Finally! My Long Gran Bahia Principe Review with Pictures!

[Martha]

I kept promising the GBP girls I would post this and since we are moving this weekend, I figured I needed to do it NOW! I have actually had it written for like a week, but dreaded going through all the pictures....

Most of this is really geared towards the GBP brides and it's long...so just scroll down to the pics if you don't wanna read a novel!

I tried to make it short but not leave anything out. It was hard! I am going to make multiple posts because it is so long and the pictures will be posted shortly. I need to go upload them real quick!


San Antonio Airport: A+
Not a whole lot to say here. We got there at 4:30 and the airport actually had quite a few people in it. Check in was a breeze. But, the way AeroMexico weighs the luggage is odd. They had us put all 3 check-ins on and took the average. There is no way our bags were only 41 pounds each. Which was fine with us, because we thought we were going to have to pay for overage.

AeroMexico: A
This was actually a nice flight. It was packed though! They served us breakfast on the flight over (fruit, muffin, and yogurt) and dinner on the way home (salad, sandwich, cake). They only came by once with drinks though…I got real thirsty, but I am always thirsty now. My only issue was the landing in Cancun and S.A. On the way there, the landing was not very smooth, I guess because the runway in Cancun isn’t smooth. On the way home our flight was 2 hours delayed and then we had to be bussed to the middle of the runway (okay, not really, but pretty close) and there were so many people, my 14 year old niece got put on a bus by herself. My sister was getting her bagged checked and my niece walked out before here and got on the bus then they closed the doors to the bus before my sister could get out there. Luckily by the time our bus got there, my niece was safe in her seat on the place. The landing in SA was not good either. The pilot never slowed down and was going super fast on the runway. Other than this, it was a pleasant flight.

The Threadbender: A+ Wedding Gown Alterations, Restoration, Embellishments, Archival Preservation, and Custom Couture Veils | Diana Ackerman | The Threadbender | Vintage Bridal Restoration
Diana Ackerman was my seamstress. She didn’t have much time to work on my dress because I contacted her kinda late. Even then, she wanted to wait until the day before we left to get me my dress because we weren’t sure if I was going to gain any weight before I left. I didn’t have much to alter. She had to take it in about 3 or 4 sizes in the bust because I ordered it real big too make sure it would fit. I also wanted to change the neckline to a sweatheart neck, but it would have been too revealing, so she kinda did a scoop neck, which I actually liked. Not what I had in mind, but in the end, I was happy with it. I would definitely recommend her services to all S.A. brides needing alterations. She was very sweet and kind and affordable.

Bestbridalprices.com: A++
I kinda did a review on them before, but I need to reiterate. I originally ordered my dream dress from them before I got pregnant. Oh man, I LOVE that Maggie dress. Anyhow, after I got pregnant, I knew I was going to gain some weight since I was going to be 6 ½ months pregnant when I got married. I called them right away and luckily the dress hadn’t been shipped from their supplier yet, so I was able to cancel it. I decided to go with a bridesmaid dress in ivory that was real flowy from the waist down to give the baby plenty of room and for comfort sake. In the end, this dress was NOTHING like what I had envisioned myself in on my wedding day….But, it is totally worth it to have my miracle baby. Bestbridalprices.com was very helpful and Mary, the lady I worked with was very sweet and understanding.

More to come...

[Martha]

Gina Whittington Wilson: A++ [clink]

This is hard to write because not only was Gina my WC, she is my best friend/matron of honor. However, I will say that even though Gina was primarily at my wedding to be my matron of honor, she really stepped up to the plate and helped me when Jazmin (resort WC) wouldn’t. Gina helped organize the gazebo when Jazmin said her staff couldn’t. She was out there in the heat setting up when she should have been getting ready with me. Gina is a petite little thing but is very vocal about speaking up for her clients. Her weddings are amazing and she has been published many times. She is planning our co-ed baby shower and I know it’s going to be perfect!

 

Lomas Travel/Funjet: A+

I know some people have had bad experiences with these guys, but we really didn’t. The transfer to the resort was smooth, even though they tried to give some people getting dropped off before us our luggage. Luckily I was watching and told them it was ours. Our driver drove super fast and the gas light was on “empty†the entire drive. It must have been broken though because it is a long drive to our resort from the airport and I am sure he would have run out of gas before we got there. Jay tipped him $5 but I guess he was expecting more because he said he gave him a crazy look..I didn’t see this though. There were two other groups that got off before us, so I figured $5 was okay since I assumed they tipped him too? The transfer back was better. This time we were in a bus, not a van and we were the first to get picked up. We had 3 other stops and everything was smooth. This driver and his assistant were sweet. The driver drove the speed limit and the assistant was funny.

At the resort we met with our guy to give him our info to schedule transfer back and he let us know about the excursions, but their little area is kinda away from the lobby so we never had any problems with them seeing us leave via taxi on the excursions since we didn’t book with them. No one ever bothered us to book with them, they let us know what was available and that was it.

 

Gran Bahia Principe Tulum: A-

Okay I am going to make this as short as possible but be as accurate too. Our first night there was not great. Our room was HOT and after 4 hours of calling and Jay going down to the lobby 2 times to complain, I got up to go down there. I was pissed because they kept telling us someone was on the way, but they never came. I spoke to the manager and told him that I was not going to sleep in that room because it was scorching. He said there weren’t any rooms left for us. I told him that I was 6 months pregnant and that I refused to sleep like that. I told him we were getting married there on Friday and had 30 people coming in on Wednesday for the wedding and that we were putting over $20,000 in to the resort. He didn’t care, but it was worth the shot. He said he would send someone over but never apologized for the air….oh he did say that they were having electrical problems and that other people’s a/c’s were not working. So I said “oh you mean other people are complaining too?†And he said “no.†Then how do you mean other people were having a/c problems but never called to let them know? Didn’t make sense. About 30 minutes after we got back to our room (around 11:30pm) someone finally came to check our a/c. He used some little machine to check the air coming out…there was none. He then went to the sliding glass door and had to mess with something to get it to close right. Apparently if the doors are even cracked, the a/c will not turn on. Makes sense, but I think it was horrible we had to wait almost 5 hours to find this out. In the end, I guess it was our fault for not shutting the door right, but they still had crappy customer service by making us wait to long in the heat. I forgot to mention when we got there we had a fruit basket and a welcome letter. It was sweet…

Then, on the second day we were eating breakfast in the buffet and someone left what we thought as a camera case and their table. We picked it up and turned it in to the front desk. About 30 minutes later we are sitting in the lobby waiting for our WC and our waiter comes up to us with the security guy and asks us if we saw a purse. We told them we turned in a camera case to the front desk. The security guard looked pissed and I was afraid we were going to get arrested or kicked out or something. It’s Mexico and I know you don’t mess around with the police there….he wasn’t an actual police officer, but still. Luckily the front desk still had the purse. A few minutes later the security guard came back and wanted to know what room we were in. We told him then asked why. He said he just needed to know in case something was missing from the purse. So, not I freak out more. Of course we didn’t take anything, and I was sure the owner of the purse wouldn’t say we did, but I was worried the security guard would say they said something was missing and make us give him money. I had a horrible second day too, my stomach was in knots all day. Thanks goodness that never happened though.

At our resort, there are 3 resorts you can eat at….we stayed on the Tulum side, but found the buffets on the Akumal and Coba sides to be much better….Coba being the best. We ate at the Don Pablo one night for dinner and I didn’t care for it. We are at Dolce Vita another night and it was good. We were supposed to eat at Mikado but weren’t able to make our reservations. In all, I wasn’t very impressed with any of the food, but I am a very picky eater. And, being pregnant I was a careful not to eat anything that could go bad or not be cooked all the way.

