Riu Cancun Brides???

[bakerisacat]

LOL Mrs. Martin! I'm seriously going to have to restrain myself so I don't act out that smiley to perfection On a better note, I finally made contact! Not with Pamela, but her assistant Natalie who is a dream! We've emailed 3 times since yesterday and she gets back to me within hours!

 

Please send me some "happy weather dust" if you can! Looking at the forecast, its supposed to be snowing at both airports we fly out of/stopover the day we leave! I'm sure it will be fine, but after the storms last week and all those flight delays I'm a bit freaked out!

 

Hmmm, maybe I should have left something to do for the wedding until this week... I'm all done and have nothing to do but worry lol!

 

Happy and Safe New Year!

[Mrs. Martin]

glad to hear she has an assistant now!

 

Good luck with the weather situation! I feel bad that I'm complaining about our cold weather (68 degrees) and your dealing with snow

I'm sending you over some "happy weather dust" and a margarita!

[gaynasmith24]

Hi everyone, his forum has so much helpful information in it for a soon to be RPLA Bride, April 2009, just wondered how if anyone knew how tightly contolled riu are with there 80 percent guest rule for people wanting to come to our weddign staying at other riu hotels. Th numbers work out exactly to there rules at the moment but just panicking about what I should do if other people decide last min to come an stay at another hotel, how I'll be able to get them in? Any advice greatly appreciated

[bakerisacat]

Thanks for the margarita Mrs. Martin! And your happy weather dust seemed to work lol! They are calling for just a little snow at the first airport and rain at the other, totally normal for this time of year

 

Gayna, I'm really not sure how they would handle your situation. I would suggest calling the Riu wedding department (if you can talk to Tristan she is awesome!!) and ask. We won't have any guests so I have never thought about it. Let us know what you find out! Oh and while I'm there I will also ask for you and post when I get back

 

Ok, I have WAY too much to do, so I'm off, and I'll talk to you all when I'm home! Only 2 more sleeps!!!

[gaynasmith24]

Good luck with your wedding hope everthing goes exactly as you want it to and you have a wonderful day

[Mrs. Martin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gaynasmith24 Hi everyone, his forum has so much helpful information in it for a soon to be RPLA Bride, April 2009, just wondered how if anyone knew how tightly contolled riu are with there 80 percent guest rule for people wanting to come to our weddign staying at other riu hotels. Th numbers work out exactly to there rules at the moment but just panicking about what I should do if other people decide last min to come an stay at another hotel, how I'll be able to get them in? Any advice greatly appreciated

Hi! I didn't have any other guests stay at any outside hotels, but I did have outside vendors and RPLA was not flexible on waiving any day passes. So, if you have any outside guests attending your wedding, you will have to pay $75 pp for day passes and you can purchase those ahead of time when you meet your WC. The passes will be available to your guests the day of the wedding at the front desk before they enter the wedding area.

I hope this helps! Good luck with the rest of your planning!

[Camie78]

Hi Ladies,

 

My name is Camie and I'm actually a Moon Palace bride but I just returned yesterday from a wedding at RIU Cancun held on January 10th, 2009. I wanted to give you a little review of what I thought of the resort and amenities and hopefully provide you with any pointers that I learned. Some of this you may already know but I know how much I appreciate all the information on the Moon Palace forum, so the more information, the better.

 

We arrived at RIU Cancun on Thursday, 01/08/09 after a short shuttle ride. The tour company that we booked through is Olympus Tours/Gogo Worldwide and they were fantastic, I highly recommend them. We landed at 1230pm and got to the resort at about 2pm. It took us about 30 minutes to check in and talk with the Olympus representative at the resort to schedule our transfer back. We got out to the pool around 315pm and the first thing that I noticed was that the pool was completely shaded and 50% of the beach was also in the shade. One idea I have for you here is that the keys to the rooms are actual keys, not key cards. Some of these keys were on lanyard (sp?) and others were just on a normal key chain. If you are thinking of wedding guest gifts, I'd recommend doing lanyards because I know the people who had the key chain were annoyed because they rarely had pockets to carry the keys.

 

Reserving Pool Chairs:

Over the course of our stay we learned that the pool is completely shaded by 230pm and the beach is completely shaded by 4pm. Since there is limited sunshine throughout the day, people get up VERY early to reserve their chairs at the pools/beach. I'd recommend getting a chair on the beach rather than the pool because you'll get about an hour of extra sun on the beach. Now, when I say VERY early I mean that people are out reserving their chairs at 630am. I'm not kidding - I didn't sleep past 630 the whole trip because of this. By 7am there are no chairs left at the pool and by 9am you've got limited selection of chairs on the beach. In short, the resort does not have enough chairs to suffice 100% occupancy as it was during our stay.

 

Beach:

The beach itself had very little seaweed and was soft. You have your typical problems with any beach of cigarette butts and straws every now and again but overall I thought the beach was pretty good. The one thing that I noticed about the sand was that it was strange and it stuck to you. It wouldn't was off under the facet or in the ocean and you have to actually brush it off under water.

 

Restaurants:

Another reason why I recommend getting up early is essential is because there are only 4 restaurants on the property. 1 is the buffet, 1 is the pool restaurant (which opens as a "steakhouse" at night) and then two restaurants which require reservations (Japanese restaurant and Brazilian steakhouse). I got a tip from the bride's mother on the day that we arrived that the resort only takes reservations for the two restaurants on the day of and they begin taking reservations at 7am. She advised us to get down to the lobby to make these reservations no later than 645am. I took this advice and when I arrived at the lobby there were already over a dozen people waiting. At 7am the woman pulls out the podium and the chaos begins. People were yelling at one another about budding in line and everyone was pushing each other. It was CRAZY and very much unexpected. All other all inclusive resorts that I have been to allow you to make your reservations days in advance. I'm not sure why this resort handles things differently, perhaps it is because they only have two restaurants.

 

Wedding:

This wedding was pretty big, about 80 guests and was held on the beach. The WC requested that all of the guests meet in the lobby 30 minutes before the ceremony and then she walked us down to the wedding area. This area is pretty cool. Its a little alcove in the sand by the "adults only" pool. To get to this alcove you must walk down a long ramp (also where the bridesmaid and bride walk down) and then traverse back along side the ramp through the sand. So the bride's walk is super long and half of it is in the sand. The thing that I was not a fan of is that the bride comes in from the front, walks to the back, and then back up in the middle aisle. The ceremony was done in English and there was a lot of signing of paperwork (took about 5 minutes). The groomsmen stood at the 'altar' and then the bridesmaids walked down individually followed by the bride. There were a few onlookers but not too many. Overall, pretty cool.

 

Wedding Dinner:

We ended eating at both restaurants, Japanese the first night and then the Brazilian steakhouse the night of the wedding. What was cool about the steakhouse is that the bride and groom were able to rent out the entire space so we had a private dinner. I'm not sure how they swung this given the high demand to eat at this restaurant. None-the-less it was cool.

 

Wedding Dance:

After the dinner we went to the disco, "Pacha" which they also were able to reserve for two hours and we had a private wedding dance there. This was very cool because they were able to bring their own music and it ended up being just like a normal wedding dance without any strangers peering in and watching. Pacha has a bar within it and we had two or three bartenders helping out the wedding crew with their cocktails. One warning is that the bride and groom had rented this space from 830-1030 and then Pacha opened up to the general public at 1030. At 1030 SHARP the DJ stopped playing the song that was playing (yes, right in the middle of the song) and started in with the club's playlist. Needless to say this did not go over well with the groom and security was called in. Everything ended up ok but I want to warn you of this in case it should happen to you. Pacha is a pretty big space with plenty of bar stools but its dark (walls are black) and there are no windows.

 

Pool Descriptions:

There are 4 pools on the property, all of which are pretty small. One of them is and infinity pool and "adult only", one is used for sports like volleyball and belly flop contests, one is the pool bar (personal fav), and one is an infinity pool where kids hang out as it has a shallow end. All pools are shaded early as stated above.

 

Downtown Cancun:

Downtown Cancun and all of the clubs are within walking distance (about 3 blocks). We went out one night and had a pretty good time. Placing within 3 blocks of the resort are: McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Rainforest Cafe, Carlos n' Charlies, Coco Bongo, Dady O's, and tons of little restaurants and places to drink. We ate at Carlos n' Charlies and the food was fantastic (maybe I just thought this because I was tired of the same ol, same ol at the resort) and the staff was so engaging. We ended up being there for almost 3 hours dancing, etc. If you plan on going into a club, do not pay the price that they ask you to - barter for a price and they will end up dropping it and if not, walk away, or better yet put one club promoter against another.

 

Internet Access:

Available in the sports bar for a fee (not sure how much).

 

Bars:

Pool bar - open until 6

Pool restaurant bar - not sure how late it was open but late enough for dinner

Sports bar - open 24 hours

Inside lobby bar - not sure how late it is open

Outside lobby bar - this bar plays 80's music so we just started calling it the 80's bar.

"Pacha" - opens at 1030pm, night club

Entertainment area - have shows nightly, was entertaining and something different.

 

Mini Bar/Fridge:

Mini bar contains 4 liquors and we never touched them. I think they were rum, vodka, tequila, and brandy. The fridge contained Corona (only beer they have), waters (two different sizes), and soda/"pop".

 

That's about all I have. I'm sure I have more but I can't think of anything else at the moment. I'll subscribe to this thread for the next week or so and look at postings or you can email me directly at [email protected]. I may not have all the specifics for you but I have no issues calling up the bride and asking her. I can tell you that she said that they never rehearsed and she was uneasy about how things would go - of course it all turned out fine.

 

Below is a link to the photos that I took of the resort.

Kodakgallery.com: Slideshow

 

Best of luck to all of you,

Camie

[bakerisacat]

Hi ladies! I'm home and wish I wasn't lol! It was amazing!!! I'm just writing this quickly, we have only been home about an hour... In the next few days I will get my review up Hope you are all well!

[gaynasmith24]

bakerisacat: Congratulations to you both, hope you had a fantastic time and an amazing wedding day and everthing went as planned, look forward to reading your review.

[gaynasmith24]

bakerisacat: Congratulations to you both, hope you had a fantastic time and an amazing wedding day and everthing went as planned, look forward to reading your review.