Barcelo Maya Palace Brides

[michelle2011]

Thanx for a great review Krista and congrats. So excited under 3months for us now )

[Brenners]

Krista your pictures are lovely and you made a beautiful bride.  Congratulations!  Thanks for sharing your review with us!

[Sandra Lue]

Krista,

 

Your wedding pics look amazing! Thank you for sharing your review and pictures.

 

 

[jess102784]

Krista,

 

Congrats!!  So happy that everything went so smoothly on your big day!  You looked amazing!!

 

Do you have the contact information for Adrian?  If so can you please post or send it to me?  Did his company do both your hair and make-up?  THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL YOU HELP!!

 

Jessica

[cjb0arder13]

All right ladies! Thanks for your patience with me! Here is my SUPER long review

 

My wedding at Barcelo Maya Palace, January 31^st 2011.

 

The Palace

   We (DH and I) arrived at the Palace the night of January 27^th, around 6:30. Obviously, it was dark when we got there, so we didn’t get to see much of the resort on our way in. It was lit up beautifully, though, and I could already tell that the whole property was HUMUNGOUS.

Upon arrival to the hotel in our private transportation (arranged for by our travel agent), we were greeted with a tray of yummy apple drinks. I think they were champagne mixed with something else. So good! We were whisked off to the Premium Club lounge, because we’d been upgraded (again thanks to our travel agent). Check-in was super quick and easy. We went to our room and were only there for about 5 minutes before our bags were delivered. Pretty darn quick service!

The rooms are beautiful, and VERY very clean. The bathrooms are a work of art (for realsies). Not a ton of privacy, but chances are you know your fiancé pretty well by now, so it shouldn’t be an issue J

The food

I’m pretty easy to please, so I didn’t expect to have any issues with the food, and I didn’t. The buffets have a ton of food to choose from. It’s kind of what you’d expect from a buffet. I will say that we tried the buffet at the Colonial, and it was much better there (hotter, fresher).

We tried all the a la carte restaurants except for the Caribbean, and they were all delicious.

The Bars

Almost everywhere we went, we got great service. There’s a little bar called Havana over at the Colonial…it’s a tiny little bar but it’s tons of fun! The bartender there (I forget his name) was great. Tip him well!

The only complaint I have is that the service at the pool bars was not so good. The bartenders kind of made it seem like it was a pain in the butt to serve you. In fact, at one of the pool bars, the two bartenders were making fun of my friends and me in Spanish…right in front of our faces. I think they were upset because we ordered Miami Vices, which are blended drinks and probably not so easy to make. Either way, it was NOT cool, and I didn’t go back to that bar the whole time.

 

The Wedding

Our WC was Claudia. We met with her the morning after we arrived, and she was very, very nice. I never had any complaints about her during the planning process, because my emails were always answered quickly and I didn’t have a lot of demands in the first place.

We went over all of the choices, and she confirmed our guest count and list. I had NO idea what I wanted for flowers, and she pulled out a humungous book with lots of options, which I picked from. They really know what they’re doing down there, and I had absolute confidence after our meeting that everything was going to go perfectly.

The day of the wedding, my bridesmaid did all of our hair/makeup. We started at 11 (wedding was at 3). I wish now that we’d started earlier…we were REALLY rushed to get done on time. But at least I was so busy I didn’t have a chance to get nervous!

Claudia picked us up at about 2:55, and we all rode the golf cart to the ceremony location (Playa Azul). The shuttle had picked up the rest of the guests and groomsmen at 2:40 and taken them over there.

The Ceremony

I’m sooo glad we got married at Playa Azul. Out of all of the ceremony options, this was the most private. It’s down at the very far end in front of the Beach hotel.

When we pulled up in the golf cart, it was set up beautifully. I didn’t order anything extra, but they had the chairs/chair covers, and sashes tied around the chairs in my colors. There was a table set up that DH and I stood in front of. We chose a violin player, and she was hooked up to speakers so we could hear her very clearly.