It rained the first 3 days we were there because of some tropical storm and I was worried it would rain on our wedding day (it didn’t). We only went to one of the quieter pools and it was nice but nothing spectacular. The beach had a red flag all week and the waves were crazy big until the last 2 days of our trip. There were some rocks, but I knew that before we got there. The beach on the Akumal side seemed a little less rocky. Oh and because the lobby is open aired, the tile was very slippery when it rained. Made me super nervous to walk around a lot.

The rooms were always cleaned and our mini bar always filled. We left tips though, so I am not sure if that helped or not. We always had a different towel animal too. Everyone was pretty friendly and helpful, well with the exception of the a/c issue the first night.

 

 

More to come...

[Martha]

Jazmin, Resort Wedding Coordinator: B

Jazmin was pretty helpful when we communicated via email. It took her a while to get back to us sometimes, but I know she is pretty busy. Things changed once we got there. She was rude and rather bossy. I know in her line up work she has to be one that takes charge, but she was demanding of us and I didn’t appreciate it. They day we met her, she was able to give us a good deal on the reception since we didn’t want alcohol, and I appreciate that. We gave her all of our stuff and told her that my mom was bringing more stuff on Wednesday and my best friend was bringing our chair ties on Thursday because she was spending the first part of the week at another resort. She said I needed to get everything to her by Wednesday. Not possible. I think she was put off because I was brining my friend/WC in to help. I told her that I would get her everything as soon as I could. When my mom arrived I took her what I needed to take her and told her I would take the chair ties the next day. She told me that was fine but was really rude about it. The next day my best friend took her the chair ties and Jazmin told her that her staff couldn’t set them up and that we would have to do it at 3:00 the next day, an hour before our ceremony. Obviously I couldn’t do it, so my BFF had to do it…when she got to the wedding site, there were white chair ties on the chairs, so she had to take them off and put on the pink ones. This seemed silly. Her staff could have done them, I guess she was just annoyed that I had another WC there. Oh and when BFF took her the chair ties, Jazmin said “you are a wedding coordinator in the states and you are just now getting here?†BFF was like “ I am here as the matron of honor and I was at another resort at the beginning of the week.†Jazmin said “well, I guess that’s YOUR business†in a real snooty kinda way. Regardless of all this, the set up was nice and she did a good job at queing everyone when it was time to walk. We still tipped her, even though it wasn’t what it was would have been. I was just put off by her attitude.

 

The Wedding/Minister: A++

The wedding was beautiful. SUPER hot (I prayed for sun and I think I prayed too hard. It was HOT). It was super humid and windy, so I had to stand on the right side (we aren’t Jewish, but we pretended we were  ). The minister spoke very good English and they accommodated our two readings and sand ceremony. The funniest thing was that my BFF, Gina had just done her reading and I guess the minister still had the name Gina on his mind because right after the reading he was talking about waking up next to each other and the minister asked Jay what he would tell Gina in the mornings when he woke up next to her. He didn’t catch his slip up and we all started cracking up. I said, “My name is Martha.†And he got so embarrassed. Poor guy. I didn’t want to correct him, but he looked very confused. It made us all laugh and we will never forget that.

 

Reception: A+

I actually liked the food here! We had corn chowder (which I was skeptical of), salad, porterhouse steak and baked potato. Everything was delicious, but my baked potato was burned. The wedding cake was supposed to be tres leches but this was not like any tres leches I had ever had. It was GROSS. The cake itself was gross and the fondant was even worse. I would not recommend this cake to anyone. They had chocolate cake in our room waiting for us the night after the wedding and it was delicious!

The reception was kinda boring. We just brought CDs with us and tried to have a nice selection of music since we had kids there as young as 4 and our parents as old as 60 there. No one really danced, and all the old people just sat around outside in the heat. We had our reception by the pool and it was nice, but I wish there as more dancing. Some people looked really bored. Nothing we could do about that though.

We had a nice surprise in our room the wedding night and the night after, but I don’t want to spoil it for the future GBP brides!

