Dreams Riviera Cancun - Brides post here (new thread)

[Mariposaazul]

Originally Posted by LindseyM 

 

So we leave for Mexico in 34 days and I am starting to figure out how to pack.  I am nervous.

 

Besides our clothes we need to bring down...

 

-My bouquet, 3 bridesmaid bouquets, and corsages/boutonnieres 

-Sand and sand ceremony kit

-Wine stopper favors

-Beach towels for OOT bags

-20 Embroidered OOT bags

-Sunglasses for OOT bags

-All of the other contents of the OOT bags

-Welcome letter, itinerary, guest book mad libs cards, and programs

-Cake Topper * "I Do" letters

-Starfish place cards

-Menus

-Gown, jewelry, shoes, etc.

-Kevin's wedding day attire

 

I think that's it but it's very overwhelming!  We are also flying US Air direct but we will have to pay for our bags, I believe, so that sucks.  I am hoping I can do it by Kevin, myself, my mom, and my dad all taking an extra bag.  I will check the boxes that the favors and beach towels are in.  They will count as bags...then I will try to get the rest of the things in two bigger suitcases.

 

My main concern are my flowers.  Does any one have any suggestions on how to bring down silk/real touch bouquets?  I don't want to check them in a suitcase for fear they will get tossed around and ruined, but I will if I have to.  I thought about putting them all in a carry on bag.  Does anyone have any suggestions?  I can't believe how soon my wedding is!

 I am glad for you. Where you got your bouquet? Can you post a picture?

[rachallen18]

Joe, let me track it down in my email but I believe I got an even lower price than that...something like $64 a person.

Hey guys: We are leaving on June 27 and booked www.paradisecatamarans.com for June 29 for our group of 50. We are paying $2430 total. It will be from 4 hours and this price includes round trip transportation, we get to snorkel, snacks and complimentary soft drinks, there will also be a sound dock so we can play iPod and CDs.. Also they have agreed to make a stop at another resort to pick up 5 of our guests that will not be staying with us at dreams. This is at no additional cost. Basically it's 1350.00 for up to 50 guests ( if less they have cheaper rates.) ground transportation is 480 for up to 50 people ( that's standard bus for all groups up to 50) . Snacks are 12 per person and open bar 15 per person. We took a tally and opted not to have an open bar. Reviews on trip advisor Are amazing and Mark Malkasian provides amazing and prompt customer service. Let me know if you are interested and I can provide additional info OR U can simply visit website above. Hope this is helpful as we too took our time and read plenty of reviews to guarantee that our guests enjoy and have an amazing excursion. This replaces our rehearsal dinner due to the insane fees for restaurants which we rather spend elsewhere. It's also our thank you for going out of their way to book their stay.

[mrskatieperry]

Hi Brides:

 

Here is my review

 

I want to start by saying we really had a great time and feel so happy that we chose this resort.  My husband said that I'm sure in time we will be able to nit-pick a few things but mostly I will say that the resort itself was beyond my expectations.

 

When we arrived we breezed through customs (which was not the case for everyone in our family-it just worked out good for us timing wise).  We used Olympus Tours which was set up as part of our package with out TA.  They were there waiting for us and took 10 of us all together who were on the same flight in a new air consitioned Sprinter Bus.  It was very comfortable, and the rip only took about 25 minutes MAX.

     **Not everyone in our party was quite so lucky as we were.  The people who were not traveling in a big group of "our" people went together with other people to other resorts and it took them over an hour to arrive at our resort.  We knew it was a shared transportation, but still some people got their feathers ruffled.

 

Our arrival at the resort was wonderful--there was someone waiting at the entrance with cold water, champagne and cold towels which smelled wonderful!  Our party all wated in the lobby for an agent to check them in while we were taken to the preferred club to do our check in.  We were upgraded from the preferred club ocean view to a honeymoon suite.  Our room wasn't ready (it was about 11:00 AM) and neither were most of the rooms in our party.  People went to lunch or went and hung out by the pool until the rooms were ready.

