Lolo's (Linda) Azul Sensatori wedding review March 3,2010

Lolo’s (Linda) Azul Sensatori wedding review

I want to start off by saying that nothing is ever perfect and we have to remember why we are getting married….

Our time at Sensatori was overall wonderful and I am glad we chose this resort.

The resort itself is very beautiful and clean. Our guests kept saying how beautiful and clean it was. The rooms are also very nice, we had a few problems with our room (a/c was noisy and toilet kept clogging up) but we finally decided to complain and were upgraded to premium for our last 3 days. Wish I had complained sooner! All of the toilets in the resort were being replaced; guess they had a lot of issues. Hopefully by the time anyone else goes there it will be taken care of.

The food at the resort is also very good. Lots of variety, but I didn’t like that you could not eat at a restaurant between 3:30 and 5:30 as they close to prepare for dinner.( Room service is available)

Le Chique restaurant is reservation ONLY. They were booked up for the first week of our stay so we went week 2. Some of our guests did not get to try this restaurant and that is a shame. If you like fine cuisine and are up for something DIFFERENT try Le Chique. We loved it!!!!(Some of my family did not; they were still hungry and had to eat at another place) Reserve your spot the day you arrive!!!! It is worth the wait. It is also beautiful inside.

The rest of the restaurants are great but nothing that was amazing. The Italian was a family favorite.

The service at the resort is complicated…

The first week we were there we were not very thrilled with the service we received, by waiters and bartenders. (A lot of people complained) However the second week was awesome.

There were 30 people with us and we were kind of a rowdy bunch, so I guess they figured they didn’t need to serve us well. Drink service by the pool was s.l.o.w…. At the wave bar the bartenders seemed annoyed to serve us….At mojito lounge the bartenders wanted TIPS to make us shooters, and the servers were slow.

The restaurant servers were good but nothing exceptional.

However the second week was amazing….we got to know some of the staff and then we were gold!! A few staff in particular was very good to us. So if you don’t pay too much attention to them, they will do the same to you. (Not ideal, but the way it is) Once we got to know Merle (beach &pool server) our drinks came a lot faster! Victor at Wave bar didn’t let us finish our drinks before bringing us new ones. So make fast friends with some staff and you will be treated like gold!

We were told that a new manager was hired and he was “cleaning "up the resort. (Some staff did get fired for bad service while we were there) So hopefully they can find excellent staff that will be there for years and give excellent service to guests.

Housekeeping was excellent. Esperanza is very gifted at towel art.

Juan, our concierge, was great. He helped us out in every way.

The entertainment at the resort is a bit cheesy….it’s the same group singing every night different “themesâ€â€¦.it was something to do before we went dancing.

The live band in Mojito lounge is great, but they repeat the same songs every night…..

AND there is no disco, just the live band at Mojito lounge. So there is no D.J playing at all anywhere. (I asked this question many times and did not get an answer)

Our wedding coordinators were very nice…..we were not very picky so it all went smoothly.

You may want to force the rehearsal for the ceremony though. We were pretty laid back and Elena told us we didn’t need to rehearse, she would tell everyone what to do. But since everyone is pretty emotional and nervous the day of the wedding, it would have been nice to have practiced going down the steep ramp(we had a couple of near wipe-outs that do make the video kind of funny) They all told me they wished they had rehearsed to take some of the nerves away.

The Ceremony was at 4pm and was beautiful. The minister did a lovely job and we really liked the words in her ceremony (we didn’t really remember it, we were so nervous and excited) since we had a secret legal ceremony at home that we customized, we let the Mexican minister do her own thing. The sand ceremony lacked a bit of personalizing. She did not speak at all as we poured the sand. The ceremony was beautiful regardless of the imperfections.

4 pm does not leave a lot of time for pics before sunset though so 3 pm would be ideal.

The reception had a bit of issues…but we made the best of it.

We needed a screen for our slideshow (had our own projector) the place they rent projectors from does not rent out the screen separately. So they tied a sheet up so we could use it as a screen, it was nice they did what they could to make us happy.

We decided to cheap out and not get the amp with microphone (brought our own sound system) DO NOT DO THIS!!! Pay the $250 and get theirs!!!

We thought that with only 30 people we didn’t need the mic….you do need the mic. It’s outside and it is hard to hear any speeches unless it is very quiet. The way they set up the tables at Zavas plaza is quite spread out, so please get the mic if you want your guests to hear any speeches being made. (And the one giving the speech won’t have to yell)

And we had issues with the power…..we had a laptop, projector and sound system all plugged in to their extension cord. It was too much…the power was not enough to keep it all going. The music kept cutting out and we could not turn it up too loud or it was horrible. Maybe a slideshow is not the way to go…..

The Mexican cocktail hour was wonderful, everyone said there was too much food and they hadn’t had dinner yet!

Surf and turf dinner was amazing!!! We all loved it. The lobster was cooked very well. The desert was 3 kinds of chocolate and raspberry sauce…yummm. Beware…we got the petit cake for 2 in our package and they served it to us as our desert. I was not happy with this; I wanted 3 kinds of chocolate! They got us our desert very quickly before I could make a scene  I was very happy with it.

And then the weather decided not to cooperate. It was an unusually cold night in Mexico, so cold that our guests were disappearing to go to their rooms to warm up!! We spoke to the manager and after a heated discussion we were able to go to the ballroom and our 2 waiters served us there. My groom had to get angry before they would agree to this though. They should have had an alternate venue available in case of something like this, and we should not have had to get angry before finding a solution. It was not our dream reception but in the end we had fun and everyone was warm.

So just remember nothing is perfect and may not happen the way we have always dreamed it would…..but in the end I married the love of my life and our friends and family were there to share it with us!!

The memories we choose to remember are perfect!

A note about photography and video: The day goes by so fast and you don’t remember all of the details so I highly recommend having a video capture the day. We had a friend do this for us; it’s not professional but has most of the day captured. Speeches are great to video so you can hear them again.

And our photographer was AMAZING!!!! Our photos are very beautiful and not traditional. (He’s also a great guy) Jon Rennie out of Toronto. I highly recommend him!!

I will share all photos once I receive the final product.

Overall we had a wonderful wedding and stay at Sensatori. When can we do it again ?? 

Lolo, it sounds like in spite of some hiccups, you really had a truly wonderful wedding! Good for you being so positive and taking it all in stride!! Thank you for sharing

thank you so much for the review. I am considering the sensatori for our wedding and the info is so helpful. Congrats!!

hey Lolo!

brilliant of you to post such an open and honest review. i think it's good for future brides to know there are things that won't be how they imagined, but your day will still turn out perfect.

congratulations again!

Lolo thanks for the review! You were a super cool bride and I wish you and hubby all the best!!!

Thanks for the review. This is one of the resorts on my short list!

What a great review! future brides of that resort will be grateful for your honesty.

Thanks for the review. Sorry to hear about all the issues you had to deal with. But sounds like you still had a great time. I am worry about all the issues that might come up. I guess there is no reason to stress out about it till the problem actually occurs.

Congratulations!

Chong

Thank you for the review as well as being candid! Nothing like an honest review to help you keep your expectations in persepctive. Thank you!