The beach is breezy, although not super windy, but I would recommend that your Officiant use plastic sheet covers and clip them into a notebook/binder. My officiant (brother-in-law) was having a really hard time keeping the papers with the ceremony script from blowing away. I should have thought ahead and had them clipped in. D’oh!

The ceremony was beautiful, and I keep replaying it over in my head.

The Reception

We had our reception in the banquet room. In hindsight, I’m actually really glad we did this, because it was very private and kept us insulated from the wind/sand blowing everywhere. We had our own private bartender and two servers, and the food was AH-MA-ZING. We had the Caesar salad, cream of asparagus soup, rack of lamb, and dark chocolate fondant. There was a TON of food, and we couldn’t eat all of it. The cake was beautiful and delicious, but everyone was too full from dinner, so we didn’t even eat half of it. They delivered the rest of it to our room the next morning J

There was a sound system set up in the corner, and I just hooked up my iPod to it. Super easy.

Claudia Rodriguez

I don’t know if I can convey here how amazing Claudia was. Right off the bat, I felt totally comfortable with her. She’s very nice, and knows how to direct you without seeming pushy. I paid for one night for her and her brother/assistant Armando at the Beach. It came to about $250. Now, I guess you can pay a $300 fee, or book them a room for two nights.

Claudia took a TON of pictures…I can’t wait to get them, because I know they’re going to be amazing. She is so talented. And she went way above and beyond to help me out.

She was taking pictures of me sitting in the sand. I got up and started to brush the sand off of my hands, and in doing so, accidentally flung off my grandmother’s wedding ring (it was my something old and something borrowed). My grandmother passed away over 10 years ago, so obviously this was a pretty distressing situation.

After helping us look, digging through the sand for 10 minutes, Claudia jumped on her phone and started making phone calls. First she called the OTHER Claudia (the WC) to see if the hotel had a metal detector. Then she called a friend that worked at another hotel a few miles away, and the friend said they did, so she asked her assistant Armando to drive down and get it. While he was gone, she took a ton more pictures, very nicely distracting me from freaking out about losing my grandmother’s wedding ring.

A half hour later, Armando showed up with the metal detector (it was one of those things they use at the airport when you set off the big metal detector…the portable kind that they run up and down your body to find where the metal is). After a tense 5 minutes of running it around the sand and not finding anything, they FINALLY found the ring! I think I screamed…I jumped over to Armando and Claudia and gave them the BIGGEST hugs ever. They seriously saved the day!!!

I will hopefully get my pictures this week. As soon as I have them, I’ll post a link so you can see them!

If you guys have ANY questions at all, ask away!

[michelle2011]

Lovely review, thanks for sharing. OMG i'm so glad they found your grandmothers ring. How nice of them to be so concerned. Really lovely!

 

It sounds amazing the hotel (all bar the rude bartender) sounds amazing i cant wait to go )

 

Look forward to seeing your pix

[JoanneIreland]

Congrats and thanks for your review! Can't wait to see your photos, hope you get them soon!!

[aimeelaco28]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this thread. My fiance and I have been engaged already for almost a year and we are hoping to have our destination wedding by May 2012. I know I know still sooo far away, but I can't help but get excited and want to plan the wedding already. That being said, my first choice for a resort was the Barcelo Maya Palace, however, now I am conflicted and considering Dreams Riviera Cancun. Both resorts have their pros and cons and I can't decided on which resort to choose. Ahh! I'm so conflicted lol. The main reason I am posting on this thread is to find out about the French Restaurant at the Barcelo. I've read past posts of brides having their wedding reception in the restaurant and it was gorgeous! I'm curious to know if we are still able to do this. I've read that as long as we purchase a certain package it possible and I've also read it is only available to rent for receptions at a cost of $10,000 (which is crazy!). If anyone has any feedback they can send my way it is mucho appreciated! Thanks!

[mexico_2011]

Thanks for the reviews ladies & congratulations!!

We leave in 4 days for Mexico our wedding is March 16....getting very excited!

I will be sure to post a review when we get back

[JoanneIreland]

Good luck mexico_2011!! Can't wait to hear from you when you get back!!