 

We went to all of the different types of rooms that our party had and honestly I would have been happy with any of them.  They are super clean and the air conditioning worked well.   The way the rooms are set up you can walk around the bed which makes it seem like there is a lot of space.  The beds and pillows were extremely comfortable.  Only one person in our party had any room complaint and it was about the noise from soe partiers in their hallway (another wedding party who knocked on their door and was racing in the halls and stuff) BUT the next morning the hotel moved them to another room in a very quiet section and they were all set.

 

The days leading up to the wedding we met with Yamina and with Edgar the DJ and they were great to talk to.  Yamina was so easy going and was very assuring that she understood exactly what we wanted and where and when.  She asked a lot of questions and went over the event from start to finish making sure we were on the same page.  She let us move our ceremony back to 5:00 PM which made us very happy as well.

 

The day of the wedding we woke up to cloudy icky skies.  It was very humid and didn't look great.  My husband talked to Yamina who said we had until 3:00 PM to make the call for inside or outside.  He went and looked at the ballroom and loved it.  He said it was so beautiful and I think he was leaning toward that but he knew I wanted outside so at 3:00 PM when it was definitely clearing up we decided to go for the outdoor reception.

     ***We had the Dreams of Love package but we cashed in the cocktail hour for more people at the reception.  We had out ceremony at North Beach at 5:00 PM and were planning on the reception at the Pool Terrace at 7:00 PM***

 

We brought our own photographers with us but the resort photographer went up to the groom's room and took 30 minutes of pictures with him (included in the pakage).  We used Anel and she was fantastic.  We really do like our pictures from our photographer and we got him for free (which can't be beat) because he is trying to build his portfolio, BUT we definitely felt a little twinge of regret when we saw Anel's.  They are AWESOME.  It was hard to choose just 36 from her---even if it was only the guys getting ready-lol!!

 

I didn't see Yamina until about 5:10 when she knocked on my door and asked if we were ready.  She was so sweet and hugged me and said I looked beautiful.  It made me feel really good like she really cared about the event and it wasn't "just another wedding".  The ceremony didn't start until about 5:15.  We were at North Beach which was gorgeous.  Everything was set up just as I wanted.  My brother performed the ceremony for us whihc was about 40 minutes long. 

    **HERE IS A COMPLAINT FROM MY HUSBAND--Jorge who introduced himself to us the day before was there and I guess he was giving my husband a hard time saying we needed to start.  My husband just kept saying he hadn't seen me and assumed that Yamina was going to get me.  PJ (my husband) was already aggitated when we started that Jorge had been harassing him, THEN once the ceremony started he stood off to the side (behind where I was) facing my husband and PJ said he starred him down the whole time.  He said he looked exhasperated and was lookign at his watch and made PJ feel really uncomfortable about the ceremony.  I didn't know AT ALL that we were on a strict time limit, but as soon as we finished they were there to set up the next wedding in the same spot and they rushed us out of the area.  I wish they had let us know that or not moved our wedding back if it was such a problem.  I fel like it wasn't our fault but we felt guilty anyway.  Bummer.

 

After the ceremony we took some pictures on the beach and all of the sudden we saw the clouds coming in FAST!  We had to run from the rain (the poor girl right behind us had her ceremony rained on).  I met Yamina in the Seaside Grill as we watched my reception getting poured on.  She said they were just about to bring the food out but hadn't yet.  Thank God!  We then went to Plan B--the Ballroom.  She said I could wait and see if the rain passed and they could re-set outside, but at that point they were already going to re-do the set up once I didn't want it to be twice--I didn't want to take any chances.  They had it all set up by 7:30 and when I walked in I felt like you would NEVER know it wasn't our first choice.  It was gorgeous!  And it was air conditioned, which my guests all said OVER and OVER again how thankful they were for that. 

 

The DJ was so-so.  In his defense we didn't give him a TON of information.  We only asked that he play about 5 songs and he didn't play all of those, but it was fine.  He watched the crowd and made sure that everyone was singing along or dancing and having fun.  Fernando was the MC and he was really sweet and did a good job communicating.

