Dreams Riviera Cancun - Brides post here (new thread)

alisonpaige · April 21, 2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by amberm410

Juan Navarro is actually a DRC resort approved photographer so once I let Ana know I wanted him she booked him for me. She actually gave me him as an option but I know sometimes she doesn't mention all the options sometimes so if you just ask she can arrange him for you. Another girl had him as her photographer the day after mine. I just paid the resort and they paid Juan. I believe (can't remember) it was the exact same price as the resort based photography company. I stuck with the package 4 which was $1050 USD and we received a book with about 96-100 photos as well as some 8 X 10's and some 5 X 7s. We also got a cd of all these pictures. Then on top of that we paid extra after the wedding for cds that had over 1200 pictures on them with all rights for us to print as we need etc.. It was a really good deal and they did an awesome job.

Oh thank you! I just emailed my TA to email Ana for me to see if it will be possible to get him! I am going to cross my fingers!

Ashlynn039 · April 21, 2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boo

wow, you sure are on the ball, you wedding is 6 months after mine and I dont have my wedding dresses picked out, leave in less than 7 months, this is one of those getting concerned moments

Haha! Boo you make me feel SO much better

I haven't even went to try on dresses yet! I'm going to fly to Florida and look at the end of next month. At that same time since I'll be with my mom, sister (maid of honor) and nieces (flower girls) - I also have to pick out the bridesmaid & flower girl dresses! I honestly haven't even looked at those yet.

We're in the middle of TRYING to move, our condo that was supposed to be finished last summer is now finally finished and they keep pushing our closing date back. It makes me want to pull my hair out. We canceled our phone, cable and internet a week ago because we were supposed to have moved by now! Moving and getting married in the same year.. don't recommend it!

On a side note - some of you ladies have mentioned you're getting lounge furniture or center pieces from an outside vendor. Who is this and what kind of quotes have you been getting?

Oh, and welcome to all the new ladies

t1219 · April 21, 2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by amberm410

Ok so here is my full review. I will try to rememeber everything.

I will start out by saying I really enjoyed DRC and would probably return in a few years but they do have some kinks to work out with service etc.. but overall the resort is awesome, food is the best I have ever had at a all inclusive, and the rooms and grounds of the resort are beautiful. I really did have an awesome wedding there.

Check in: ok so this is where the kinks started. We were booked for a perferred club room and apon checking in with two other rooms of my family members in the perferred area check in the concierge there didn't seem to know what she was doing. From the start we had to wait about 30 - 45 minutes in this perferred check in area for them to call are name to check in. Once we started to check in with her I informed her that I was getting married at the resort and was supposed to check in with Ana when arriving. I had to remind her to call her once she was finished checking us in and then she couldn't reach her so she said she would have Ana call us. The concierge didn't seem to care about anything I had said. Anyways, once we went to the room we realized out of the 3 rooms that checked in that we had recieved the worst view on one of the outsides of the resort. A few hours later we ended up getting a call from Ana to arrange our meeting and things were fine. Ana had our room moved within 2 days to a lot better view overlooking the resort.

The rooms: While I could see the privacy issue with the bathrooms etc being a problem for some people we really didn't have the issue. I am a very private person and it did not bother me at all. The bathrooms and bedrooms were beautiful. The only issue I had with our room which was a perferred honeymoon suite on a corner was the lighting in the bathroom. My family had all complained of the issue as well. Bring a really good makeup mirror with a really bright light. I brought a makeup mirror but the light on it wasn't bright enough so it didn't help at all. The closet space and drawers were adequate for us. We had two weeks worth of clothes and we are both big clothes people and it was fine.
The pool/lounge chairs/beach: The infinity pool was awesome and the swim up bar was our favorite spot to hang. The drinks are the strongest at that bar. The swing bar on the beach was very fun in the evenings. The beach was very nice and don't see why people would complain about seaweed etc.. its natural.

Food: AWESOME!!!!! The french and asian place was our favorite. The french place had always had diff things on the menu and each thing we tried was phenominal! The asian place had great food and their outside patio is really cool. Usually during the mornings and lunches we had the seaside grill out by the pool and they had really good taco's and nacho's and all sorts of stuff. I cannot say more about the food at this place it was delish! I have stayed at two other all inclusive top rated resorts in Cancun area and this by far was the best food.

Wedding: It all comes together once you meet with Ana and or Yasmin. You can tell how busy they are. Once we met with her she really took care of everything within an hour. our wedding was at the gazebo and I'm telling you girls this is the place to have it. Surprise its pretty cool being out there in the middle of everything going on. Our wedding was at 3pm and she had me walk up around one of the sides and everyone was watching and cheering when we were done. I thought I would like it to be more private but it is pretty cool. I did not have chairs set up since our was so small (my choice) but I could see if you had more than 15 guests having chairs set up would make it more private and intimate but it is really cool having everyone watching. That night and the next day I had so many women come up to me remembering my wedding and saying how cool it was. We had our dinner in the wine room which is off od the french restaurant and it was perfect for our small 12 people. Only 2 small quirks about the eve... we arrived for our dinner and they had only set up for 10 people so there was a communication issue even though Ana had confirmed with me the 12. Also, they brought my cake out to the gazebo and we wanted it at the dinner in the wine room so I asked her to have it then and she said no problem it would be there waiting for us. After dinner they brought out a half eaten choc square cake for us. we looked at it and laughed and said this isn't our cake because ours was a round milk cake (which by the way is so so good. It was recommended by Ana as the best and it was). Also we had not even cut into our cake so obviously this was someone else cake. LOL They fixed it right away and brought us our milk cake. Our photographer was Juan Navarro which did an outstanding job which I mentioned in my previous posts. This was the best part of my wedding besides being married to the best man on earth.

