Overall Resort:

Gorgeous!  From the moment we checked in and walked through the doors to the outside, I knew we were going to love it.  My husband and I don’t really think pictures do the resort justice.  It really is beautiful.

As soon as we got out of our shuttle we were greeted by the bell-boys who immediately handed us a cool, scented washcloth to refresh ourselves while they loaded our luggage onto a cart.  We then continued to the check-in desk where we the girls were given a single flower and everyone was given a fruity frozen drink.  After check-in our bell-boy led us to our room and gave us a little introduction/tour of the resort along the way.  He made sure to explain every little detail about the room and the amenities that would have available at the resort before he left.  I can honestly say that the service at the resort never failed to impress from that point on.  Their level of service there, from every aspect, was impeccable.  Really take the time to take advantage of everything they have to offer there.  You really are getting 2 resorts in one.

Restaurants:

Mo Mo Na Hana – Yummmmm…I am missing their sushi every day!!!!   :o)  This is actually where the main breakfast at ASP is every morning.  They have a buffet of everything you could imagine, as well as made to order omelet, french toast, waffle, pancake and smoothie stations.  For dinner they have an awesome asian cuisine.  When you go, you need to know that their sushi rolls come in 3 pieces, not 6, so if you want a full roll you order 2, not 1!

El Greco – Unfortunately, because of the rough weather we had off and on, El Greco was only open 4 out of the 10 days we were there :oP.  Their lunch buffet never disappointed and had a lot to offer any palate.  Their dinner menu, just like almost every restaurant, was pretty limited, but their view is awesome and the food was pretty good.  Take advantage of this place when it’s open, because even if there is a threat of a storm, they won’t open all day!!  If they are closed for weather, they will have their lunch buffet at Mo Mo Na Hana instead – same food, nowhere near the same beautiful, open atmosphere.

La Huerta – is small…we had our romantic dinner there, but did not eat from their regular menu.  My friends did and walked out on their dinner because it wasn’t cooked.  Their menu was pretty limited as well and there wasn’t really anything on the menu that made us want to eat there.  You may feel differently!!!

La Trattoria – soooooo good!!!  They always give you a small piece of brick-oven pizza for your appetizer when you first come in.  Their portions are smaller, but end up being perfect (for me anyway!). My hint for this place…don’t expect a real cannoli when you order a cannoli. Lol

Mundaca – We had our reception here.  I kind of wish we would have went back and had a regular dinner here, but we ran out of time.  The food was great and the atmosphere is nice.  The weather got bad after our wedding pictures, so I never got to see the terrace that we were originally set up on.  My guests had to catch wine glasses and plates that went flying from the wind, so they moved everything downstairs on the patio under cover!

Ventanas – You have to go here at least once and get a made-to-order personal brick oven pizza.  Very good :o) Other than the pizza though, their buffet left a bit to be desired.

La Hacienda – Mexican!!!!!  You can’t not go here at least once.  :o)  The food was great, atmosphere was fun.  They will make you flaming made-to-order guacamole to start your meal, and flaming Mexican coffee with dessert.  They had a mariachi band playing when we were there, but I think they only knew how to play “La bumba” because that is all they kept singing lol.

Room Service: 

FAILURE. :o(  This was pretty much the only negative about our entire trip.  Ourselves and our guests were all excited about being able to order room service anytime we wanted.  How nice does it sound to be able to order breakfast delivered when you don’t feel like getting out of bed, or ordering late night food when you get back from being out!?  :o not so nice after all... I can be perfectly honest in saying that I didn’t have ANY of my guests saying positive things about room service.  Expect it to take a minimum of 45minutes, and don’t expect it to be good or hot.  I ordered room service for breakfast on my wedding day…twice…and they messed it up both times.  My girls had to go pick up food from el Greco so that I could eat something before I left for the spa.  We also had the “breakfast in bed” the morning after the wedding and it wasn’t even edible.  I even gave breakfast a 3^rd try one morning when we didn’t feel like getting out of bed, and it just didn’t get better.  We were safe ordering the mini burgers and chicken nuggets…but that was about it.  If you are at the concierge level, you do get a limited room service menu from the different restaurants.  I didn’t really hear much about if that was any better or not. 
 

