Gran Bahia Principe Akumal/Tulum/Coba - POST HERE!

[micflair]

Cheers Trish, such a fountain of knowledge!

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[TATrisha]

  Thanks.

I cannot wait to get back there.  42 more days!!!

[Mimibird]

The person who manages the music while you're walking down the aisle will fade out the music appropriately, so you do not have to worry about length of the song.  Just pick out something you love

Ok cool, also wondering if you have ever seen someone sing on the beach instead of having just a CD playing? Thats kind of what we wanted but my WC is not answering my question on the topic.

[nic817]

Hey ladies! We got back from our wedding at the resort last Saturday, and holy crap, it was amazing! Here's some info:

 

We got married at the Tulum gazebo and our coordinator was Jazmin. Two weeks prior I had tried to get ahold of her for some last minute questions but she didn't reply. When we met with her she apologized and said she got all of them and read them but wasn't able to reply (?? weird). Anyway, all was fine. We arrived on Saturday and met with her on Monday at Tulum, but we were actually staying in the Royal Golden part of Akumal.

The resort is beautiful - huge but there's lots to do. We had 60 guests come with us and we thought we would be running into them all the time but it was actually difficult to find people, even though we were all in the same part of Akumal. They upgraded our room to an oceanview (looking onto the Akumal wedding location actually) and we got gold wrist bands but they weren't really clear as to what they entitled us to other than identifying us as a bride and groom.

 

Back to the wedding stuff - our meeting with Jazmin was about an hour and she confirmed every single details with us and then signed the contract. She has tons of notes written in our file from emails I had sent to her over the past year when we started planning. Everything was exactly as we had expected.

 

The wedding was on the Wednesday at 2pm. They had a private trolley come and pick up all of our guests at 1:20 at the lobby of Akumal. (Jazmin gave us a printout of all the wedding details to give to each guest - very helpful. I wouldn't recommend bringing programs for this reason, unless you are concerned with how they look).  A separate golf cart that fit 7 people came to pick up me, my 4 bridesmaids, flower girl and photographer (who we flew in) at 1:45 and took us right to the gazebo at Tulum. When we arrived, all the guests were seated and they were playing the CD of music we had brought for when the guests were there (Vitamin String Quartet - amazing and many guests raved about this music!). Jazmin was there with another coordinator, along with a guy running the music and the minister. They started playing the music for the bridesmaid right away and when it was my turn to walk, they switched it promptly to the appropriate song. The gazebo walkway is paved so you can wear any kind of shoes - I wore wedge sandals and my maids wore heels, all work fine for that location but I would recommend flip flops for afterwards if you are doing pics in the sand.

 

We did the symbolic ceremony and it lasted about 20 mins. Jazmin did a very quick "rehearsal" with the groom and groomsmen/ parents before I had arrived so they all knew what to do, but none of us girls did. It doesn't matter though because everything runs smoothly - they really know what they are doing at this resort! Even though it was symbolic, they had us sign a certificate and we needed two witnesses for this as well. The ceremony is done right up under the gazebo but your guests sit outside in the sun - it was super hot but I think people expect this.

 

After the ceremony we did pics and a private trolley came to take our guests back to Akumal at 3pm. Many of them just went into Tequlia restaurant to cool off and get drinks, as it is right beside the gazebo. Our dinner was at 5:30pm at Dolce Vita back in Akumal. We didn't do a seating plan so guests sat wherever they chose at our designated tables. The meal was delicious - caprese salad, minestrone soup, tartufo chicken or shrimp (also tortellini for vegetarians). We originally ordered the 3 milks cake because we had read great reviews, but Jazmin said the pastry chef in Akumal doesn't make the 3 milks very good, so she recommended switching. We chose vanilla and it was delicious - just a plain, white, round cake, but they set it off to the side with a cake knife if you want to do pics of cake cutting. We only ordered one but many people were still able to have a slice of it. We had MC's that did a few icebreaker things in the restaurant and one maid did a speech in there, but I would not recommend this if you have a large group. Some of our tables that were further back couldn't hear them.

 

Our poolside reception started at 7:30 right outside Dolce Vita. It was set up beautifully - about 4-5 high tables covered in white linens and enough chairs for the guests, also covered in white. They wrapped white lights around the trees as well. We started with speeches and then got into the dancing part. We brought our ipad down with our own playlist. We purchased the app "Wedding DJ" for $5 and it was worth it. It lets your separate your first dance, father-daughter dance and you can also fade the songs for the rest of the night so there isn't an awkward pause at the end of the songs. There was a sound guy there who had plugged in our ipad (it's an AUX cord where the headphones go) and he even added a few sound bits where it was appropriate and paused the song during "Sweet Caroline" so everyone could do the "BA BA BA" part, lol. It was great actually. We paid for just the basic bar but they served everything and we had two bartenders looking after us. The rain location was going to be the 24 hour snack bar, which is all covered by a white tent but no walls. That would have been nice as well, but thankfully we didn't need it.

 

The crew arrived at 10:30 promptly to take everything down, unfortuantely. We were having such a great time, but it's very loud so I can see why they shut everything down at 10:30. Afterward our guests went over to the snack bar, which was literally steps from where we were, for more drinks. Many of us ended up catching the trolley to the disco after, which was a lot of fun. Just make sure you bring your wristband if you cut it off - they weren't going to let me and my husband in but I had the wristbands in my purse.

 

I should say we went back to our room before going to the disco and they had run a bubble bath and put rose petals all over the bed and floor. It was really nice to come back to! They workers there are so fantastic. We did a TTD session at sunrise the next morning and my dress got filthy. I left a $20 for the maid to say thanks for all her hard work that week and she cleaned a lot of the dirt off my dress. It was amazing! Very nice people there.

 

I think I have covered probably more than I need to, but if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them. Like every other bride had said, do not stress if they dont reply to your emails. They know what they are doing and your day will be absolutely amazing!

[aborgesbride]

@nic817

Your review was awesome! So detailed i totally needed this!

Im thinking of this resort for my wedding in January 2015. Glad to hear it went well congrats by the way!

Thanks so much for the detailed review, its so helpful!

[TATrisha]

Welcome back and congratulations!!!!

 

It sounds like your wedding day was fabulous.  I'm so glad you had a great time.

Thank you for taking the time to post the review.  I will link to it in the official thread.

 

Congratulations again!!

[kdnolan]

What type of payments do they accept?

[andreav84]

Hi everyone!

 

I have, I think, read through most of the 700 some-odd posts in this thread. I say, "I think" because I can't keep track!

 

GHP is our top choice for December 2015.  I haven't yet decided on which location, but I love that the three resorts are connected.  We have a large group coming, and I'm not sure it would be fun for ALL of us to be together for 7-10 days.  It's a very mixed group... but that's a long story

 

A few specific questions:

 

1. Has anyone done a morning ceremony at this location?  Sunrise is a significant time for us, and it would make sense... it'd be perfect.  Plus, we have a a lot of young kids coming so evenings will get grumpier and grumpier...

...and, a part B to that question...could we then do like a brunch or something after (rather than dinner)?  Then we can celebrate all day... ? Hmm...

 

2. Our son will be 3 1/2 at that time... and we've been together for 10 years and are the last in our group to get married SO there will be 10-15 other kids age 2-10 there.  We are considering NOT having a formal reception... we aren't really into many of the "traditional" wedding things (this dance and that dance, speeches...) which is why we are having a destination wedding in the first place... and with all the kids, maybe it will be a waste? 

I'm rambling... I guess I'm asking, what are the other options?  If we do dinner, then maybe the "younger" crowd can meet up later in the evening?  We have talked about pitching in to pay for someone who can hang with the kids... 

 

I don't know what I'm even asking haha... at that stage where I am trying to balance expectations of a "wedding" (in quotation marks) and what will work for us.  

 

Oh, and 3. We would like a symbolic ceremony.  My FI's best friend of 30 years, his dad would be our minister if we got married here.  He has already confirmed to come, and he can't actually MARRY us there but we thought if we took care of the paperwork in Canada before we left, he could still play a significant role in the ceremony.  Am I way off in thinking that's possible?  Or is it very strict in what we are able to do? 

 

OK these are random questions... ack! 

 

Thanks.  P.S. I love this forum... 

[andreav84]

Oh... then my fiance heard about the BBQ buffet / poolside reception combo... that actually sounds pretty amazing and might be a great fit for our group. 

 

Oh, I am going to drive myself crazy with planning, I can tell!

 

I will bug with more questions as we go along, I'm sure!

[TATrisha]

I think an early wedding sounds fabulous! I know they do ceremonies at 12, you'd have to ask for earlier. The lunch reception, you can probably go super casual and low key and ask for part of the buffet to be reserved for you. Then lots of kids choices for meals and nothing too formal or stuffy.

 

For a group with a lot of kids, I recommend staying in Coba. They have family suites and a children's waterpark. You can then still have your ceremony wherever you'd like.

 

The BBQ private reception is amazing and delicious, but I'm pretty certain that can only be done at night after the normal crowds have died down.

 

With a symbolic it should not be a problem at all to have your friend marry you.

 

Best wishes and it sounds like you're going to have an amazing time!