My wedding was held on April 21, 2011.

We arrived on April 18 and left on April 26.

AMERICAN EAGLE/AMERICAN AIRLINES to Cancun

A+

We live in a town with a regional airport, so we flew out AE to Dallas, than AA to Cancun. The flight to Dallas was fine. The plane is very small so most carry-on luggage has to be “valeted” to under the plane. There were no issues with anyone’s things not turning back up upon landing and the airplane steward offered to take my lime green garment bag with my wedding dress and hang it without me asking. He also wrote down our terminal in Dallas and how to get to it the easiest.

Ten of us flew there together on a Tuesday. Only one person’s bag was checked in customs, which was my sister’s professional photography camera and lenses... they made her open every little piece of equipment but let her through. Everyone got all of their luggage okay, whew!

Everyone else flew Continental. A group of four and six made it in with no issues, but one couple’s flight was delayed 3 hours so they get in a lot later than planned. However, they were given a taxi to take them straight to the resort instead of a group van deal like the rest of us, so they were very happy with that.

OLYMPUS TOURS transportation

A

I called the day before we left to confirm our ground transportation to the resort. They were easy to find in bright orange polo shirts and all of us were able to ride together. It was more of a bus than a van, so we did have to drop others off at resorts along the way. What could have been an hour to the resort was about 2.5 and this ground transportation did not have an ice chest of beer in the vehicle. Last time we went the ride down was a party due to the beers making it not seem as long, and we kind of missed that.

ARRIVING AT DREAMS

A-

Check in went smoothly for everyone. The only issue was they only wanted to give one key per room. Some people weren’t “couples” and that caused a problem. I lost FI later that night and it’s impossible to find him on the first night not knowing the layout of the resort with no cell phones and a ton of people around. Having a room key of my own would have helped. We all had second keys for each room by the next day (after some complaining). My mother asked for one the night before and one worker said they were out of keys while another shook his head and held up a room key for her. The one saying no shot him some angry eyes, the key ended up not working. But not a big deal, it was all resolved within a day.

We booked a marina view room and were upgraded at check in to a honeymoon suite. The room was 301 and it was VERY nice. It was located all the way on the back corner on the marina/adult pool side. Third floor is top where we were out on the edge. It was nice and quiet up there. The balcony opened toward a building but to the left was the ocean and it wrapped around to the right to the marina view with a Jacuzzi. There was no couch/small table like in other rooms, but we had a big window ledge that could be used to sit.

Other room designs our party had were 2 queen beds with a small couch and coffee table, one had a tub/shower combo with just one sink, most were a king bed with the small couch and coffee table. Only one person had issues with the drainage in the shower, they just rolled a towel where the water flowed away from the drain to keep it from getting messy.

DREAMS STAFF

A+

The service at this resort was fantastic! The ONLY issue was getting multiple room keys, which was resolved in a day as previously mentioned. Every question for a concierge, room service or front desk call, or person working at the bars and restaurants were great.  I would recommend Carlos make crepes at breakfast just outside the buffet, Karlos bring your drinks on the beach, Richard aka “Ricardo” to cool you off by spraying you with soda water every time you are at the adult pool bar, Fabian to bring drinks at breakfast outside, and Eric at Oceana was our favorite!  If they do not speak good English then you get the “it’s our pleasure” reply... which got a little weird to us.

RESTAURANTS

I’ll rate each one separately. Being there 9 days we did try all of them. Overall, we were really pleased with the food.

World Café: B+

Buffet with a different theme every night of the week. The breakfast was amazing. Every morning I had a plate of bacon and some fresh crepes from outside.  However, everyone enjoyed the breakfast. Fresh omelets every morning also. Didn’t really eat there except our first night and it was seafood. My family laughed because we asked for boiled crawfish and the waiter said “sure we have, it’s our pleasure” and walked away. He didn’t have a clue what we were talking about and they didn’t have crawfish.

Seaside Grill: B-

It was kind of hit or miss depending on what you ordered. The service was a little slower. Lunch was good, supper was alright. They did have ice cream that was much better than the one at the family pool side bar during the day. Not my favorite, but the nachos were great.

El Patio: (Mexican) D

We each tried something different at our table. I really didn’t like anything about any of the food. I am a picky eater and actually got sick from trying such strange things. My husband’s salad had fried grasshoppers or crickets on the plate. The salsa was more of a bean dip. The “flutes” with duck tasted like chalk. The fajitas were good... but you can get those on room service as much as you want :o)  None of us ate here more than once.

Portofino: (sp? Italian) B+

We did all eat here more than once. It’s the only place men HAVE to wear pants to get in. I saw them turn away a man in a wheelchair for having khaki shorts on... they’re serious about it. Women can wear pretty much whatever though. The steak, salmon, and stuffed chicken were all good. The tiramisu was amazing. I asked for pizza and waiter said they didn’t have any, but when he came back he kept saying I can get you pizza in 30 minutes. I had gotten over the pizza but they went above and beyond to try and cater to us.

Barefoot Grill: A

Yummy burgers and sliders at lunch every day. They had pizza often also. This is where the fruit smoothies and crepes were made at breakfast. Very good for something quick and Americanized.

Oceana: (Adult side) A+

The tuna appetizer was great. All desserts were delicious. We came back for Mayan coffee three times. We ate here the most for out of all the supper options. Eric was our waiter almost every time and he was the BEST service we encountered anywhere we have ever been, including home!

Room Service: A

I am shocked that our group didn’t eat every buffalo chicken wing in the hotel. Also ordered lots of fajitas. The chocolate cake dessert was awesome. They do let you order plates of French fries with ketchup too =)  It was included and great once we started using it.

WEDDING COORDINATOR

B+

We had Sandra Sanchez. The only reason she does not have an A is because my flowers were wrong due to the fact that she didn’t keep the emails that we had exchanged about them. I hate roses and ended up with roses. But at that point I didn’t care.

Otherwise she was great. We walked around and chose the location for the ceremony. She ended up putting out 25 covered chairs and had champagne for us and all the guests (group total with us was 27). The cake was much larger than I anticipated (we maybe ate 1/3 of it) and SOOOOOO GOOOOOD!  We got the tres leche. I highly suggest it.

Sandra chose our ceremony songs also. We hadn’t even thought about it and they were great. She ended up choosing Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” for our kiss and walking out/cake cutting stuff.

EXCURSIONS

We kept it to a minimum this time, but did a Tulum Tour / Snorkel Extreme. If you’ve never been to ruins then I’d suggest going. The snorkeling included the underground caves and sea turtles.  Also some zip lines and repelling. It made for a fun Good Friday in Mexico.

About half of us did a Cata Maya Catamaran on Easter Sunday. WOW! I could have done that every single day. The boat was huge but there were lots of children and a few adults getting sea sick. They play good music and the ride out is about 45 minutes. You drink and dance and get pretty wet if you sit on the front. Then there was some great snorkeling where we did see more sea turtles. Back on the boat for more music and drinking. While the boat moves you can fish from the back. At the end you eat a burger, lobster, or steak. Then we dove off for a nice swim in a cove. Like I said, I could have done that every day we were there.

Pictures of my wedding day can be found here:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.573322316001.2067822.68002751&l=9f16ea67ee