Louisa's El Dorado Royale review!

[weez]

Sorry this has taken so long, but wow, do things ever seem to have been hectic since we got back! Anyway I hope I include everything in this review and if anyone needs to know other things just ask away! Beware this is quite long!

 

Travel

We left Toronto airport early on Wednesday morning, along with all our family and friends (who were on the same flight which was nice) and flew with Air Canada, they were very good. I love the fact you get extra luggage allowance with them! I, like most others wanted to carry on my dress, and while it was a bit of a PITA I felt better knowing it wasn't going to go to Zimbabwe or Timbucktoo! They had a place to hang it up on board and it came out actually quite well. It didn't need to be steamed at all.

 

Transportation

Once we arrived at Cancun airport we sailed right through customs, all of us pushing the green button which was quite a feat considering there were 10 of us! I was a bit worried about that, and had everyone set up behind me to take my case with the OOT bag items in if I had pushed red! However things went smoothly! Once through that we went directly outside where we were picked up by our transport, we used Lomas travel, and they were great too, infact we used them quite often throught the week to take group tours and they were really accomadating to say we had a large group. Our transfer to the resort was direct and we were there in 25 mins!

 

The Resort

I cannot say enough about this resort and how amazing it is! It has been getting such good reviews that I was fairly confident about it before we arrived but it exceeded our expectations. Everyone was greeted with a cold towel as soon as we got out of the van, and a glass of champagne once we got into the lobby,mmmm good! Hehehe! We had booked a casita suite and they picked us up in the lobby and whisked us away to a separate check in. We were able to go to our room right away, which was a bonus as check in isn't till 3. The casitas are amazing if anyone is going to stay at this resort I recommend spending the extra dollars to get the upgrade. While the other rooms were nice too, the casita's just went above and beyond! Everyone loved the resort in our party and our favorite restaurants were D'Italia and El Cocotal. Although they were all great. All meals at EDR are a la carte so no buffets was great (its an all inclusive). I was also told that they are the first all inclusive in Mexico to receive the 4 diamond award (correct me if I am wrong?).

My family flew in late that day from the UK so I was incredibly excited to see them all (only get to see them once in a while!)

 

Wedding coordinator

I dealt with Faith before we arrived and she was great to deal with, (she is part of Lomas travel) answered all my questions and e-mails really quickly and eased my nerves more than once! The onsite WC is Abigail, and also she was great. We talked to her at check in and set up a time to meet the next day, whereupon we sorted all the last minute details and changed a few things. Again they were all really easy to deal with and had lots of helpful suggestions. This helped! We had our blood tests done on Thursday too and am happy to report that it wasn't as traumatic as I first thought! LOL! We chose our flowers and decoration. We also changed our wedding location, prior to our arrival we wanted the beachfront gazebo but....having seen the tropical location we decided to switch, the beachfront was just soooo windy and our new gazebo was really pretty, we also switched our cocktail reception location as it was just too hot to have food outside! Between Abbie and the Lomas travel team I had no worries!

 

OOT bags!

These d@*m things ended up causing me the most stress of everything! LOL! They were however a great hit as people were not expecting them! Thanks to all you guys for your help with the OOT bag items! The biggest hit though were the pashminas (thanks Glenda!) the girls loved them! I also included general meds, sunscreen, welcome letter, spanish phrases (were also a hit!) pic frames, koozies,etc....

 

Spa

There is an on resort spa at EDR too so I had my hair done there, it turned out quite nice though not what I had planned! I was starting to panic about halfway through but it worked out okay in the end lots of hairspray though! LOL! Ended up wearing my veil after lots of debating and am so glad I did. I was quite adamant at first that I didn't want to wear one, but once I tried it on I loved it! Really made me feel like a bride! Did my own makeup, I felt more like myself that way!

 

Ceremony

The ceremony was about 15 mins long which was perfect for us....the less fuss the better! It was in spanish though and then translated into english by one of the Lomas team. We didn't have our own vows but I am sure you could have fit them in too. I do remember that it was wicked hot though, so take note, 2pm is a really stoopid time to get married in Mexico! hehehe! I almost passed out right after the ceremony, and had to sit down for a minute (my drama queen moment!) All in all it went well though and everyone said that it was really beautiful.

 

Photographer

This was my one big regret.....after lots of thought we decided to go with the resort photographer and while my pictures are ok I wish I would've saved and taken someone with me. We had to tell him what we wanted in evey pic and most of the pic's were formal poses, not really what I wanted but we did save a lot on this so oh well......

 

Flowers

Picked out my flowers once we were there for the decoration and our bouquets. I wanted something colourful and they worked out really well, they stood out well in the pics and I was very happy, they had lots of decoration choices depending on your budget too.

 

Cake

I picked this out before I left and although we got the free wedding package we had 6 different cakes to choose from and ours was really nice, only got it at the reception though not sure what happened to it then?!

