Barcelo Maya Palace Brides

[jess102784]

Hello Brides,

 

I have just returned from a two week stay at the Barcelo Maya Palace resort.  I was there from November 26-December 10.  My wedding was on December 1.  Here is my review/breakdown/tips to help you.  Please if you have any questions, my email is [email protected].  I would be more than happy to answer them, as I have relied on this site for my wedding.

 

Travel Agent/Booking:  Due to the hotel having a policy of holding your wedding date for 2 months until proof of booking is submitted, we booked our trip in the first week of March 2011 (for November 26 travel).  Our travel agent (Fred from Holiday Market Travel in Toronto) advised us that package deals are only offered 9 months from the date of return.  Therefore, a package was not available when we needed to book.  We booked our flight, hotel and transfer separate and surprisingly it was cheaper than a package.  We flew WestJet, hotel and transfer was through Sunquest.  I would never book a package with Sunquest again.  We had a private van that picked us up at the airport and took us to the hotel.  Once we were at the hotel, we did not exist to Sunquest.  The rep never provided us with any information on a welcome meeting (to arrange your transfer back).  A binder with the Sunquest rep’s hours stated he would be in the lobby at another hotel and we went and he wasn’t there.  We had to make several calls to arrange our transfer back to the airport.  We were just not happy with the customer service.

 

Wedding Co-Coordinators/Wedding:  Our WC was Claudia and she was amazing.  Her response time to emails was great (within a week).  My last email communication with her was that we would meet on November 28.  We attended the wedding office on the 28 at 9am and Xihal helped us.  We had the Mint Breeze package.  We chose our flowers and décor during this meeting.  If you want exotic flowers (like orchids) you need to inform them before hand.  I brought (from home) little votive candle holders with candles and fake flower petals as centre pieces.  With the Mint Breeze package a fruit centre piece is included.  It was a frozen melon that had been carved.  We got so many compliments on them.  They didn’t push any extra cost items onto us.  We added two bags of flowers and it was only because the beach walkway looked plain.  We already knew that we wanted to add bridesmaid bouquettes, mother of bride/groom corsages and boutonnières.  They gave us extra corsages and an extra centerpiece in the hall (no charge to us).  We anticipated only working with Claudia and brought $100 for a tip.  We left this for both Claudia and Xihal to split.

 

The Coordinators picked me up and took me to our ceremony location (3pm Coral Beach).  They made sure that no other guests would walk by (they re-directed traffic or stopped it all together).  We did a legal ceremony.  I was a little skeptical about the blood work involved, but it was done very professional and clean.  We choose to have the violin and it was beautiful.  It’s connected to speakers so everyone can hear.  The ceremony was quick (20-30 mins).  We had to give our thumb prints on the certificate.  We then had a toast.  Then the guests went to the lobby bar (we didn’t want to pay for a cocktail hour) while we went off for pictures.  Our reception was at 6pm in the Chak-Hal meeting room.  We were so happy with the room.  It might have been too big for our party size but it was private and inside (we were concerned about the wind and weather).  The room was set up just the way we wanted.  They greeted everyone with a drink that matched our colour scheme.  Our thank you gifts were set according to the seating chart we gave the WCs (we collect magnets and shot glasses so we bought each guest/couple a magnet and shot glass).The reception flew by.  We had the salad, minestrone soup, lamb, and the caramel roll.  Everything was amazing.  The service was amazing and we tipped the 3 servers each $40.  We did our dances in between courses and only had about 30mins to dance before 9pm.  We went to the lobby bar and there decided to go to Jaguar (the resort night club) (I changed into another white dress, but other brides were there in their gowns).  It was actually the older group that wanted to go there and dance.  You can either take the hotel bus to it or walk (10min walk if you know the way between hotels). We brought iPod speakers to use, but didn’t because we had fun at Jaguar.  If you stay at the Palace entrance is free and your drinks are included (not sure about the other hotels, but I never saw anyone paying unless it was for VIP and even then $5 for women and $10 for men and its charged to a room).

 

Hotel:  The Maya Palace was a 5*+ hotel.  The service, the grounds, the pools, the bars, the restaurants were amazing.  Front Desk was so friendly and if we did have any problems, they would call us to make sure it was resolved (our AC stopped working one night but it was fixed within an hour of reporting it and we were at the beach).  Workers are grooming the property everyday.  The buffets were amazing, there was so much variety.  Some of the a la cartes were not good.  We LOVED the Italian and French.  We disliked the Steakhouse and Brazilian (both restaurants the meat was really fatty) and the Japanese (not a lot of selection).  So we were ok going to the buffet for dinners because of the variety.