The downside: Really like I said everything was great I just think they have some major communication kinks at this resort compared to the others I stayed at. On the first day we waited and waited around in the lobby area to try to schedule something for the concierge for my mothers birthday. The same clueless gal who checked us in also tried to make a reservation for us at the tapenake tables and totally screwed it up. I just felt like I was always being lied to by her and kept having to follow up with her instead of her getting back with me. At first after about 3 hours we were under the impression we had a reservation with the restaurant for 6:30 or 7 on Thursday but she would confirm the time with us in a few hours. The next day after not hearing from her we followed up and she said we didn't have a res but would get back to us. We never heard from her until 5:30 pm on Thursday. She then confirmed it but at that point snce we still hadn't heard from her we already made plans for everyone to go eat in Playa de Carmen. It just seemed like she really had no cust service skills at all. I could tell it also seemed like she was expecting a tip for setting it up. I kinda felt like they are expecting tips all over the resort but didn't get this feeling at the 2nd resort we went to the following week.

Another comm issue was that I had contacted the reort about 2 1/2 weeks prior to our arrival to find out about golf. We were told to e-mailthis certain e-mailt to set up a tee time. Well no one replied at all and my brother also had the same response. I think they just need more concierge people and need a little more training.

There was one concierge and I cannot remember his name but he seemed to have his stuff together and was able to get us a timely reservation on the patio at the asian place and was able to set up a birthday celebration, beach dinner and cake on the pool deck for my mother. Everything was wonderful except that we were supposed to get the cake at 8:30 for the birthday on the pool deck and we ended up waiting around till about 9 pm with no drinks or anything. I had to ask about 9pm where the cake was and where the bottles of wine we had bought were. They kept telling me it was coming. They brought out the alcohol very soon but I finally had to tell them to forget the cake becuase it was so so late. We had a 8 and 4 year old falling asleep. They insisted the cake was coming. It was about 10pm before getting the cake.

Overall things were good and I hope they get the communication issues worked out soon.

Congratulations!!!!!!!! Thank you so much for the review!!! very helpful:)

FutureMrsRobart · April 21, 2010

Thanks again for posting your pic link Amber - I was poking around Juan's site last night and got to get a peek at a few other DRC weddings too in the archives. It was AWESOME to look at everyone's pics and get to see the ceremony's from the gazebo perspective :-)

amberm410 · April 21, 2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by noonie

thanks so much for the review, im getting married next wednesday:)

Congratulations!

amberm410 · April 21, 2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by cathyandchin

Thanks for the review!
So would you say that upon arriving at the resort we should check in first with Ana?

I'm getting sooo excited!

I think you still need to try to check in with the regular folks but I would insist they call Ana to let her know you have arrived unless Ana has already set up a meeting with you at a particular time. If your room is not up to par, I think Ana will do everything she can to make it right for you.

ap070680 · April 21, 2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by lilly129

Ohhh that was me! I have the pdf for the chocolates - I'm attaching it here for you.
Also - I have templates for my bridesmaids and groomsmen, which I'm sure you can tweak for all guests - I'll attach those as well. I bought a10 sized cards (3.875 x 9.25) at Michaels - it was in the wedding aisle - Mix and Mingle by Gartner studios (I bought white and then ordered pink envelopes from Paper Presentation to stuff them in).

Everything looks so adorable. What was everything that you put in the OOT bags. Can you let me know the websites if any you ordered from. I just love everything. Thanks.

Did you make your own labels?

lilly129 · April 21, 2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by ap070680

Everything looks so adorable. What was everything that you put in the OOT bags. Can you let me know the websites if any you ordered from. I just love everything. Thanks.

Did you make your own labels?

Thanks! Here's what our oot bags will have in them:
- Mexican wedding cookies (I'm on a hunt for bakery in playa or cancun to order these from - will be trying to nail that down on our site visit next month). These have a little tag that says "Abrezos" (hugs) which I ordered from ForYourParty.com Wedding favors, custom wedding napkins, party favors, and more. Make your special occasion unique with personalized favors!. I believe they cost $90 for 150 tags (I got 50 of each)
- Chocolates from Ah Cocoa - those will have a tag that says "Besos" (Kisses)
- A Just in Case bag: Advil, tums, pepto, purell, shout wipes, bug repellant wipes...my fiance ordered all this stuff off of Amazon.com - it's amazing the stuff you can find on there
- Personalized Koozie
- Mexican Worry Dolls - we bought these in San Antonio at a mexican market - they're little dolls with a slip of paper that says "mexican children put these dolls under thier pillows at night and the dolls take all thier worries away" - although they're technically Guatamalean...
- Welcome Letter with Agenda.

I made two stickers - one says "Shake For a Kiss" and we're attaching those to adorable little hang tags I ordered from www.paperpresentation.com (in the color flame which is a metallicy orange, they have the same color at foryourparty.) and then I made 2x2 stickers that say "bienvenidos a mexico" and those will go on the outside of the gable box. I found a great website if you want to make stickers:

Online Labels - Labels for laser and inkjet printers! Compatible with all popular software programs for printing labels! - when you order labels they give you an access code to Maestro or something - but it's an online based program where you can design your sticker and then simply print them off -no worrying about the margins etc. I highly reccommend it.

I'm going to upload some pictures into photobucket and I'll post them.