Any Excellence Riviera Cancun Brides out there???

[TammyWright]

Just a reminder, if you have not signed up the for Excellence Resorts & The Beloved Wedding Webinar scheduled for Saturday, March 16 @ 9:00am PST, there is still time to do so.

 

These webinars are a great way to get your questions answered by the resorts.

[rhiham]

Hi Stacey!

 

There is a more active/longer ERC thread called "Excellence Riviera Cancun Brides?".  You can search for that title or here's the link: http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/t/76851/excellence-riviera-cancun-brides/250

 

I am getting married at ERC on June 15!  I have chosen the beach for my ceremony, Las Olas for the cocktail hour, and restaurant Barcelona for dinner/reception.  Gloria sent me pictures of all the location options and I chose based on what I liked most in the pictures AND from what previous ERC brides have said about their experience on these forums.

 

We are not using a DJ.  Instead we are taking our big Bose music player down with us and will just play our reception music from an ipod playlist.  We are also not hiring a photographer, because my aunt is a photographer and is a guest of the wedding so she's doing all our pictures.  So I'm not much of a help for who to contact/who to hire for the miscellaneous stuff, but I've read a TON of info and seen a bunch of reviews on the BDW forums. 

 

We've also chosen our menu items once Gloria emailed them to me.  You pick one dinner menu from a choice of three I think.  For the cocktail hour, we chose four "hot" appetizers and four "cold" appetizers from a list of about 8 each.  I am doing the Gold wedding package so our options might be a bit different, but you get the general idea.

 

I think as long as you're in touch with Gloria everything will be great! She sometimes responds the same day, sometimes a few days later.  Either way she has ALWAYS gotten back to me and answered/explained my questions thoroughly. 

 

Happy planning!

 

Rhiannon

[imaking214]

DO NOT HAVE YOUR WEDDING AT THIS RESORT!! They did not live up to expectations and failed us in so many ways.

 

1. Their most epic and devastating fail was that the videographer for our wedding did not show up! We brought our own photographer, but since the hotel backs you up against a wall by charging a ridiculous $500 fee for each outside vendor, we decided to trust them and use their preferred videographer instead of hiring our own. What a huge mistake that was! Not only did we get screwed by the videographer not showing up, we got screwed by the hotel wedding planner (Gloria) because she knew the videographer was not there, and chose to not tell ANYONE, which gave us no chance avert the disaster by using our own video camera to record the ceremony. It would have been better than nothing, and it would have been nice to know what was going on before it was too late to do anything about it.

 

2. The officiant that performed our ceremony was also a disappointment. I had emailed with a woman who said she would be performing our ceremony, then it was a man who showed up instead. He didn't come to our rehearsal, so we had not been given the chance to meet him before we showed up at the ceremony. I had assumed that the officiant would be standing behind us during the ceremony, but instead he stood in front of us, blocking the guest's view of us. Gloria never told us where he would be standing and that would have been nice to know before hand, so we could have agreed on a better location for him. Then in weddings I saw in the days after ours, the officiants were actually standing back behind the guests, so that they didn't block the view or obscure the photos by being either behind or in front of the bride and groom. That is exactly what I would have chosen, had Gloria discussed it with us ahead of time and given us the choice. The officiant also cut the signing of the marriage certificate out of the ceremony, which I am not happy about. Now we don't have pictures of our MoH and Best Man singing it with us, and we didn't even get it back from Gloria in time to have them sign it before they left to go home.

 

3. Gloria failed to execute several things well on the wedding day. Flowers were supposed to be placed on a table behind us at the ceremony, and were not there. Mats were placed across the sand as a path from the walkway to the pier, but were placed incorrectly and ended too soon, leaving guests to walk through the sand in their nice shoes. Brushes were supposed to be placed at the pier for guests to brush off their sandy feet, but were put in the wrong place, at the walkway instead, negating their usefulness. The videographer finally showed up after the ceremony, and had the nerve and extremely bad judgment as to approach me during the reception to negotiate what he could offer us in lieu of the videography! That was how I found out that the ceremony had not been recorded as it should have been, which was VERY upsetting. It almost ruined the reception for me as it was very hard to shake that off and enjoy the rest of the party. Gloria should have never let that happen. She should have known he was there and kept him away from us.

 

4. The hair and make-up services at the resort salon were not too good. They weren’t very good at giving us the looks based on the pictures we showed them. My sister has very curly hair, but wanted a straighter up-do. They didn’t straighten her hair properly first, so it just looked kind of fluffy instead of sleek. They also could not get my eye makeup right, and my photographer had to fix it for me after we left the salon.

 

5. The staff at the reception never cut and served the wedding cake. That is terrible service and my guests mentioned that they didn't get any cake. As a host, that is embarrassing.

 

6. There were flowers and wedding favors left behind at the reception, which were not returned to us. We paid good money for them, and the staff should have known that we wanted them saved and returned to us.

 

7. Their customer care in the wake of all the errors and failures that were made during our wedding is shameful. They are not really accepting fault and are not willing to compensate us properly AT ALL. They should be ashamed of themselves for being unwilling to refund our money. We did not receive the level of quality in their product that we paid for, and should not have had to pay full price. They are a huge corporation and can afford to give our money back much more than we can afford to be ripped off for a sub-par wedding.

 

8. The food and the drinks at the resort were only OK. The drinks were pretty weak and the food was not good, except for the Indian restaurant & the Mexican restaurant. The bar food, room service, The Grill, etc, were a big disappointment, and the food at the wedding was bad. It was over cooked and dried out.

 

9. Some of the service from the resort staff was really great. We loved Sofia, from the entertainment staff. Jean Luc, the manager of Basmati was also great. But the service overall was not amazing.

 

We have stayed at All Inclusive, Adult Only resorts before, and LOVED them. We had an amazing time at Sandals in Negril, Jamaica, which had much better service and amenities. However, based on Jamaica being more difficult for our guests to travel to, we chose to have the wedding in Mexico, and after seeing what a beautiful property the Excellence Riviera Cancun is, we were excited to spend our wedding and honeymoon there. We were VERY DISAPPOINTED though, and will never return to an Excellence property. We are terribly upset about the loss of our wedding video, and nothing can make up for them causing us that loss.

 

Do yourself a favor and have your wedding somewhere else. You can find better service, better food, an all around better vacation, and most certainly a better wedding elsewhere.