 

The food was great-we had the Caribbean Buffet and it was super yummy.  Everything was hot and fresh and clearly labled.  We had the tres leches cake which was SOOO YUMMY! 

 

We also had the cigar roller at the wedding which all the guys thought was very cool.  It was fun to have and everyone said they were some of the best cigars they had had.

 

Yamina was great about the charges making sure she helped us substitute what we could and was understanding that we weren't looking to spend a lot more than the package price so she helped us make the most of it.  All in all she was wonderful to work with.  Also, Gregorio who is in charge of the ballroom facilities was great too-he was helpful and great about everythign during the reception.

 

The resort itself was so wonderful--we loved the infinity pool and stayed in there most of the time.  All of the restaurants were yummy and pretty much everyone liked all of them.  The hibachi restaurant was only so-so.  Bordeaux was incredible as well as El Patio.  Make sure you try the wontons at Seaside Grill--they were my favorite!  All of the fruit was super fresh and room service was great--my husbands favorite thing he hat the whole time was the steak from room service at lunch on our wedding day! 

    **We did have just a bit of trouble getting everyone in the restaurants together.  Our group mostly wanted to go to dinner together and sometimes they were fine about it and we didn't mind the wait but once at El Patio they made a stink about it saying that they had a reservation so they didn't have room.  My cousin went and talked to someone and said he thought nobody could make reservations and suddenly they had room-oh well we laughed it off and enjoyed our dinner.

 

The grouds were so clean and the staff was so friendly and helpful.  The cleaning of the rooms and turn down every evening was great!  My family is already talkign about going back-we alll loved it.  We had NO problems getting chairs at the pool and there were not a ton of kids and the times we did see kids they were well behaved and never ever caused any issue for us.

 

Please feel free to ask me any questions--you can email me as well if you'd like [email protected] anything you want to know:)

 

We sent to Secrets for 3 days at the end for our Honeymoon and I will say we DEFINITELY wished we hadn't left Dreams.  It wasn't nearly the same!

 

**Also one more thing--we went as a group to Selvatica and it was AWESOME!  I'd highly recommend it.  Also we went to Cozumel for a day and did the Dolphin Discovery at Chankanaab Park and a Tequilla Factory Tour which was a blast as well.  We rented a jeep for $75 and drove around the whole island-was great.**

 

Well, that's it!  Let me know anything you want to know!

 

Katie Perry

[RollerBride]

 Let me know if you find the name of the 2nd place you rented the ATVs. That sounds exactly like what I want to do. Did you book that through the resort while you were there? or did you book it ahead of time?

Originally Posted by WPGBride 

 

Definatly do the Dolphin Swim.

 

We did Xplor and it was not what we were expecting. It was an all day event where the shuttle bus picks you up at 8:00am or earlier. We were there before the park opened so we were lucky there were no lines. The ziplining at first was great but once we got around to 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th we wanted to stop because once you've done one you've done them all and there is a lot of stair climbing to get back to the top and if you don't get there early lines with 100+ people (just like an amusement park) I think there are like 14 ziplines in total and its an entire circuit. The amphibious vehicles are controlled and on a track so you can't get that ATV experience of going fast and racing (if that's what you're looking for) If you get stuck behind someone going 20 then thats what you'll be going the whole course. The only great thing about this park was the cenotes, where you can swim and do raft paddle. So we ended up leaving by cab, after 3 hours once we went through all those attractions. They were not exciting enough to repeat any. I could not imagine staying for the entire 8 hours for the shuttle to come back to pick us up.

Headsup: When they say all inclusive drinks, they mean non-alcoholic beverages, they do not have any liquor at this adventure park.

 

All in all if you want a natural experience of seeing the REAL jungle and not a tourist adventure park I would suggest picking a smaller park.

