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

[JoLo908]

This is so good to hear!! Although we are going to be on the Tulum side. I truly believe the whole destination wedding all depends on your attitude towards it!

[scoutley]

Sarah-

 

Thanks for the review! It is so helpful to know what to watch out for...

 

So you and your guests were able to use all buffets/restaurants and bars on all properties, regardless of where you were staying? I ran into some people this week whose son got married on the Tulum side and they told me the same thing. Interesting! Because there was that whole discussion here (from a while ago) about the resort restricting guests' access to amenites on the different resorts. Great news!

 

Congratulations!!

[harv0136]

Thanks for review. Sounds like a great time....Congrats!

[sarah1108]

scoutley -- I don't know where that information came from about restrictions to eating only in "your section". I checked with my travel agent before we chose this hotel, and she assured me that guests can move freely between the resorts and use facilities/restaurants at all of them. we didn't run into any issues with that. Everyone in our group was "resort-hopping" the whole time

[Jen_S]

Great Review Sarah! Welcome back Mrs... Sorry you had some bumps but all in all sounds like a great wedding!! Now we need some picts!! :-)

[CarrieRN]

Hi everyone! We are back and married. I even rode on the van from Cancun with Sarah's parents, but never got to meet Sarah. There are a ton of wedding groups it seems.

 

So, quick review for now, I will work on a more detailed one in a little bit. We just got home last night.

 

The resort (all 3 hotels) is gorgeous and the service was great! We had so much fun on our trip. We had a rocky start since Apple Vacations group department screwed up quite a few reservations in our group, including mine! The resort didn't expect us until the 6th even though we were arriving the 5th. We did get that all ironed out and Iain, the apple rep at Coba was fabulous!

 

So, we didn't get to meet with Alana until the 6th since by the time we arrived, she was already gone for the day. We met with her, picked out flowers and chose our wedding site. We were staying at the Coba (our whole group) and she offered us the wedding gazebo which is over at Tulum. However, we actually didn't want the gazebo and so chose the Palapas which is right next to it on the beach. It was a beautiful location.

 

So, that being done, I set my dress and my sister's dress out on the bed and Alana called and had someone come to pick up the dresses to take them for steaming. She had me write on the form that I needed them for tomorrow. I wrote it in spanish and we had them back just fine for the next day.

 

On wedding day, my sister and I went to get our hair done. It takes forever at that spa so get it done as early as you can. And it is true about the flat iron. My sister's hairgirl did use a curling iron and her curls stayed in much better. My strands that were down and curled lasted 5 minutes tops and then just got on my nerves. I recommend no strands down...mostly based on the pictures in the wind. I did like the rest of my hair style though. So, either bring a curling iron or ask them specifically to use it, they have one.

 

My sister, dad and I were picked up by a special golf car (club-car at the resort) that was decorated with tulle. The rest of the group was picked up at the Coba lobby. Your WC will give you schedules to hand out that details the times and locations for the wedding and dinner. Our only mix up was that people got worried when the cart didn't arrive exactly on time (which is the norm in Mexico) and went in to make sure they were at the correct lobby (we checked in at the premier lobby because we were with apple). So, then they were told that there was a wedding group at the premier lobby (which was a different wedding) and some of them went over to that lobby. But they all arrived safely.

 

At the wedding site, Alana told me she had forgotten to bring the copy of my hand ceremony. So, she sent someone back to get it and it wasn't a problem.

 

So, for the real fun...I don't know if it is the time of day or a change in weather, but there were tons of little flies (non-biting little black m-fers) that were all over the beach. They loved me and all my flowers. My DH said he pretended like he was one of those little kids in Ethiopia that always seem to have flies on them but don't care. I HATE bugs. I did my very best to ignore them. At one point, the minister (who was a completely adorable old man) stopped and had me put down my flowers, then he asked if any of our guests smoke. Of course, my friend Frank, who introduced Dave & I, is a smoker. He had him come up and smoke a cigarette and blow smoke all over me. It was hilarious. It only worked for a little while. So, needless to say, I skipped the hand ceremony since I just couldn't take another second. I will have to watch the video since I hardly remember any of the ceremony.

 

So, after that, we got some pics on the beach and headed to the Mediterranean restaurant for dinner. We basically had half the restaurant and for the first hour at least, it was just us. On the ride over, my DH realized that nobody had grabbed his bag that was on one of the chairs. In this bag was all of our room keys (and they put the room number on the key for some unknown reason), and the safe key (and I had our lap top and $650 in cash). Gone for good. So, I was rather stressed out for most of dinner worrying about our moola. (Don't worry, everything turned out ok, they changed our door lock and later drilled our safe open and gave us a new safe key without charging us the $100 fee.) Then my new SIL found out that somehow, all the recent pics that they had taken in there camera were erased while in her husband's pocket. So we decided to go directly to the bar for some tequila. We all just drank and danced in the premier lobby bar until it was time to go to the disco. We had a blast dancing and partying. My SIL is a wild child (she is "the fun Burke" according to my DH and his brother). She pretended like she was going to drive us home from the disco and was revving the engine on the hacienda bus. Then after they yelled at her, she was getting on the radio and saying "Hola! Hola! Hola!" It was hysterical and of course, sealed the deal. My family officially loves her.

 

The rest of the week was much more relaxing and was great to get to hang out with our family and friends. We spent a lot of time at the pool bars and hanging out drinking in the lobbies playing games or cards. The premier lobby has faster drink service and live music at 8pm.

 

We were allowed to eat at all the restaurants on property but only ate at the Coba buffets. For a la cartes, we ate at Le Gourmet, Mikado, Arlequin and Tequila. They did not count our wedding dinner against our guests a la cartes, nor do they seem to check that closely. We would reserve for a group of 10 and they would only have our room number. The food was delicious.

 

Our rooms were all junior suites and nice. They did towel art and decorated our room with rose petals. We were on a delayed schedule for some reason and didn't get our rose petals or honeymoon t-shirts until the day after wedding. We did get a fruit basket on the 2nd night and champagne on our wedding day.

 

That's it for now, time to go work on the pictures some more. Michael Maurus was our photog and got some really nice pictures. I will get some posted.

 

I did start a group photo album on photobucket.com that people are starting to upload photos to. Login to a private Photobucket.com album The password is mexico if you are asked. My sister uploaded some pictures already.

[Jen_S]

Congrats Carrie and welcome back! Your wedding sounds like so much fun, you SIL sounds like a good time. Im sorry to hear about the bugs durning the ceremony, but all in all sounds like a perfect day!

[Jen_S]

Ohh I have one question did you know before you left where your guests would get picked up and what time? I am making welcome books and would like to put that in.

[CarrieRN]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jkcz0702 Ohh I have one question did you know before you left where your guests would get picked up and what time? I am making welcome books and would like to put that in.

We didn't know until the morning of the wedding. When we came back from breakfast, they were in an envelope taped to our door. We just handed them out at the pool when we saw people. Most likely it will be in the lobby of whichever hotel you are staying in.

[CarrieRN]

Oh, by the way, did I forget to mention that my DH lost his wedding band the day after the ceremony? Oops. He took it off to put sunscreen on and set it on our chairs. Then he came out in the water to meet me. I, of course, noticed right away that he wasn't wearing his ring. When he remembered again, we were already back in one of the jacuzzi pools. It was gone when he went back to the beach. It is a good thing we only spent $30 on the ring and the we bought 2 of them.

 

So, make sure you stress to your FI/DH that the rings are NEVER to be removed. No matter what they are doing. If your honey tends to lose things, take a cheap back-up ring for him to wear during the trip.