Any Gran Bahia Principe Runaway Bay Brides out there?

jenandmark · December 1, 2010

Wow, that sounds like a great deal! I don't have my prices yet...fingers crossed my TA does a deal similar to that!!!

Originally Posted by keriltz

We have about 45 people going aswell and for a week it's $1550 everything included and 10 days is $1950 everything included. Our travel agent is giving us every 11th person free, so basically they will give us a dollar amount of how much we have as a credit because of the amount of people going. As of right now we have our 10 day trip paid for both of us and are splitting the remaining credit between the bridal party so they should each(6 of them) get off about $500 each. We are flying with Air Canada but have to take a connecting flight from Calgary to Toronto.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Espejo2be

Hey Ladies,
I've been waiting for 3 months now to get the prices of the packages back from the TA and finally have them... I'm not impressed as she told us the going rate was $500 less than the actual price she quoted us to pay. We have a group of about 45 people going but don't feel like i'm getting much of a deal.
Can I ask what travel agency most of you ladies went with? and approx price you were quoted?

I'm living in Western Canada right now and half of our group is leaving from there and the other half from eastern Canada.

lsmith211 · December 1, 2010

We're going April 1-8 thru Air Canada Vacations, and our price includes a connection in Toronto so that all people are travelling on the same plane to Jamaica - it was the only way to arrange it so that we were all there for the same dates - otherwise we would have been arriving 3 days apart. I didn't want that, cause we live on the other side of the country from our families and wanted to spend as much time with them as possible... But ours seems to be a lot more than everyone else's! This price included $300 early booking bonus, so we all had to pay in full by Nov 1 - which means no money back if the prices drop... And, my travel agent had to fight with ACV to get a $75 price drop before we all paid in full - they weren't going to give it to us, even though their prices were down at that point - I've not been happy with ACV through this whole thing! Anyway, we paid:

from Calgary: $1950ish (can't find the exact number - we're going for 10 days so paid more)

from Toronto:$1795

from Halifax: $1920

I just found out after everyone paid that once February comes, which is final booking date through our travel agent, we get a percentage back on our trip based on the number of people that book. I had no idea about this - I think we're going to use the money for an excursion or something for everyone, as I would have rathered the money came off everyone's trip rather than ours....

Anyway, we paid a lot, but it's nice to have that paid for - there are so many other things to pay for once we get closer to the wedding, so I'm glad that part is out of the way...

akua420 · December 1, 2010

Originally Posted by keriltz

Akua - Do you have to contact the hotel photographer yourself or go through Beverly?

Quote:
Originally Posted by akua420

I'm going to use the hotel photographer, the quote I got from Sungold was over $1000, NOT worth it for me because I only want a few prints. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the one who had the guy show up half way had a professional one as well, where as if they know that they are the main one, they will show up on time. And you can haggle with the prices. And if the resort photographer is going to be your main one, you can schedule him to take the getting ready pictures, or a few pictures before the wedding, you just have to tell them what exactly you want.

Spending $2500 for pictures is cringe worthy to me, there is NO WAY I could throw away that much money on 3 pictures. I'm not a scrapbooker, I'm not going to have albums full of pictures, I want a few nice shots. I'm only going to get one printed for the house, and send the same one with my canadian invites. Plus my dad is buying a super expensive camera, so I'm sure he's going to take TONS, hahaha.

You just talk to Beverly about it when you do the consultation, and somebody in one of the threads (can't remember which one) mentioned that they haggled a super low price on their package, so thats what I'm going to do!

katelynn · December 1, 2010

Hey,

DId your TA contact you to say the the price went down as we are also flying with Transat and havent heard anything and we really want it to drop...plus $150 would be awesome!! How did you also get them to give you $50 a person as Ill deffinately email and bitch as they havent done anything for us and we have 43 people. I already emailed them awhile ago asking for like pens etc to put in our OOT bags and the response was no which suprised me! I have to say I am not very impressed with Transat and wish we were flying with Sunwing!!

Originally Posted by soontobemrsdow

Quote:
Originally Posted by Espejo2be

Hey Ladies,
I've been waiting for 3 months now to get the prices of the packages back from the TA and finally have them... I'm not impressed as she told us the going rate was $500 less than the actual price she quoted us to pay. We have a group of about 45 people going but don't feel like i'm getting much of a deal.
Can I ask what travel agency most of you ladies went with? and approx price you were quoted?