 

We did end up redoing the ATV's with a small group and it was amazing. A couple of hours of riding your own ATV, with no speed limit and crazy twists and turns through the jungle. They also stopped off at a real cenote you had to walk through the jungle to get to and there we took a break and were able to go swimming. They also stopped off at a cave where Mayans used to use to perform ceremonies and live. Great tour I will have to find the name of the place and really reasonable price.

 

Dreams also offers snorkling equipment and you can do snorkling tours through the hotel. As well as for a reasonable fee you can scuba dive at the reef! Only an in pool intructional course needed before going out to the reef. I would definatly suggest doing this it was beautiful. And if you want good quality photos bring an underwater camera from home it might be cheaper than the hotel gift shop disposables.

 

Hope this helps for excursions! My husband and I did so much I'll just stop there.

[Rach0636]

 Katie,

 

Im so glad everything went so wonderful for you!!! Did you notice that it rained everyday? I feel like im hearing that a lot lately! One question for you, did you do any kind of rehearsal dinner, or rehearsal ceremony? How did all that work?

Originally Posted by mrskatieperry 

Hi Brides:

 

Here is my review

 

I want to start by saying we really had a great time and feel so happy that we chose this resort.  My husband said that I'm sure in time we will be able to nit-pick a few things but mostly I will say that the resort itself was beyond my expectations.

 

When we arrived we breezed through customs (which was not the case for everyone in our family-it just worked out good for us timing wise).  We used Olympus Tours which was set up as part of our package with out TA.  They were there waiting for us and took 10 of us all together who were on the same flight in a new air consitioned Sprinter Bus.  It was very comfortable, and the rip only took about 25 minutes MAX.

     **Not everyone in our party was quite so lucky as we were.  The people who were not traveling in a big group of "our" people went together with other people to other resorts and it took them over an hour to arrive at our resort.  We knew it was a shared transportation, but still some people got their feathers ruffled.

 

Our arrival at the resort was wonderful--there was someone waiting at the entrance with cold water, champagne and cold towels which smelled wonderful!  Our party all wated in the lobby for an agent to check them in while we were taken to the preferred club to do our check in.  We were upgraded from the preferred club ocean view to a honeymoon suite.  Our room wasn't ready (it was about 11:00 AM) and neither were most of the rooms in our party.  People went to lunch or went and hung out by the pool until the rooms were ready.

 

We went to all of the different types of rooms that our party had and honestly I would have been happy with any of them.  They are super clean and the air conditioning worked well.   The way the rooms are set up you can walk around the bed which makes it seem like there is a lot of space.  The beds and pillows were extremely comfortable.  Only one person in our party had any room complaint and it was about the noise from soe partiers in their hallway (another wedding party who knocked on their door and was racing in the halls and stuff) BUT the next morning the hotel moved them to another room in a very quiet section and they were all set.

 

The days leading up to the wedding we met with Yamina and with Edgar the DJ and they were great to talk to.  Yamina was so easy going and was very assuring that she understood exactly what we wanted and where and when.  She asked a lot of questions and went over the event from start to finish making sure we were on the same page.  She let us move our ceremony back to 5:00 PM which made us very happy as well.

 

The day of the wedding we woke up to cloudy icky skies.  It was very humid and didn't look great.  My husband talked to Yamina who said we had until 3:00 PM to make the call for inside or outside.  He went and looked at the ballroom and loved it.  He said it was so beautiful and I think he was leaning toward that but he knew I wanted outside so at 3:00 PM when it was definitely clearing up we decided to go for the outdoor reception.

     ***We had the Dreams of Love package but we cashed in the cocktail hour for more people at the reception.  We had out ceremony at North Beach at 5:00 PM and were planning on the reception at the Pool Terrace at 7:00 PM***

 

We brought our own photographers with us but the resort photographer went up to the groom's room and took 30 minutes of pictures with him (included in the pakage).  We used Anel and she was fantastic.  We really do like our pictures from our photographer and we got him for free (which can't be beat) because he is trying to build his portfolio, BUT we definitely felt a little twinge of regret when we saw Anel's.  They are AWESOME.  It was hard to choose just 36 from her---even if it was only the guys getting ready-lol!!

