tricky. So its better if they get use to them and practice the night before. after the rehearsal was the bonfire, with the cocktail hour and the serve appetizers at the cocktail hour. It was really nice and I would recommend bringing something to do at the bonfire, sky lanterns, smores, games etc. We released lanterns on the beach which was tricky because you have to have the right wind and conditions for them to fly. Yanna came and set up and was put the lanterns together because they were not already assembled which I did not know. She was so helpful and the bonfire turned out wonderful, we played games, had some drinks and chilled.
Now what you all have been waiting for the wedding review!
Wedding
The wedding was truly amazing thanks to Yanna, she did everything she was supposed to do and more. What I didnt realize is that with the Ultimate wedding package you get 2 centerpieces that are already included along with the music for the service from the DJ. The Gazebo was beautiful I just got it decorated with the linens, I will post the pictures after. You have use of the microphone system, speakers and music and the DJ is there and it is all included, this I did not know. Again watch out for the rocks, I thought they provided a runner for the aisle, but they do not. I purchased the Tiffany chairs and they were worth the money they looked great in my pictures and went well with the decor. After the ceremony they do the champagne toast which is nice and Yanna will announce for your guests to go to the cocktail hour. I would do the cocktail hour because your guests have something to do while you are taking pictures, which definitely takes about an hour and a half. The cocktail hour I did on the pier which was nice because it was a cool breeze coming from the water, lots of room to sit and walk around and the guests got to enjoy a nice view of the water. The Carribean trio I could have done without, I pictured steel drums and more carribean music, it was more latin and they were a bunch of old men and didnt sound very good.
Reception
Amazing. I used DJ Mannia for my DJ and I had my reception in the ballroom which I would recommend. Having a reception outdoors is not smart, I would do it in the ballroom or inside a restaurant. I say this because of the bugs and the HEAT. After the ceremony people will be so hot they will want air, not to mention with alcohol involved, they will be extra hot and irritated. Yanna got sick and had to leave once we got to the reception, so she left someone else in charge who was a disaster. DJ Mannia is a must have he is great with the coordination and has everything timed as to when everything will happen, speeches, bouquet toss etc. I loved the lighted dance floor and he gave us white balloons and smoke which made it even more exciting and fun. The room was absolutely gorgeous, I brought my own wine bottles which I painted gold and did some white stenciling on for the centerpieces and they were gorgeous. I had my reception from 7:30-11:30 and we paid to stay until 12:30, the DJ charged us and extra 70.00. The person Yanna left in charge was an idiot! After we cut the cake he didnt even cut the cake and serve it to the guests he was no where to be found. When I did find him he was somewhere on a couch talking to the DJ crew realxing, I was livid. He told me I should wait to serve the cake and let everyone have some tomorrow since dessert was served. People were walking up and cutting their own cake, I could not believe it. Not to mention my cake was leaning backwards. It looked like the leaning tower of Piza! Besides those two mishaps, I had a ton of fun! The alcohol is definitely included in the reception and they didnt include those taxes and gratuity charges like the packet says with the 10 and 18%. I didnt see that added on for the cocktail hour or reception, so dont worry about it. The food was just okay. I picked my appetizer from the Silver menu because I did not was the seafood cocktail so I got the crabcake and it was not good, at all! For dinner we had a choice of the Ribeye or the Chicken. A couple of my guests got the chicken and I tasted it, it was not that great, the Ribeye was awesome. When in doubt go with the Beef! The soup was the Caribbean Soup and was not that creap either, very fishy. Overall I was pleased with the menu I chose.
HDC Photography
Freaking amazing, except for the video. Johnathan was my photographer and he did a great job with the pictured they are gorgeous! He came to my room and captured some pivotal moments and knew just how to direct for the guy from the resort who was doing my video. I would say upgrade to the ultimate package for the wedding, the video that was included was awesome, I mean phenomenal, the editing was so good. I wish I would have hired them to do the video for the reception because HDC botched that, they cut out most of my guests giving me well wishes. I had to email them and they are supposed to send me the full version in an email. The photos from Tropical Studios were very nice, I'm not sure why they didn't have good reviews because some of their pics I like better than HDC. Only thing is Tropical Studios is really expensive compared to HDC.
here are some of my photos:
