Erika J's Dreams Los Cabos Review 11.6.09 (PICS)

[Erika J]

This is probably the hardest part of this entire process is to try to capture how amazing and beautiful my wedding was in a review! I cannot express enough that the staff at dreams work harder than anyone I have ever seen to make your wedding day absolutely perfect. I cannot thank them enough! Thank you to the Tammy and the forum for helping me plan the entire wedding sight unseen.

 

So here we go, I hope I didn’t forget anything.

 

 

Accommodations- Dreams Los Cabos

 

The resort itself is beautiful! They keep the grounds immaculate and the building immaculate. It is def a little older of a hotel but the inside and outside has been kept perfectly. I also think this is the friendliest staff I have ever encountered anywhere. Ever! Period! I truly made friends will all the guys who worked day and night around the resort! They were so amazing! We did do little tipping, dollars here and there and they were so grateful and truly work so hard all day long I almost felt bad like it wasn’t enough. Most of my guests were so impressed the plan to return to the resort. I think that says it all when someone wants to use their money and vacation time to go somewhere a second time.

 

The food was absolutely to die for nearly everywhere. Here is just a little list of what DH and I thought, just our opinions, nothing more:

 

Fav dishes at each restaurant:

Hitmatsu:

fav-tempura anything

skip-salmon sushi

 

Oceana-this is hard

fav-mahi mahi with mush, shrimp tortilla soup, surf and turf part 2

skip- nothing all good

 

Portofino-

fav- tuna steak

skip- fruitta de marre

 

Seaside grille-dinner

fav- 10 oz rib eye and grilled provolone

skip- coconut shrimp

 

seaside grill lunch

fav- fish fingers

skip-nothing all good

 

El Patio-love the omelet station

 

Room Service:

fav- tortilla soup, all the goodies are in one bowl and then the delish broth in a separate cauldron, so when it arrives you can mix them together yourself and nothing is soggy.

Skip- grilled cheese. Bizarre and micro waved and not grilled what so ever.

 

A lot of people ask about the beach at dreams, my group swam in it nearly every day. There are several warning signs against it, and it defiantly gets the security guards all riled up, but we did it anyways. I also walked to the Hilton 20 min away and that was the same a little calmer.

 

The majority of our stay at dreams was amazing, the last few days we were there, after our guests had left, a convention of heating and air-conditioning installers came in and filled the entire hotel. This just kind of changed the atmosphere a little, by no fault of dreams. It just seemed there were more heavy drinkers and smokers. The one day destroyed the pool, the staff was frantically trying to keep up but the people were relentless, throwing cigs in the pool and hot tub. I felt bad for the dreams workers.

 

Travel Agents-

We went thru Tammy (host) from this forum; she was incredibly helpful to get things set up, and to help with all the wedding detail and questions. She also helped to push things along whenever I needed quick turn around on questions.

 

She does partner up with Teresa Stauring at Vacations 4 Less for the booking of the guests. I had a couple of complaints from my guests about non returned calls, but it never happened to me, she was actually very quick to respond. So I just took it with a grain of salt. Just a warning to future brides whose room block includes a free site visit. I did not use mine and asked to have it applied to our stay. This was about a year in advance. I never mentioned it again and this detail got lost somewhere, I was not able to recoup a refund, only vouchers to use later. Teresa did everything in her power to change it. Not a huge issue but would have rather had a refund.

 

Transfers-

Epic, the are very thurough and called to confirm all the transfers. They did however call me to confirm everyone’s which I couldn’t possibly do on my wedding day and did not have everyone’s info, But they were very considerate and had private transfers for us (the bride and groom)

 

American Airlines- just fine, 2 easy flights each way with a layover in Dallas, we got free mimosas on both flights on the way down and there was room for my wedding dress in the closet on all flights.

 

Room- 5520= rock star room!

 

more to come

[Erika J]

Wedding Coordinator- Mariana-

Mariana is truly the nicest little person ever. She is tiny and all I wanted to do was hug her the whole time. Every detail was perfect as discussed except how I wanted the napkins folded but I didn’t even notice until the pics were given back so NO BIG DEAL! I really let her take charge on the flowers and never tried to negotiate on my own, they were totally reasonable and done perfectly.

 

 

Welcome Dinner-

We did our welcome dinner on the beach, they set it up off to the side below the gazebo, so we did a little rehearsal walk thru in the gazebo and then walked down to the welcome dinner it was perfect. I did a tequila tasting table with some shot glasses I brought down. We did the Caribbean themed dinner and both sets of parents said it was one of the best meals they had while at Dreams. Highly recommend.

 

 

Officiant- Rev Marco Arechiga-

I could tell from the very beginning that Marco was going to be perfect for us. He was so kind, and he was willing to help us have the ceremony of our dreams. We had some parts that we wanted to use, a hand blessing, vows etc, and then he took those parts and added some of himself and created the most beautiful ceremony on the entire planet  I received so many comments from all the adult guests that attended saying it was the most beautiful ceremony they ever heard! It was amazing!!!! Thank you Marco!

 

 

Photographer-

We used Mango Weddings and our photographer is Jerome. He took tons of pics and was very very reasonable. He is a VERY easy going person who is a pleasure to work with. Even when directing you for the photos he is so soft spoken it never gets irriating, so if you have a FI who hates to have his pic taken, Jerome is a great match to keep it really easy. Also Jerome had out pic CD, 3 copys of our DVD and an album of 150 prints in my hands 5 days after the wedding before I left cabo!! Out doesn’t love that!

 

more to come

[Erika J]

Cocktail Hour-

Every one enjoyed it right behind the gazebo under the shade of el patio, I never had any of the food so sorry, no review there but the menu we chose was:

Cold

•Grissini with prosciutto ham

•Acapulco shrimp cerviche on tartlets

•Chile stuffed with tuna salad

–Hot

•Mini Vole au vent with sea food

•Beef brochette with blue cheese sauce

•Chicken and cheese turnovers

 

 

Reception-

We did the crab cake, mixed green salad, surf and turf, and the Tulip of Strawberry with grand marniers sauce and vanilla ice cream. All of it was raved about, I loved the crab cake, and DH loved the dessert. It is hard to write about this cause everything was soo perfect. Words cannot even describe  I did want to add that I thought ending at 10:30 would be early turned out to be the perfect time for the older crowd to head to be and the youngin’s to go off and be wild separately.

 

 

 

Cake-

Ordered thru Dreams, it was the cutest little cake I have ever seen!! It fed all the guests (5 extra pieces for the cake boxes, and they took the top and some additional left overs to our room. We ordered the Tres Leches flavor and ALL the guests raved about how amazing it was. Not only was it a lighter frosting (not too sweet) but it also is so moist. All the guests commented that the never eat the wedding cake and were so full at the end of our meal but once they had a bite it was so good they had to finish the whole thing!

 

 

Flowers-

I let Mariana handle the flowers and I believe they were thru florenta. The roses were fresh and hearty in the dry and hot climate, I keep all three bouquets the entire time I was down there and the still looked perfect when I had to sadly leave them behind.

 

 

DJ Ricardo-

DJ Ricardo is awesome! He truly listens to every brides requests and meets every expectation. He asked me before playing any requests to make sure I was ok with them. I provided him with a kind of obscure list of songs that might be nice to hear at dinner, he played all of them! AMAZING! He had a team of people with him that made sure all equipment was run perfectly. And ran the microphone to each guest to so no one had to get up, Very nice touches.

 

 

What happens if someone gets injured- well let me answer that for you!

DH’s sister had way too much to drink and tried to go to club desires where she immediately fell out of her chair and cracked the back of her head open. Dreams responded immediately and had an on site doctor look at her, the drove them to the nearest American urgent care, where she received 4 stiches , the dreams staff waited there the entire time and drove them back to the hotel. This all only took 45 minutes. They were nothing but kind and showed genuine compassion. Also a side note, although she did have to pay the urgent care bill in full, the urgent care did not put any mention of alcohol in the medical report and upon return to the US the submitted to their insurance company and were reimbursed.

 

 

more to come

[Erika J]

Some Extra pics:

My healed face: WOOOOOT!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Erika J]

 

 

 

[*Meagan*]

E- everything is amazing!! Thanks for your review! and your face healed looked so gorgeously! Im so glad everything turned out the way you always dreamed of!

 

PS. love your pics!

[Geralyn]

great review and pics! Congrats Erika!

[Andi]

so happy that it all turned out great!

 

I love that you put your fav foods at each restaurant on there!

 

and i LOVE the pics too!

[cougs]

amazing amazing amazing and you looked so gorgeous and happy!

[Lady_Di]

erika, dreams cabo is truly beautiful!

 

so glad you had a wonderful wedding!

 

your pictures are super gorgeous!