I'm living in Western Canada right now and half of our group is leaving from there and the other half from eastern Canada.

everyone is going from Toronto so I don't have eastern or western, but we were originally quoted 1606 txs included and locked in on that price because we were given a price guarantee that we could change it if the price dropped. It was good until up to 60 days before departure and with like less than a week to go the price dropped like $150 and the tour operator (transat) was nice and gave up $200 off so everyone ended up paying 1406pp! But as for not feeling like you got a deal I feel the same as you. Transat only gave us the extra $50 pp off because I complained saying what was the point in getting everyone to book with your company when I can get that same price from say Air Canada which I'd rather fly with anyways because I find their planes bigger and has more amenities (I loooove the personal TV's!!) so thats why they beat the best price online, which with about 40 days to go until we leave is still the best published price....so whoever you go with fight them for the best price you can get!!

On another note....I know this is a random question but has anyone found out about how long it takes to walk down the aisle because it looks long and I want to make sure my ceremony songs will be long enough, plus I want a seperate one from the rest of the bridal party so I'd like it to run smoothly!

Espejo2be · December 3, 2010

Girls thanks for the heads up, maybe I can check in with Transat too. I've tried with Air Canada Vacations, West Jet Vacations, AMA Travel, UniGlobe Travel and Flight Center and they are all giving me prices of $1800 - $1900 per person for 7 nights. No discounts, no incentives or anything and they all took at least 2 months to get back to me with prices... i'm so frustrated with it all because our guests want to book now.

Our wedding is August 8th, 2011 and most of the travel agents said right now the going rate is about $1500 per person but because we are travelling in low season that we would definately get a big discount... I waited and waited and all i got were quotes that were way more than the "going rate" that she quoted us in the first place!

I contacted the group specialist at the hotel today and she sent me a quote an hour later for Single, Double and Child Occupancy at the hotel. $89 per person for double occupancy, $86 per person for triple occupancy, $155 for single occupancy and $44 for child per night. $100 deposit has to be made per person and the rest can be paid up to 45 days before departure. and for every 15 people booked 1 person stays for free!

I think i'm going to go this way... most of our guests want to use air plan points for flights and can't do it with the package price and because flights are going on sale all the time, they can use air miles or book the sale price whenever they see one. There are so many departure points for my group that the west jet group specialist agreed that this would be best but she did give me a quote for 2 of my main departures for $822 taxes in for return flight.

Making the separet price about $1445 compared to my quoted price from the travel agent of $1900?!

Espejo2be · December 3, 2010

Can I ask , are you going with Air Canada Vacations or are you just flying Air Canada? That seems like a really good deal, i wish my TA would do something like this!! But none of the travel angecies I've contacted offered any incentives... 45 people is ALOT of business to not put effort into in my opinion!

Originally Posted by keriltz

We have about 45 people going aswell and for a week it's $1550 everything included and 10 days is $1950 everything included. Our travel agent is giving us every 11th person free, so basically they will give us a dollar amount of how much we have as a credit because of the amount of people going. As of right now we have our 10 day trip paid for both of us and are splitting the remaining credit between the bridal party so they should each(6 of them) get off about $500 each. We are flying with Air Canada but have to take a connecting flight from Calgary to Toronto.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Espejo2be

Hey Ladies,
I've been waiting for 3 months now to get the prices of the packages back from the TA and finally have them... I'm not impressed as she told us the going rate was $500 less than the actual price she quoted us to pay. We have a group of about 45 people going but don't feel like i'm getting much of a deal.
Can I ask what travel agency most of you ladies went with? and approx price you were quoted?

I'm living in Western Canada right now and half of our group is leaving from there and the other half from eastern Canada.

Espejo2be · December 3, 2010

I've actually hired Merrick Cousley - He's from Jamaica and his photography looks amazing! You can check out his website. his prices are reasonable, i think so anyways... he'll do the whole day from beginning to end for $950.00 (600-900 pictures), if you want TTD session it's an extra $300 and an extra photographer it's an extra $400.

Originally Posted by keriltz

Question for you ladies - Are you guys using the hotel photographer? Or hiring someone else to come in? I am really on the fence about this because i have seen past comments from brides saying the photographer that is included showed up half way through the wedding and the pictures weren't very good. I don't want to spend alot at all on pictures because you really don't (well i wouldn't) print that many pictures and there will be a ton of pictures from other people but i do want about 25(or so) REALLY good pictures. Opinions??

soontobemrsdow · December 3, 2010

No we had to keep on top of it ourselves and it was so stressful and draining because everyday I would be checking the prices! lol...I totally feel you on not being impressed with Transat. Sunwing had a rate $75pp extra when we got our quotes and thats why we went with Transat but I'm starting to think maybe it was worth it! But who knows maybe sunwing brides wish they were with Transat lol.