 

Dinner

Our dinner was held at the resort also and was wonderful, we had 15 guests total and they sey up one big table and decorated it with the flowers from the gazebo which looked really great, we were able to choose our menu at our meeting with Abbie, and they had special menus printed up which was nice, everyone got a choice of 2 dishes for their main course too which went over well!

Once we got back to our room we were amazed to find a trail of rose petals leading up to our bed and to the filled jacuzzi tub which had lit candles and more champange! Great suprise!

 

Honeymoon dinner

As we were just spending a week at the resort ( no extra time for more honeymoon, boohoo!) we decided to make the day after the ceremony our honeymoon day! We had a special breakfast in bed, and at night we had an amazing candlelit dinner on the beach, it really made it special!

 

We had a great time and the only downside was saying goodbye to my family at the end of it (they live so far away and I miss my mom!) so lots of tears then but it was worth every minute of stress and double guessing!

Hope I didn't ramble on for too long! It was fun reliving it all though!

[*JillD*]

Louisa, it sounds like you had a fantastic time! I'm so glad to hear you loved EDR because thats where we are going on our honeymoon, and we did get a swim up casita, FI is very excited about that!

[AmyB79]

Louisa, glad to hear you had such a good time! I'm getting married there at the end of April and am beginning to get a little worried.

 

Mostly I'm worried about the location for the ceremony (beach vs gazebo) and also the flowers. I'm glad to hear they let you make changes once you were there. Was this as easy as it sounds? The wedding coordinator (Monica) told me about 10 times I had to have all my final decisions made 30 days before the wedding date.

 

Post some pictures when you have a chance, I'd love to see them!

[CourtneyV]

Hey Louisa,

 

Great review! I'm sure it'll put a lot of future EDR bride's minds at ease. So those flowers in the pictures that you posted on the other thread were through EDR, no upgrades? Also, what kind of a cake did you end up going with? I saw the candle light dinners on the beach when I was there - they looked so nice and romantic!

Did you do any excursions from the resort during the week? Did you end up doing any activities through the resort? They had some really neat "classes" (ugh, sounds like school!) that I wanted to do but didn't end up with enough time in the end.

You should definately post more pictures though!

Congratulations again and I'm glad you had such a great time

[Jessalyn]

Louisa~ Congratulations!! Thanks for the great review! It is always nice to hear about what brides would change and wouldn't change. Thanks for your honesty. It sounds your everyone had a great time and I really LOVE your bouquet....from your picture thread.....so pretty with all the colors!!

 

I'm also glad to hear that the OOT bags are worth all of the trouble.

 

Congrats again and welcome home!!

[TammyWright]

Louisa,

 

great review, beautiful pics and gret to see you back!!

[weez]

Thanks for all your lovely comments girls!

Amy.....dont worry! I was like you too, but you will love it, I will say again though that while we picked out the bechfront gazebo before we arrived it was REALLY windy! This is why we changed it, but they were really accomadating about the changes! We were married on a Saturday and were the only ones being married on that day so they were open.....maybe check before you go how many weddings on that day?

We also had to have all our final choices in before we left but they double checked everything in our meeting with the WC and we could pretty much change whatever we wanted! They have tons of pics there for you to see stuff, and they are full of suggestions, which I found helpful! I have to say though that I did love my flowers, they were so colourful and exactly what I had in mind but they even changed certain flowers and colours around for me!

Nini_bride.....the candlelit dinners were very romantic but you are not the only ones out on the beach! There are quite a few other tables, it was also quite expensive, but came with our free wedding and honeymoon package! Bonus!

We did do some of the "classes"! LOL! We played water volleyball, and also some of the dance lessons! We learned how to Samba!! They were no pressure and LOTS of fun! We also went to XEL-HA, (again) and highly recommend it if you want to try snorkelling, also went as a group to Playa del Carmen (for shopping) and into Cancun (to party!). All were great. We have been to Tulum before and I definatley think you should see it at least once, the beach and the view of the ocean is breathtaking!

Hope this helps and promise to post more pics soon!

Ask away at any other questions you have!

-Lou

[CourtneyV]

Ya, I did notice that while I was there the tables had the sort of like 3-sided canopy of it, but because the wind was always belowing towards the resort, the 3rd side fo the canopy faced the ocean, so it blocked your romantic ocean view and opened your table towards the passing crowds - was it the same for you? It still looked really nice though. I think it was a $150 USD charge/dinner? That's good it came with your honeymoon package though.

[weez]

Yeah, it was the same for us too, I understand that they don't want the salt water blowing at you but it does spoil the view a bit! Oh well it was still really nice. As I said though, a bit pricey if you did have to pay!

[Nrvsbride]

Louisa it sounds like everything worked out great. And I am so glad all the girls liked the pashs. I always get nervous that someone is not going to like them. The El Dorado sounds so fabulous. I want a swim up casita. It just sounds so great!!! I'm so glad everything worked out okay. You were such a pretty bride.

 

-Glenda