Meredith's Review on Azul Sensatori; Wedding Nov 12, 2010 (VERY LONG!!)

I want to start off by saying that I had a blast. From what I understand, all of my guests had a great time also. I wouldn’t have changed resorts knowing how well everything would come together. We've actually been asked to plan a trip for next year since everyone had such a great time. I will say that the week did have its hiccups, but looking back on it all I went in with the mindset that something would go wrong and I wound not freak out about it. So, when things did go wrong I just took in all in stride.  

Arrival/Transportation

When we first arrived at the resort we were greeted with champagne and cold towels to freshen up. Everyone was very nice. The trip to the resort from Cancun airport was 20 minutes approx.  Don't be alarmed when you go off the main road to get to the resort. It's pretty much trees only along the way and some of my guests were confused for a little while when their vans turned off the main street. When they get to the resort their minds will be put at ease though. 

While I'm on this subject, we had transfers included in the price of our rooms through our TA. Our transfers were provided by American Express which I HIGHLY recommend. Only if it's just to put your guests at ease about the fact that Amex is a well known company. They were efficient, on-time and friendly. There is an Amex agent in the lobby of the resort daily from 8am-12pm and his name is Marco Arzate. He is extremely friendly and will make things happen for you. We went at the last minute to ask if he had a shuttle to Cancun and he basically not only gave us a private bus (must be a minimum of 30 people for $15/pp) he got us a tour of Cancun with a man named Martin who was amazing. The resort provides a shuttle if this service is not available for the same price, but this experience was very different.

We went on the resort shuttle to Playa Del Carmen we were dropped off and picked up at the same place, there were set times for how long we were able to stay out there. When we went to Cancun (set up through Amex), we were able to pick our stops (up to 3) and Martin, who does this as a hobby, not only gave us some history about Cancun and the surroundings, but he also stopped with us and gave us a tour of the Tequila Factory in one of the malls in Cancun. He got off the bus and gave us background on tequila and even taught us the "proper" way to drink it. It was definitely unexpected and I think all of our guests appreciated that he went above and beyond. 

Ok, back to the resort..... 

Rooms
Our room was great we had no problems with it. When we got there, my surprise from my husband was an upgrade to the honeymoon suite. We stayed in a luxury junior suite for two nights and the honeymoon suite for 4 nights. He had only paid for 3 nights, but since it was available, Marco (front desk manager that I highly recommend) gave us the room for an extra night for free. I will say that the difference in the rooms was minor, but the balcony of the honeymoon suite was larger than the room itself, so it was great for entertaining. We had parties out there a couple of nights. Plus, they have the best view because they are the closest to the water.

Some of our guests did have problems with their rooms. Some of them didn’t have working air so either had to be moved or had to call maintenance. One room flooded a little and my cousin’s cell phone was damaged from the water. She brought her issue to the front desk manager (Angelica) who was apparently rude to her and refused to do anything about her phone. So, she wasn’t a happy camper, but overall still had a great time despite all of that. This was a solitary incident, though. That was the only issue that I heard of anyone encountering a rude employee.

Housekeepingwas amazing. We tipped her because she was so good. We left jewelry out accidentally and she didn't touch it.

Room service was shoddy. If you want something, the minimum wait time is 30 minutes. A couple times we had to call back to see where our food was. One time we ordered at 1:30am and it didn't come until 2:40am, needless to say we were asleep and it all went to waste. One time they forgot half of our order. All in all, it was a perk we enjoyed and miss now despite the mishaps.

Restaurants
I didn’t get a chance to eat at Siena or Tapaz. We kept going to Spoon for some reason which I don’t recommend. The food isn’t the problem, I just felt like I missed out on eating at the other restaurants. My favorite was Zavaz, the Caribbean restaurant.  IMO they had the best food and service. Zocalo was just ok but I only went for lunch. From what I hear, Siena had the best dessert. 

LeChique
If you want reservations at LeChique, they only take reservations between 3-5pm and their closed on Sunday. One thing no one told me was that the most people they will seat together is 6 and I think that's only with the upgrade. Its $95/pp for a 14 course meal and premium wine pairing. If not its free for an 8 course meal and the wine pairing is $35/pp or the premium wine pairing is $45/pp. We got a 4 person table and apparently they only have a few of those. So, if eating here is important to you, get a reservation ASAP and know who you want to sit with you. We basically had to have 6 people make reservations for about 14 of us that were able to go. You cannot make a reservation without a room number and you can’t make more than one reservation.

The service was so so. Our waiter had the table of 6 that upgraded their dinner, so he paid a lot more attention to them. We were there about 3 hrs for our 8 courses. Each course was interesting to say the least. I only didn't like a couple elements of a course or two but I do recommend it for the experience.