Bars:

The lobby bar has the best frozen margaritas!!!  (AND the strongest drinks!!!)  Faousta (sp!?) is a fabulous bartender and always makes sure you have a good time and you get drunk fast LOL.

For the first few days, we didn’t LEAVE the pool bar!  Javier is awesome, and amusing…make sure your first drink is a “Javier special” :o)

The website lists a martini bar…I have no clue where this is!? lol
 

Resort Dollars: 

I spent them…all of them…and some of my guests dollars too LOL.  We were able to use our resort dollars for the videographer, which was great.   I scheduled a massage, manicure and pedicure for my wedding day, and right now they are running a promo where you can use as many resort dollars as you want to at the spa, so I took advantage of that and scheduled a body scrub and seaweed wrap for our last day there as well.  We swam with the dolphins the morning after our wedding, which we absolutely LOVED and I would without a doubt recommend to anyone!  We DID buy the pictures for the dolphin swim, but do NOT pay full price for them!!  There were 3 of us and we got all of our pictures plus our DVD and a free frame for the lowest price on their price sheet ($99) – this package is originally almost $400 and there is no way we would have paid that.  We just kind of hung out and waited and they just kept coming over with better offers.   The last thing we used our resort dollars on was for the romantic lobster dinner that they offer.  We were pretty disappointed with this at first because the weather was bad and as a result El Greco wasn’t open, and we couldn’t have our dinner by the water like they had promised us.  Instead, they put us inside at La Huerta right next to 6 other couples who were having the same dinner – not real romantic or private.  I was further disappointed by the fact that only 1 of the 6 tables had cute swans in the shape of a heart on their table and a nice setup with a bottle of champagne, and the rest of us just got red napkins.  Having said that though, after getting over the fact that we just spend $350 of our resort dollars on a regular dining atmosphere, the food was phenomenal.  You get a nice shrimp salad to start, followed by a cream of water crest soup (sounds bad..but was SO good), then your filet and lobster tail and finished by a nice chocolate mousse for dessert.

In addition to the resort dollars I spent of my own, I actually ended up being able to take advantage of some of my guests’ dollars as well.  My mother-in-law scheduled a spa package for the morning of her departure, and didn’t end up wanting to go.  She gave me her form and I ended up going for her and getting another wrap and facial.  Then, a few days later, I also use my Mom’s resort dollars to get my hair done for my TTD session!  In the end, whether you schedule an appointment under their name or have your guest schedule it themselves, all you need to have is the paper receipt and they won’t ask any questions.  Just be prepared to be called that person’s name during your appointment lol.

One thing to note…if your guests are looking for things to spend their resort dollars on, there are other things not listed that you can use them towards.  My brother got a 3-bottle gift pack of tequila for $100 resort dollars, you can get a gift pack of spa products for $299 resort dollars, and I had A LOT of guests use it for a 30 minute photography shoot!  The packages range in price, and they are sometimes negotiable.  My parents went to them and didn’t have enough for their lowest package (I believe it was $400 for a 30 minute session, 8 prints and all images on a disc), and they just gave them a few less prints and the same package for whatever dollars they had left.  They take you all around the resort and do a nice photo shoot.  I saw a lot of their pictures and they were all really nice.

Spa/Salon:  As I mentioned above, I had the opportunity to have 8 different services at the spa/salon and was very happy with everything.   I had 3 different therapists at the spa and every one of them was amazing.  The only problem I would say both myself and my girls had was with the language barrier between us and the hair stylists.  I would definitely suggest if you or your girls are going to have your hair done there that you bring an exact picture of what you want.  All together we had 5 people getting their hair done on my wedding day and not one of the stylists spoke English.  The one stylist actually had a bit of a hissy fit in front of my bridesmaid because she couldn’t understand what she wanted her to do.  Regardless of that though, they did all do a great job and everyone’s hair turned out exactly how they wanted it.  The stylist I had for my TTD session even did a great job matching my wedding hair from a few days prior (done by my sister-in-law) … and I only had a cell phone picture for her!

Other:

Playacar Palace – the day before our wedding, 10 of us took the complimentary shuttle to Playa del Carmen to visit Playacar Palace.  The shuttle picks you up at 8:50am and brings you back around 4pm.  Playacar was pretty, and if you are a beach person I would definitely suggest taking the day trip!  It was nice to lay on the beach and swim in the ocean, as well as get into Playa Del Carmen for a little for some shopping and “culture”.  Playacar is small, and the food was very limited in the time that we were there.  I definitely couldn’t see spending more than 1 – 2 days there, and it made us love ASP that much more.  Senor Frogs is literally right next door, so you could go there for a little mid-day fun!  We didn’t go, mainly because we just wanted to enjoy the beach.  We left playacar around 3 and took the last hour to walk around the town of playa del Carmen.  I don’t really know that you’d need much more time than that.  It started getting a little sketchy towards the end lol.

XPlor – We did some research about the different eco-parks in the area and ended up deciding on Xplor for one of our day trips.  We are so glad that we did.  It was a bit overpriced for only having 4 overall activities, but the shuttle picked us up at 9am and brought us back at 5pm, and we actually only had enough time to do each activity once and get lunch.  This park has 2 zip-lining courses, 2 “ATV” courses, 2 paddleboat/raft cave courses (did not care for the manual paddling of this!!) a river/cave swim (this was one of our favorite things) and an all-inclusive juice bar and lunch buffet.  Everyone wears helmets here and your helmet has a chip in it that allows cameras all over the park to recognize you and take your picture.  At the end you can go and purchase the pictures that were taken of you during all of the activities.  We thought for spending the whole day there we would have more pictures than we did, but we bought them anyway.  You pay $45 for 1 person’s pictures and $75 for 2 people’s pictures.  When I think back we shouldn’t have bought the pictures for 2 people because all but 2 or 3 of our pictures were together anyway..

Xpu-Ha Palace – There isn’t transportation here, but it is only about a 5-10 min. ($9) cab ride.  We were going to go for a day, but two of my guests went and were back within a few hours.  When they arrived a worker took them on a golf-cart tour of the resort and told them it was only at about 20% occupancy.  They said they didn’t see ANYONE but workers the whole time they were there.  They said the animals were fun to see and they borrowed the bicycles there and went for a ride, but they said there really wasn’t much to see and that you could really see it all in about 2 hours.  We were so busy towards the end that we just didn’t think it was worth going based on what they had said about it.  We might go next time we visit.

And last but CERTAINLY not least….

Our Wedding Events:

The morning after we arrived, we had our wedding meeting with Wilma.  I have to start out by saying she is absolutely adorable and was one of the nicest people I have ever met.  Since we had already picked most of my things in advance, she spent most of the time going over everything I had picked and how it would all pan out.  I definitely suggest going for a walk around the resort and seeing the places you originally chose, just to make sure it is what you really want.  I thought for sure I wanted the Coba gazebo, but when I saw the Chichen Gazebo I knew I wanted to change.  There were 7 weddings on my wedding day and it was still available, so there is definitely still going to be time to change your mind.  I also expressed concerns about the fact that the Pandero Terrace has no top to it whatsoever, and she quickly showed me how we could still work out the decorations that I had planned on.  She took all of our decorations, made copies of all of our documents and our witnesses’ documents, and we had our blood work done.  We ended up being charged a $65 flat decoration fee, which at first I didn’t want to pay for, but in the end just dealt with because we didn’t feel like hanging our own lanterns or tying our own chair sashes.  Because I already had my own bouquets, she gave us a beautiful altar display instead.

Our first event was the welcome cocktail party.  I thought I was going to change the location of it because of how unhappy I was with the new look of the Pandero Terrace, but we kept it there and it ended up working out fine.  We chose the Mexican menu and everything was really good.  Wilma couldn’t be there, so another coordinator came instead and she was there almost the whole time.  The party was at 5pm and the sun was still pretty strong, she noticed all of my guests hovering under the one umbrella, so she brought a few more out to give us a little more shade.  The servers made sure that all of our guests always had a clear table and a drink in their hand :o).  We hired the Mexican Trio for a little musical entertainment.  We really enjoyed them and it was definitely nice to have a little music in the background.  I was disappointed when they up and left 15 minutes before our cocktail hour ended, and was told later that the music is only for 45 minutes, not an hour – which didn’t really make sense to me seeing as I hired them for my cocktail HOUR, but oh well.  I do believe the price was a bit steep for only 45 minutes, but we didn’t argue and did in the end enjoy having them there regardless.

Wilma called me on Friday to let me know the room number of the suite she reserved for me for Saturday. (I do believe you have to specifically ask for this in order to get it…I’m not sure if it is something they will outright offer you, but you can definitely have one for your wedding day if you ask for it!)  I picked up the key from the front desk around 11am on my wedding day, and called the bell-boy from my room to pick me and my things up to take me over to the suite.  The suites are AWESOME!  I told my husband that next time we go I would absolutely love to stay in one!  They have their own living room, dining room, kitchen, etc. and the balcony is 3 times the size of the regular rooms! 

Anyway…Wilma gave me a suite that was directly across from the wedding gazebo, so I could watch them setting everything up and eventually see my groom arrive.  I am so glad she did that for the sole reason that they actually did my setup wrong :oP.  At the Chichen Gazebo, the alter is actually off to the left from the entrance (its not straight on like the others).  I knew about that before I went to the wedding meeting and asked Wilma to set everything up so that the aisle runner and chairs were straight with the altar, NOT the entrance.  She even drew a diagram out just to be sure that everything I wanted was clear.  When the day came, the workers set it up straight with the entrance instead of how we agreed to have it.  Luckily I saw it and my father and one bridesmaid went out and straightened everything out.  Small stress…over in no time!  Wilma then arrived with my stunning altar bouquet, my photographer showed up and I was ready to get dressed!  Wilma showed up to the room shortly after, picked up my bridesmaids and came back with the horse and carriage!  I was right around the corner from the gazebo, but the ‘driver’ took us for a really nice ride around the resort before taking me and my dad back to the gazebo to start the wedding walk.  I actually changed the chichen gazebo for a few reasons – (1) it is the only gazebo that is completely open to the air – at the coba, there is a clear glass wall ½ way up, and the tulum has a white fencing wall ½ way up…(2) the chichen gazebo has a beautiful wooden bridge/walkway that leads you to the gazebo.  As soon as I saw it I thought it was a beautiful walkway to enter the wedding.  Our wedding went off without a hitch (unless you count the fact that our sand ceremony frame clogged up and we couldn’t really do it lol) and 15 minutes later we were married, toasting champagne and ready for pictures!  We had the harpist for the ceremony, and while I don’t remember hearing it AT ALL (I had tunnel vision lol) everyone said it was beautiful. 

We got married at 5pm and scheduled dinner for 6:30, and we were still 45 minutes late!!  I felt like our picture time just flew, and we didn’t even get in all of the shots I would have liked to.  Regardless of us being so late, I don’t think our guests really minded.  They all had drinks and appetizers while they waited at the restaurant, and we showed up shortly after.  Our dinner was at Mundaca, and it was delicious!  We ordered a tres leches cake with a Chantilly icing (like butter cream) and it was soooooooo good!  It had white chocolate shells and starfish on it and was perfect for what we wanted :o).  This was included with the complimentary package.

Overall I was SO thrilled with how everything relating to our wedding went and wouldn’t change it for the world!  We are already planning our 1 year anniversary trip back here!

Videographer:

We didn’t meet him or speak to him at all, but we were very happy with our video!  We got married on a Saturday and picked up the video at 5pm on Thursday.  Because we hired the harpist for the ceremony, we were able to use harp music for the video.  We did bring a cd of songs for the video but only ended up choosing one song to play while the videographer showed clips of our photography shoot.

Photographer:

We hired an outside photographer, even though the resort claims you may not hire outside vendors.  I just simply told Yesenia who we were hiring and she made a note of it and set up a day-pass charge for him to come in.  We hired Octavio Montes and I am beyond thrilled with how our pictures have turned out.  He is one of the most affordable outside photographers that you will find and he works extremely hard for you to get the perfect shot – climbing over rocks and getting in the water.  He prides himself on getting the perfect shot without having to spend hours with photo editing programs, which I love.  I will be writing a separate review for him on his vendor page :o)

Feel free to PM me if you'd like to see pictures and/or our DVD!  I have plenty to share, but here are a few of our favorites!