 

Hair/Make-Up:  Like many other brides, we went with Adrian.  He was amazing.  Adrian does the make-up and Christian does the hair.  I feel really bad for them, as the hotel has started to take a 30% fee of whatever services they provide.  They came and did my trail and I absolutely loved it.  The wedding day all my girls, mothers of bride/groom and myself were done in plenty of time for pictures.  We tipped them a little extra because of the hotel taking a portion of their fee.  I think in total he got about $100 in tips (6 people in total).

 

Photography:  My best friend’s husband does photography and we hired him.  He did an amazing job.  Because he was staying there for the week, we did not have to pay the $300 fee.

 

Videography:  We used Mike Cantarell from Cancun Wedding Video.  His wife is Claudia Rodriguez who does photography.  We were very happy with the service that was provided.  Mike was great with email and sending a contract.  We haven’t seen the video yet, but the 2 videographers were very professional and worked really well with our photographer.  We provided them each with a meal as it was a long day for them as well.  They came from 1pm-9pm.  We did pay the $300 fee to use this company.  We did not tip them (based on what our photographer advised.  He said that photogs and video guys don’t get tipped).

 

I can’t think of anything else but that my day was perfect.  I enjoyed every minute of it because of the staff at Barcelo.

[CarlaN]

Brides! Is anyone getting married the week of Feb 1 2012? If so what are you using for chair sahaes? Bringing your own or using the resorts?

[mrssemenuksoon]

Jess102784,

Great review! Congratulations!!! Glad you had a wonderful time! We too have Claudia as our WC and are staying at the Palace this January, I hate to wish away Xmas, but I can hardly wait...

[Avens]

I know what you mean! We're there January 7-14, wedding on the 12th! How about you Mrs. Menuk (soon)? 
 

Originally Posted by mrssemenuksoon 

Jess102784,

Great review! Congratulations!!! Glad you had a wonderful time! We too have Claudia as our WC and are staying at the Palace this January, I hate to wish away Xmas, but I can hardly wait...

 

[mrssemenuksoon]

We are there January 21st-28th, married on the 25th!!! I will want to hear all about yours, Avens! Love reading the reviews.

[jess102784]

Hi mrssemenuksoon,

 

Thanks so much!!  I know you will have a fabulous day!!  Congrats!!

 

Jessica

[Jj777]

Jess102784, thanks so much for posting the great review!!  We are getting married April 13, 2011 at the Palace and your review has answered a lot of questions I had. Congratulations to you and your husband!

 

 We booked our package with Transat Holidays, they also have great wedding packages you can book and pay for through them.  We have an almost equivalent to the Mint Breeze but it also includes the cocktail hour, brides bouquets and men's boutinoniers. Claudia is our wedding coordinator and has been so great so far. 42 People booked I can't hardly wait!!

 

 

[holls213]

Hey ladies!  I'm new to the site and just in the beginning stages of planning our wedding at the Barcelo Maya Palace for May 2012! I'm obviously going to have to learn quickly since it's coming up in 4 months already!!  Any suggestions would be super helpful Who did everyone use for a photographer??  We are doing a budget wedding and I know it's pricey to have someone come in for the day.  Did anyone use a photographer provided through the hotel??  Is that even an option?

[JoanneIreland]

You can use the onsite photographer (kodak) or bring in an outside vendor. If you bring your own photographer he/she must either be a guest at the hotel or you must pay a $300 fee to onsite kodak guys to substitute their loss of business.

We got married last month at the Barcelo Palace, but paid for our photographer to stay at the Barcelo Tropical as it was cheaper than the Palace. We hired Ivan Luckie, who we thought was amazing, but we are still waiting to recieve or professional photos. Once we get those I will write a review and post some pics. Paying for accomodation was a better option for us than paying the $300 fee as we were meeting Ivan the next day for our TTD shoot.

 

Good luck!

 

Originally Posted by holls213 

Hey ladies!  I'm new to the site and just in the beginning stages of planning our wedding at the Barcelo Maya Palace for May 2012! I'm obviously going to have to learn quickly since it's coming up in 4 months already!!  Any suggestions would be super helpful Who did everyone use for a photographer??  We are doing a budget wedding and I know it's pricey to have someone come in for the day.  Did anyone use a photographer provided through the hotel??  Is that even an option?

 

[holls213]

Thanks!! Can't wait to check out your pictures!! Let me know when you get them in, and what you thought of your photographer.