 

I didn't see Yamina until about 5:10 when she knocked on my door and asked if we were ready.  She was so sweet and hugged me and said I looked beautiful.  It made me feel really good like she really cared about the event and it wasn't "just another wedding".  The ceremony didn't start until about 5:15.  We were at North Beach which was gorgeous.  Everything was set up just as I wanted.  My brother performed the ceremony for us whihc was about 40 minutes long. 

    **HERE IS A COMPLAINT FROM MY HUSBAND--Jorge who introduced himself to us the day before was there and I guess he was giving my husband a hard time saying we needed to start.  My husband just kept saying he hadn't seen me and assumed that Yamina was going to get me.  PJ (my husband) was already aggitated when we started that Jorge had been harassing him, THEN once the ceremony started he stood off to the side (behind where I was) facing my husband and PJ said he starred him down the whole time.  He said he looked exhasperated and was lookign at his watch and made PJ feel really uncomfortable about the ceremony.  I didn't know AT ALL that we were on a strict time limit, but as soon as we finished they were there to set up the next wedding in the same spot and they rushed us out of the area.  I wish they had let us know that or not moved our wedding back if it was such a problem.  I fel like it wasn't our fault but we felt guilty anyway.  Bummer.

 

After the ceremony we took some pictures on the beach and all of the sudden we saw the clouds coming in FAST!  We had to run from the rain (the poor girl right behind us had her ceremony rained on).  I met Yamina in the Seaside Grill as we watched my reception getting poured on.  She said they were just about to bring the food out but hadn't yet.  Thank God!  We then went to Plan B--the Ballroom.  She said I could wait and see if the rain passed and they could re-set outside, but at that point they were already going to re-do the set up once I didn't want it to be twice--I didn't want to take any chances.  They had it all set up by 7:30 and when I walked in I felt like you would NEVER know it wasn't our first choice.  It was gorgeous!  And it was air conditioned, which my guests all said OVER and OVER again how thankful they were for that. 

 

The DJ was so-so.  In his defense we didn't give him a TON of information.  We only asked that he play about 5 songs and he didn't play all of those, but it was fine.  He watched the crowd and made sure that everyone was singing along or dancing and having fun.  Fernando was the MC and he was really sweet and did a good job communicating.

 

The food was great-we had the Caribbean Buffet and it was super yummy.  Everything was hot and fresh and clearly labled.  We had the tres leches cake which was SOOO YUMMY! 

 

We also had the cigar roller at the wedding which all the guys thought was very cool.  It was fun to have and everyone said they were some of the best cigars they had had.

 

Yamina was great about the charges making sure she helped us substitute what we could and was understanding that we weren't looking to spend a lot more than the package price so she helped us make the most of it.  All in all she was wonderful to work with.  Also, Gregorio who is in charge of the ballroom facilities was great too-he was helpful and great about everythign during the reception.

 

The resort itself was so wonderful--we loved the infinity pool and stayed in there most of the time.  All of the restaurants were yummy and pretty much everyone liked all of them.  The hibachi restaurant was only so-so.  Bordeaux was incredible as well as El Patio.  Make sure you try the wontons at Seaside Grill--they were my favorite!  All of the fruit was super fresh and room service was great--my husbands favorite thing he hat the whole time was the steak from room service at lunch on our wedding day! 

    **We did have just a bit of trouble getting everyone in the restaurants together.  Our group mostly wanted to go to dinner together and sometimes they were fine about it and we didn't mind the wait but once at El Patio they made a stink about it saying that they had a reservation so they didn't have room.  My cousin went and talked to someone and said he thought nobody could make reservations and suddenly they had room-oh well we laughed it off and enjoyed our dinner.

 

The grouds were so clean and the staff was so friendly and helpful.  The cleaning of the rooms and turn down every evening was great!  My family is already talkign about going back-we alll loved it.  We had NO problems getting chairs at the pool and there were not a ton of kids and the times we did see kids they were well behaved and never ever caused any issue for us.

