My (now) husband and I first had the idea of having a desintation wedding after spending a glorious week at Sun Palace in Cancun back in April 2011. We had the most amazing time and were absolutely blown away with the exceptional level of service that Palace resorts provided. When our time to get married came, we did a lot of serious research (as in multiple pages of excel spreadsheets with numerous catagories) and partnered with Destination Weddings to help us decide. After going back & forth between several different resorts, we settled on Playaca Palace and are so thrilled that we did! I am writing this after just returning, as in we got back last night, thats how happy I was with the whole experience. So here goes!

Overall Hotel Review:

4.8 out of 5 stars

I've read alot of reviews about how Playacar is an older resort, which is in fact true. The overall maintenance and care that the staff and management put into upkeep and general maintenance is impeccible. We stayed there for 10 days and saw work going on throughout our stay, although none of it affected any of the activities or general operation of the resort. Just painting, cleaning, adjusting of this and that, but there was an obvious effort of constant care. It truly paid off because Playacar Palace is really a beautiful resort.

The lobby has a gorgeous rock/water garden and is open air. There is a very peaceful Zen Garden on the first floor where we had our first look. There are hammocks to sit and swing, read, or sip a drink. We booked a Superior Ocean View room and declined upgrading. Several guests booked resort view rooms and they were actually larger then ours. All the rooms were very nice but there did seem to be some "unfair" selection of the room levels/ grades. We did have 2 people get concierege level, and even their rooms were not similar, as in one was much larger then the other with a superior view. Thankfully we didn't care about our room too much- we were barely in it!

The Spa

The spa was truly a magical place. My husband had never really been to an actual spa before and was blown away. The renovations they did are amazing! I had both the hot stone massage and the holistic massage (both were fantastic- I used to work at a Massage Envy and have become a very discerning spa patron- LOVED IT!!!!), as well as a mani/pedi. My husband had the deep tissue and felt like butter afterwards. I accidentally messed up both my hands and feet when leaving the mani/pedi appt and they were so nice about the touch-ups

Food

Our group was a total of 25, with my husbands family being a large, very foodie, Italian family, and my family including several vegans (yeah, crazy to bring to an all-inclusive- I know!) and those with dietary needs. The food was very good! From the general buffet, the poolside bar, japanese (sushi & habachi) and the fine italian restaurant, we were really impressed with the overall food choices and standard of quality. And most importantly, there was something that worked for everyone. The food at our wedding was really good- I wish I could comment further but I honestly barely ate anything :( But the cake- oh the cake!!! We had the vanilla with chanitilly lace, and I can honestly say that it was the best cake I've ever had! That cake would easily be found at a high end bakery in NYC. Even though there were only a few places to eat, it only really got boring at the tale end of the trip (we were there for 10 days...)

Wedding Planning Process

Like I mentioned before, our wedding was booked with the assistance of Destination Weddings. I can't comment on dealing with the resort directly because we had an intermediary, which was totally worth the $50 spent. When we decided on Playacar Palace, there were some unique factors that affected our decision (handicap accessible and kid friendly). The hotel was really fast at answering our questions regarding these needs compared to others and gave them a real leg-up over the other places we were considering. After we signed our contract, we were partnered with Abril in their wedding planning department. I give Abril a 4 out of 5 star rating. In the first months of planning, we got a response from her like clock work within 48-72hrs. If she didn't have an answer, we would at least get an email saying that she was still working on an answer. We even had a few phone calls with her to get more details on a few things since we weren't able to do a site visit. We signed our contract w PP in Nov. 2012 and in the time that we signed to our acutal wedding, May 2014, Palace resorts changed some things. They started throwing around off site vendor fees and brought in their own flowers, none of which they properly addressed to us and we played dumb. I actually read more about the changes going on there on this site then I heard from them. That being said, we did prepare our budget in the event these charges were to be billed, but managed to get by without them being billled! My biggest complaint with the planning process was In the last 2 months of the planning, we stopped getting any responses. I would email Abril and then again, and then again, and not hear anything back. I even had our planner from Destination Weddings reach out to her and she was told that Abril would be contacting us that afternoon, only not to hear anything at all. If I had a bridezilla moment at all, it was during this period of silence, mainly because our contracts & payments were coming due and we just weren't getting any answers. I ended up calling the wedding dept at Palace myself and was told that our wedding was "in transition" from the corporate office to the resort planner. That is all fine, but going almost 3 weeks without a single response is not cool. When we finally did hear from Abril, it was an email saying that we had 72hrs to submit payment for all our wedding details/orders. That did not go over well with my (then) fiance at all! Even our Destination Weddings planner was very unhappy.  Mainly we had been trying to get some questions/ changes cleared up in the prior 3 weeks that were still unanswered and the only response we were getting from the resort was "Pay us now!" After 2 1/2 super stressful days, we got all the answers and changes taken care of, but that still left a bad taste in my mouth about the whole process. So much so, that I was less inclinded to work with the resort coordinator, Laura, who ended up being super amazing (Laura gets 4.5 out of 5 stars)! We met with Laura 3 days before the wedding and went over all the details we had in mind. Even though we filled out pages and pages of details and submitted it to Abril months ago, we started from scratch sitting with her. Thankfully I had put together a mini checklist for her on how I wanted certain decour set-up that I had brought (she said it would be $100 set-up fee; never got billed for that) and the reception was set up perfectly! Because there were multiple weddings going on the weekend we got married, there was a small snafu with our vows not being handed to the officiant, but it was quickly resolved and turned into a funny and memorable moment from the ceremony. (The officiant actually was super cool and handled this glitch without blinking an eye. She threw in a few extra readings on love and marriage and it was just beautiful. We didn't meet her before hand, just literally as we were getting married and I think I would have picked her anyway if I had the chance to choose!) We had also booked our photographer back in 2012, Ivan Luckie of Luckie Photography (reviewing seperately), and were able to get him and his assistant onsite with just the day passes. We just never mentioned the photographer or offsite vendor fee to anyone and they let them on without any questions. Palace Resorts seems really big about pushing these fees on you, but I got the impression it was more so for the DJ and decor vendors then anything else. We did go with JSAV and I'll be reviewing them seperately (they were great!!!) and Zuniga for decor. Flowers were through Flores Rivieria (also reviewing seperately) and they were really good to work with too! Hair & make-up was through Styling Trio, came highly recommeded by Ivan Luckie, and are a preferred vendor of Palace Resorts. I will also be reviewing them seperately but I was blown away by what an amazing job they did for everyone!

Credits

After staying at Sun Palace a few years back, we were familiar with the resort credits and benefits that Palace resorts provides to it's guests. That also was a big factor for us to give our guests a chance to enjoy their vacation and also get off the resort. The day before the wedding we took a group of 18 on the Cozumel Total Tour, where we snorkeled and learned about sting rays (the non-dangerous kind!) and everyone had a fantastic time. We encouraged our guests to book spa appts in advance and almost everyone had a chance to get a massage or treatment of some sort. Plus, the credits for wine upgrades was used to the fullest by my father and the FOG, among others. Just having that little extra available to our guests really paid off and was truly appreciated by all.

Location

When choosing our resort, the beach was key for us. To drag all our friends and family down to Mexico to sit by a pool was not in the cards for us and truly, the beach at Playacar Palace is gorgeous! I was told by our photog that he's worked all up and down the coast of Playa del Carmen and that our beach was the best. I totally agree from what I saw myself walking up and down. Unknowingly, Playacar is located at the southern most tip of "5th Avenue", which makes it super easy to know if you are close to the hotel or not, because it literally takes you right hotel. It's about 26 blocks of pure shoppers paradise and cars only can drive on the cross streets, not the main drag. Senior Frogs is accesible from the beach and is right next to the hotel. I didn't hear any complaints about the noise from the bar, but I can understand it could be disruptive to some. For the ferry, it is right next to Senior Frogs, making it very accessible for a day trip to Cozumel & Cozumel Palace. About a block or 2 in the opposite direction is a small park with some mayan ruins. We used this area for pictures and it was also realy neat to explore. The ride to/from Cancun airport is about 45 mins, a little long, but its straight highway.

Advice to future brides

We got married on a Friday and there was another wedding that day as well. Acutally there were 2 weddings on Thurs, 2 Fri, 2 Sat and 2 on Sunday. Of all the days there were weddings, Sunday was the most calm in regards to having people on beach. We changed our wedding location from the beach to the wedding terrace and for a Friday, it worked out well. On Sunday, hardly anyone outside of resort guests were on the beach, meaning less bystanders or random men in speedos (j/k- but you get the point) in the background of your pictures. We had the reception on the beach deck and it was beautiful and perfect. At night you can see Cozumel lit up across the water and it serves as a beautiful background.

Overall, we really had a fantastic time at Playacar Palace. We've only heard wonderful things from our guests about their stay and it feels so surreal that it is all over. We wanted a wedding in paradise and got so much more!