We did our toasts in the restaurant after dinner. Our dads, our BM, and MofH did toasts, then Jay did one just thanking everyone for coming and then he turned to me and toasted me with the most amazing words to ever come out of his mouth. He started crying then we all did. Very amazing words! I so love this man!

 

Heather Mabry, photographer A++ eclectic images photography - stylish and modern wedding photography in austin and around the world

I LOVE Heather. She was super kind and very professional. We never got to meet her before the wedding because we had to cancel our E-pics because of weather. She is a good friend of my BFFs and they have worked together on several weddings. I don’t have any pictures from her yet, but I am sure they will be awesome. We were supposed to do a TTD the next day but I was so exhausted we just decided to do our pregnancy pictures with her sometime in September. We got to TTD a little, at the end of the reception, me, Jay, Gina, and one of our other bridesmaids all held hands and fell back in the pool. It should be a very sweet picture.

 

Captain Ricks, fishing trip: A+

Jay, my dad, my little brother, Jay’s brother, BIL, Jay’s nephew and Gina’s husband went fishing Thursday morning. We booked directly with Captain Ricks instead of with Funjet and the guys all caught one fish and had a good time. The captain and deck hands were very helpful. My BIL got real sick, but he always gets sick when they go fishing.

 

Xcaret: A

We got here super late in the day (around 1:00) and didn’t get to do much. We did the underground river, and did some snorkeling in the lagoon then watched the show at night. We also ate lunch at one of the buffets. I didn’t like the food and the entire trip was not worth the $99 pp we paid. I think if we had gotten there earlier it would have been better because we would have been able to do more things.

 

Tulum Ruins: No grade

Can’t really rate this since they are ruins. They were beautiful and the beach was amazing. We didn’t go in the beach because the stairs were wooden and I was afraid I would slip..and, it’s a long way down. We got some amazing pictures. I would definitely do this again and it only took about an hour and half, so it was a nice short trip.

 

 

 

Pictures on the way...

[Martha]

If you read that last post about not being able to find them, I did...

 

These are all non-pro pics....Pro ones should be here in a few weeks!

 

View from our room:

 

The beach:

 

My handsome husband at dinner one night:

 

Us: Look at my big belly!

 

Tulum Ruins & Beach:

 

 

More to come....

[Martha]

Still the Tulum Ruins & Beach:

 

Jay and his familia before the wedding:

 

Jay and everyone walking to wedding site behind him:

 

My Dad and I:

 

My Dad "giving" me to Jay:

 

 

Praying before ceremony...my hands don't even go over my belly anymore

I don't know why I was laughing and not paying attention?

 

Mine & MoH flowers:

 

First kiss:

 

Jay kissing Noah after he kissed me....I LOVE this picture:

 

More to come still...

[Martha]

First dance....actually our first slow dance ever!

 

Us, super hot and sweaty during dinner. I didn't know the restaurant was NOT air conditioned:

 

Cake cutting....cake was so gross:

 

No idea what I was doing:

 

Toasting:

 

Dancing to "Thriller." We were just making it up as we went along!:

 

And our one TTD picture. My face CRACKS me up!

 

 

And, that's it. My computer is running super slow and I am so tired. I have hundreds more but I don't think you guys wanna see all of them. I can't wait for the pro ones to come in!!!

[Helen_S81]

Wow Martha! So glad that everything turned out ok for you and that you had a good trip, even if it did get off to a very hot start

 

Can't wait to see the pro pictures!

[ErinB]

Thanks for the detailed review. I'm sure it will be a big help to future brides.

 

You looked beautiful and I can't believe you went and climbed ruins at 6 months pregnant!

 

I can't wait to see pro pics. The one of Jay kissing the belly made me get all teary!

 

Congrats again!

[Copita]

Hooray for your lovely pictures and wedding!

I love the picture of your hub kissing your belly! That is so sweet!

[LisaG]

Aaaww Martha - I love your pregnant belly in your pics. And the one of Jay kissing baby Noah is precious. I can't wait to see pro pics.