How I got the drop was I don't know if you already have your quotes and prices locked in but I made Transat and Sunwing get into a bidding war over us and I said I wanted a price protection and whoever could give it to me I would go with them. Sunwing wouldn't do it but was going to give me every 11th person free but Transat would give me the protection but would give me every 16th person free. We only thought about 20 people max would come and it would be better to get the price guarntee instead...turns out we have 27 and it would have been better to go with Sunwing for us personally as we would have gotten both of our vacations for free instead of one but it works out better for our guests in the end because they all saved money...we're happy they're happy.

Anyways...sorry got totally got off topic there...so I watched the price and when it went down there was an AirCanada Vacations package that was like $15 lower and I told my travel agent to complain that I wanted it to match that price because Transat totally screwwed me over a few weeks earlier. I was supposed to have a block of 20 reserved under our name and people we're booking slower than they wanted to so they called me at like 1pm 2 1/2 weeks before the payment deadline and said you have until the end of the business day to get all your spots booked or else we're realeasing the vacation because we don't think you're going to fill the spots and Januarys a high time for travelling and we want to sell them. So that was like the worst day of my life ever but I managed to book them PLUS 7 extra so I told her to complain that they put me under the gun and I brought in additonal seats then what I reserved and they better pay it forward. She said she fought with them for a bit over it but they said fine we'll make it an even $200 then and they upgraded us to the royal golden section.

So honestly if you've had a hard time with them like I have call or get your TA to and complain! If you do it enough they are bound to do something for you! Hope it works out for you and if your booking deadline has come and gone already then you know what a relief it is for that part of the planning to be over with...it's like a huuge weight off your shoulder, all you have to do is wait for the date after that! If it hasn't hang in there! I know it's hard and stressful but you'll have 43 people with you to celebrate when all is said and done!

(sorry it was so long, it was my rant that I never got to have about how upset I was with Transat! lol)

Originally Posted by katelynn

Hey,

DId your TA contact you to say the the price went down as we are also flying with Transat and havent heard anything and we really want it to drop...plus $150 would be awesome!! How did you also get them to give you $50 a person as Ill deffinately email and bitch as they havent done anything for us and we have 43 people. I already emailed them awhile ago asking for like pens etc to put in our OOT bags and the response was no which suprised me! I have to say I am not very impressed with Transat and wish we were flying with Sunwing!!

Quote:
Originally Posted by soontobemrsdow

everyone is going from Toronto so I don't have eastern or western, but we were originally quoted 1606 txs included and locked in on that price because we were given a price guarantee that we could change it if the price dropped. It was good until up to 60 days before departure and with like less than a week to go the price dropped like $150 and the tour operator (transat) was nice and gave up $200 off so everyone ended up paying 1406pp! But as for not feeling like you got a deal I feel the same as you. Transat only gave us the extra $50 pp off because I complained saying what was the point in getting everyone to book with your company when I can get that same price from say Air Canada which I'd rather fly with anyways because I find their planes bigger and has more amenities (I loooove the personal TV's!!) so thats why they beat the best price online, which with about 40 days to go until we leave is still the best published price....so whoever you go with fight them for the best price you can get!!

On another note....I know this is a random question but has anyone found out about how long it takes to walk down the aisle because it looks long and I want to make sure my ceremony songs will be long enough, plus I want a seperate one from the rest of the bridal party so I'd like it to run smoothly!

Espejo2be · December 3, 2010

Soontobemrsdow, Thanks for the advice. I will call my TA back tomorrow with the info I have come up with on my own and see if she can do anything for me at all but i feel helpless otherwise. I feel bad telling everyone to book their own flights but right now it's about $300 or more cheaper for everybody!

StephAli · December 3, 2010

Hey Ladies!!

I just got home from the GBP and it was AMAZING!!!

The chairs are pretty hideous without the covers. They are gold with navy blue padding....

So Beverly went over everything with me the day after I got there (which was 3 days before the wedding) and went over all the options so we were able to make any last minute changes and additions. Our wedding was at 1 on the beach beside the gazebo (we got the steel drum band...AMAZING), dinner at 6 (Dolce Vita, GREAT FOOD), and then the gazebo for dancing from about 815-1030/1045 (with a DJ and bar)...We had 59 guest and all had no problem fitting in the gazebo for dancing! Honestly Beverly was awesome and everything went as planned!!

Here are some pix from the prefect day!! and our TTD session!!