Wedding Coordinators
When we arrived, we got our appointment. We had Francisco and girl whose name starts with an N. I want to say her name is Natalie but that doesn’t seem right. As you can see, we dealt with the guy more than the girl. They were very patient and very friendly. When we got there it just so happened that our room was over Plaza Zavaz. We were able to watch a reception going on so we decided to change our reception location at the last minute. They were very accommodating with that. We had LOTS of things for them to set up. The only thing we paid for the resort to do is decorate the gazebo for the Sky Deck. Other than that we brought all of our stuff. They charge for setup based on the number of people you have. We had 40 guests so they charged us $200 for setup ($5/pp). This was a steal because like I said we gave them 3 suitcases full of stuff to setup including the material for the gazebo. We bought 40 yards of chiffon fabric and they didn’t charge us extra for that.

One thing I recommend is that if you have a distinct vision of how you want your things setup, give them pictures!! I dropped the ball on this, so I can’t really be mad at the result. Things were not setup the way I wanted them but I didn’t have time to go look at everything before the ceremony started. So, if you can, give them pics AND try to see if you can go look at everything beforehand.

Another FYI is if you have the Sky Deck and it rains, they call you 2hrs before and ask if you want to move the wedding inside. If you do, you do not get the $1700 back!! There was a couple that got married while we were there and I don’t think they had a choice to move their ceremony. It was too windy so they just couldn’t get married up there. It did rain a little every day we were there but it never really got in the way of anything. It mostly rained at night.

Wedding
I actually had a wedding coordinator in addition to the 2 the resort gave me so I can’t really comment on the flow of everything because I think my WC took over.  The only major complaint I have about the ceremony is that they put our monogrammed table runner on top of their wooden aisle runner. I have no clue why, but my aunt stepped on it and put a hole through it with her heels. So, our hopes of framing it were shattered. I also didn’t want chair covers, just sashes, but they did them anyway. Other than that, it went by without problems.

If you are having a ceremony at the Sky Deck, they recommend that you have your “welcome cocktail†after the ceremony because otherwise, your guests will have glasses in their hands during the ceremony. Why they can’t just pick up the glasses a few minutes ahead of time, I’m not sure but we had people gather early to get the cocktails but they really didn’t need to. So, we had our toasting flutes up there and we did a little toast at the end of the ceremony.

Reception
We moved our reception inside to the Ocean Room. This was good for us because it’s connected to a patio so people could choose to be inside or outside after we all ate. Plus, we had the cigar rollers so they could only smoke on the balcony. I did have some  problems with the reception.....it was too hot, they messed up our appetizer, and they didn’t bring our cake out until it was time to get cut. These are all minor in comparison to what could have gone wrong. But I just want to be completely honest so you may avoid these things if they are important to you.

We paid for an addition al appetizer which was supposed to be shrimp on herb risotto. I have to say that this is the course I was really looking forward to. Plus the fact that we paid an extra $12/pp for it I was pissed when it wasn’t what we ordered. They basically brought out shrimp on a bed of herbs and tried to tell me that the herbs were the risotto. I didn’t accept that explanation so my sister handled it and spoke to our WCs about it. Come to find out, there was an error with the translation from English to Spanish. To rectify the situation, though, Francisco (WC) said that we could use the credit that we would get to go towards spa services or send champagne and strawberries to each of our guests along with a thank you note that he typed up for us. We chose the champagne and our guests loved it!! Our other option was to wait for them to go back and forth with the WCs in Miami to negotiate the refund, but we know how that goes.

As far as the cake, we switched to fondant so they could bring out the cake for the entire reception. Plus, we spent a lot on the decor for the cake. Those are the reasons why we were upset that it was only on display for 10 minutes.

Also, they kept out cake serving set, so if you have a family member that can grab your topper and serving set that would be great. Our cousin grabbed everything but missed the serving set. We’re in the process of seeing if we can get it back from them now.

Overall, I would give the experience an A-. I would definitely do it there again and I can say it was an experience that we will treasure forever. Just keep in mind that the language barrier may cause some things to go awry, but its things that aren’t the end of the world. I can say that I was so caught up in my husband and having fun with friends that a lot of the things that I didn’t want I didn’t even notice until I saw pictures afterwards. Overall, I was a happy bride!!

I know this is very long so I didn’t go into details about everything. PM me if you need any specific pics or have other questions. 

Great Review and SO Glad you had a fabulous time!!!

Great job, Meredith! 

Great Review...can't wait to see more pics

Thank you for being honest and sharing your experience with us!

Welcome back Meredith! Thank for the detailed review, and hints. Love the photos you posted on the Azul forum,and can't wait to see more.

Welcome back, Meredith!!! Congrats to you and your new husband!!!  Thank you so much for the detailed and thorough review because as you know, they are worth their weight in gold to us B2B's! Many wishes for a serene and blissful marriage!!! It's so great to celebrate one of our own! ;-)

Thanks for sharing.

Great review!  I knew you'd have a good time.

Thanks for the review very helpful. So excited now!