We got married at Sandos Playacar on July 23rd, 2010 and if I had to do it all over again, I'd choose Sandos over and over!  It was everything we dreamed!

Resort

Overall

We had 28 total in our party, ranging in age from 2 to 82 and everyone had a wonderful time!  The resort is located just a few minutes from downtown Playa del Carmen.  It's close enough to enjoy town anytime you want and far enough away to have the most beautiful beachfront in all of Playa del Carmen.  Sandos is located at the southernmost end of Playacar and there is nothing but empty beachfront next to the resort.  It makes for some gorgeous pictures! 

We picked this resort first for location and second because the resort prices and wedding package prices were so reasonable.  If I had to do it all over, regardless of price, I’d pick Sandos again and again for my wedding.  We loved our stay there so much that we’re already planning a second trip!

Check-in

They greeted us with the best mojito I've ever had....need I say more!

Rooms

We stayed on the beach side in an oceanfront room.  I had a chance to peek in all sorts of rooms at Sandos and I liked what I saw.  Now, there are 3 different sections of this resort:  the Beach side, Riviera side and the Hacienda suites.  I can’t speak for the Hacienda suites because I didn’t see the rooms, but I can tell you that they are located in the middle of the resort and include maybe 8 rooms at the most (I believe some have less) and each include their own private pool.  My brother and SIL stayed there and even after seeing the Beach and Riviera rooms….chose to stay in their Hacienda room.  So, the Beach side is the hub of all the activity at the resort and is closest to the beach.  Most of the restaurants are on this side.  I thought the rooms were perfect….with a great authentic Mexican feel and gorgeous bathrooms….although some people in my party complained of the mattress being really firm.  (I never noticed, to be honest).  I saw the rooms on the Riviera side too….they were gorgeous….very modern, very new.   The Riviera side felt like you were on a different resort, which sounds negative, but it was really a great thing.  On days when we wanted a quieter pool with less kids…we went to the Riviera pools.  The only negative is that it is a lot further away from the beach and all the entertainment.  Now, considering how much food we ate, that was probably a good thing to do a little walking!!  

Food

Delicious!  I've been craving the stuffed avocado in the Brazilian Steakhouse ever since we got back.  There is such a variety of restaurants to choose from:  the Italian buffet and the International buffet, then the a la carte restaurants, there is the Asian restaurant, Steakhouse, Mexican restaurant, French restaurant, Mediteranean, and Brazilian Steakhouse.  We were there for 13 days and I never got tired of any of the food and wish we had more days to go back to a few! There was always a huge variety in the buffets and the service in all the restaurants was exceptional.

Wedding

Wedding Coordinator

We had Maria Isabel and just fell in love with her.  She was our angel and truly the one who made our day, no our entire stay, a dream come true. Maria went above and beyond and then even further to do everything she could to accommodate my entire group.  And this wasn't just because we were getting married there....this is just the service you can expect at Sandos.  Maria and I exchanged many many e-mails before our arrival, with me changing my mind quite a few times and she had record of all of it!  I had e-mails printed out and stuff saved on an external drive....there was no need.  She handled everything perfectly and worked hard to do whatever we asked for. 

Photographer

La Luna photographed our wedding and I will never ever be able to give them enough praise for the amazing pictures they took.  I never knew you could capture such emotion on film!  They were wonderful to work with and the quality of their work blew me away!

Our slideshow speaks for itself:  http://lalunaphotographers.com/blog/slideshows/072310_tracy_steven_wedding

The big day!!

Our wedding was at 3pm and I was in the pool until Noon when I had to get out to get my hair done.  It sounds crazy now, but we were having too much fun.  Our photographers showed up at 2pm and I was no where close to being ready.  It was pretty comical, actually, and Melissa from La Luna was just great through all the chaos.  It's funny because we were there 13 days and it rained at some point every day except the day of our wedding.  PHEW!  At the time I kept thinking it was raining a lot, but that's just because I was hypersensitive to it.  It would maybe rain for 15 minutes and then be done, but regardless....not one drop of rain on the big day.  And hot, very hot.  But I didn't complain as I'd rather be hot and sweaty on the beach getting married than raining and under a roof!

We did a civil ceremony and it went off with a hitch, except for the fact that we didn't know we were supposed to prepare our own vows.  Ooops!  I'm not sure Maria knew this either or she definitely would have warned us.  We were caught off guard and couldn't think fast enough on the spot to come up with anything, so we basically didn't say vows.  Oh, that sounds so much worse when I'm typing that.  It was actually pretty funny and we ended up saying our own private vows when we were by ourselves. 

I have to mention the unbelievable job Sandos does for the actual ceremony.  They have security keeping guard on the beach to make sure our view to the water was unobstructed by onlookers and there wouldn't be any sunbathers in the pictures.  I didn't even know they would do this, but I was amazed!  I personally didn't mind onlookers and in fact, we even took pictures with some, but I know this is an issue for lots of brides. 

After the ceremony, we were followed by the mariachi trio (loved them!) into La Bambola where we had our cocktail hour.  It was amazing.  There was another ceremony at 5:30 that day, otherwise we would have stayed on the beach for this.  I actually preferred what we did much better!  We did our toasts, danced to the mariachi, and then went off with our wonderful photographers Melissa and Jonathon from La Luna to do our beach shoot.  Just amazing as you can see from the slideshow! 

By the time we were done, it was time to eat at the Italian Buffet.  Delicious!  I was told the other wedding was there as well, but honestly, I never saw them and it's not that big of a place.  They did a great job of keeping us apart, obviously. 

After dinner, we had our reception at the Royal Palapa where we danced and had our cake.  It was beautiful and intimate and right on the beach.  We stayed there until 10:30ish.  Those of us that were still not done for the night headed over to the disco.  On the way to the disco, you have to pass the area where the nightly entertainment is.  And that night, there was a band playing.  Well, somehow I ended up on stage and there are late night pics of me singing along with the band.  It was so much fun and I don't think I'd ever have the courage to do that if it weren't for the wedding dress.  LOL! 

We owe a huge thank you to Sandos for giving us the wedding of our dreams!!