 

Please feel free to ask me any questions--you can email me as well if you'd like [email protected] anything you want to know:)

 

We sent to Secrets for 3 days at the end for our Honeymoon and I will say we DEFINITELY wished we hadn't left Dreams.  It wasn't nearly the same!

 

**Also one more thing--we went as a group to Selvatica and it was AWESOME!  I'd highly recommend it.  Also we went to Cozumel for a day and did the Dolphin Discovery at Chankanaab Park and a Tequilla Factory Tour which was a blast as well.  We rented a jeep for $75 and drove around the whole island-was great.**

 

Well, that's it!  Let me know anything you want to know!

 

Katie Perry

[mrskatieperry]

Originally Posted by Rach0636 

 

 Katie,

 

Im so glad everything went so wonderful for you!!! Did you notice that it rained everyday? I feel like im hearing that a lot lately! One question for you, did you do any kind of rehearsal dinner, or rehearsal ceremony? How did all that work?

It rained the night we got there--poured actually!! In fact we had all of our guests meet at the lobby bar that evening to give out our welcome bags and to do a little "meet and greet" (which was in place of a rehearsal dinner really) and while we were in there the powerr actually went out for about 30 seconds.  I laughed--I kept thinking :Oh, Lord this is what it's going to be like the next 10 days".  BUT then the only other time it rained at all was for the 15 minutes on my wedding day (the weather was muggy and icky all day though).  Every other day when you wake up the sky is kind of white but by 10 AM it's blue skies...sometimes clouds but never so many that we didn't get a ton of sunshine.  The weather was actually pretty fantastic and not nearly as muggy as Orlando where I live.

[Rach0636]

 oh good to hear!! Did you have to schedule the "meet and greet in the bar" with the wedding coordinator at all? Or did you just tell everyone ahead of time to meet there? Im just a little nervous not to do a practice run through of the ceremony!

Originally Posted by mrskatieperry 

It rained the night we got there--poured actually!! In fact we had all of our guests meet at the lobby bar that evening to give out our welcome bags and to do a little "meet and greet" (which was in place of a rehearsal dinner really) and while we were in there the powerr actually went out for about 30 seconds.  I laughed--I kept thinking :Oh, Lord this is what it's going to be like the next 10 days".  BUT then the only other time it rained at all was for the 15 minutes on my wedding day (the weather was muggy and icky all day though).  Every other day when you wake up the sky is kind of white but by 10 AM it's blue skies...sometimes clouds but never so many that we didn't get a ton of sunshine.  The weather was actually pretty fantastic and not nearly as muggy as Orlando where I live.

[mrskatieperry]

Originally Posted by Rach0636 

 

 oh good to hear!! Did you have to schedule the "meet and greet in the bar" with the wedding coordinator at all? Or did you just tell everyone ahead of time to meet there? Im just a little nervous not to do a practice run through of the ceremony!

I told Yamina about it but basically I just scheduled it myself.  We did get together the night before and go over everything with the wedding party who danced down the aisle and stuff and my MOH sang so we practiced that in my room but thats all.

[RollerBride]

 You should schedule a rehearsal. I asked Yamina if we could do ours the day before at 3:00pm and she said "Sure!". I've also emailed the officiant, Linda to ask her to come as well. and of course, my dad, the best man, the flower girl and my MOH. I'm thinking the whole rehearsal will take a few minutes, then we go back to the pool

Originally Posted by Rach0636 

 oh good to hear!! Did you have to schedule the "meet and greet in the bar" with the wedding coordinator at all? Or did you just tell everyone ahead of time to meet there? Im just a little nervous not to do a practice run through of the ceremony!

[mrskatieperry]

Originally Posted by RollerBride 

 

 Let me know if you find the name of the 2nd place you rented the ATVs. That sounds exactly like what I want to do. Did you book that through the resort while you were there? or did you book it ahead of time?

Try Selvatica---we did Polaris Vehicles and ziplines and everyone LOVED it.  Here's a few pics: