Cancun Dreams - June 02, 2010 Review

[Rk_cheung]

Continental Airline

 

Flight from Canada to Cancun had uncomfortable seating but very nice flight attendants that tried to make your flight more enjoyable. Food was not the tastiest but what airline food is fantastic. I asked if they could store my wedding dress into their closet but apparently they had no room, but lucky for me that the plane didn’t have much people flying so I had the whole above compartment to myself. Flight from US to Cancun was much better as for comfort. Flight attendants were also nice and accommodating. They told me to hold onto my dress until everyone was seated so she could get a whole compartment for the dress. I realized if you are getting married somewhere else, everyone including people, flight attendants, customs etc are super nice and makes your travel more comfortable and easy.

 

Arrival in Cancun

 

The day we arrived, customs was crazy! There was so many people lining up and crowded everywhere that I thought it was going to take 2 hours to get to the front. But I was wrong. The line went actually amazingly fast! I was quite scared going through customs as most brides are. I had jewellery that cost more than my husbands car, I brought all the decorations I wanted for the Gazebo (Tulle, garland, ribbons), Centerpieces that were glass, boom box type thing, attire, OOT goodies, favors…. Basically everything that you need for the wedding without paying extra. Lucky for me I picked a line that I found super strange. 1) It was shorter than the others were lining up 2) the machine that scans through your bag was broken so I couldn’t get my bags checked 3) The lady just told me to push the button and I was free to go. No search, no questions. HORAY!

 

Since there were 8 of us that arrived around the same time as each other we decided to get a private shuttle to directly to the hotel. I highly recommend that you pay for a private shuttle as it ended up being cheaper than a normal shuttle. Also, you don’t have to wait for the shuttle to be full before they actually even drive off and it drives you directly to your resort instead of stopping 10 resorts before yours. Saves time!

 

Arriving at Dreams

 

Check in went pretty fast and smooth. The people there are ABSOLUTELY nice and accommodating. All of our rooms were in the pyramid. They upgraded me and my husband to a honeymoon suite which was a nice treat AND they upgraded all my guests’ rooms! The resort itself was smaller than other resorts I have seen so it was pretty easy to get around the area.

 

Our honeymoon suite was great. 4th floor, Spacious and view were great of the Gazebo. For all the future ‘Dream’ brides that are worried about the Gazebo. Don’t worry! I find that this Gazebo was actually better than the old one. When I walked up to it, it felt a lot grander than the old one. I was also worried about the extended beach affecting the pictures but you can’t even tell unless you purposely position the camera to capture it. The maintenance people maintain the Gazebo very well. They clean and paint it everyday!

 

I cannot stress enough how wonderful the staff of Dreams were. They honestly try to make you stay fun and accommodating as much as possible. They all had smiles on their faces; Waiters, concierge, room service, front desk, everyone was just smiling.

 

Restaurants

 

The restaurants were average. Nothing spectacular but nothing horribly terrible. I came in this resort not expecting the greatest food just because I tasted “Dreams†in Punta Cana which was terrible. So me and my husband definitely did not expect it be yummy. We mostly ate at World Café or Oceana. It was nice that the world café always had different themes everyday so food was different everyday. Oceana appetizers were good! We actually just wanted to order all the appetizers and not the entrees. Presentation of the food looked very good! Also, the soup was also not bad, if you wanted something warm and comforting. Drinks were always good, I recommend the “Mango Tangoâ€, I had a couple of those everyday. All in all, just don’t expect the world’s best food and you’ll be satisfied.

 

Wedding Coordinator

 

One word. AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Claudia was super sweet as a button! Word of advice. TIP!!! Thank goodness I had this site and recommended me to tip the wedding coordinator upfront. For those future ‘Dream’ brides that is super antsy and irritated by the lack of communication. I admit that I was one of those, but I also understand the amount of work, stress that they deal with everyday! They coordinate weddings almost everyday of the year so please understand if you don’t get an email back on the same day. Be patient. We met up the day after I arrived and within an hour everything was planned! She had great input and was open to making changes if they were reasonable. I did not give her all my decorations, favors etc just because it’s easier to give it to her on the day of the wedding since she has so much on her plate already.

 

The morning of the wedding, she came to the spa while I was getting my hair done to see how everything was going. Also, to show me the bouquet and other flowers if it was to my liking. She honestly put 110% to my wedding and I’m sure she does this to everyone else. She picked up all my wedding decorations in my room and left the flowers there. When I went to my room to get ready I realized I forgot to give her my tulle to wrap around the pillars. I looked out the balcony and realized that she already finished putting another substitution for the tulle; which I found really nice of her to do so; but I really wanted the tulle I brought because it would make the pillars more full. I had someone run down there and tell her to put my tulle up there and she was happy to change it. They did an amazing job! Since I opted out on the centerpieces for the reception she gave me flower décor on the gazebo AND she put those flowers on the reception between the centerpieces I had. I was super happy how everything turned out! It looked amazing! Ceremony and Reception! I ordered 2 decorative flags for the reception and when I got to the beach there was 3! We decided to go with the dance floor (even though it was not used very long) I would definitely recommend the dance floor as it adds more light and jazz to the beach. I had brought our own sound system, but when I got there, there was already a sound system and a person that did our music! I was worried at first because I thought Claudia was charging us for that, but when she came down to reception to check how everything was going, I asked her about it and she said it was on her since she didn’t want me to use our little dinky sound system when I had a nice dance floor. I was super impressed! We ran super late with the dinner since our photographer wanted to take pictures of the sunset with us and that’s why we didn’t use the dance floor that much since time was running out. The manager/ supervisor that was taking care of our wedding told us that we could stay half more hour longer so we could actually enjoy the dance floor; which I thought was super nice of them since it was my fault for running so late for the dinner.

 

Spa at Dreams

 

I gave a picture of a hairstyle that I wanted to Juana (I think that was her name) and she did an AMAZING job making that duplicate with some improvising since my hair was super long and thick. I was super impressed; since I was worried I wasn’t going to like it (I had some really bad hair experiences). Before my hair appointment I had a basic pedicure with my sister, which was relaxing and basic; not really a must have, but it was just nice to enjoy some time with my sister before the wedding. My husband and I also had our Swedish massage at the end of our trip. This honestly felt like they were just rubbing oil all over our body. There were some moments where it felt relaxing but the rest just felt like they were just rubbing oil and not really doing much to relax our tense bodies.

 

Rehearsal

 

We opted out on the rehearsal because since I was only staying there for a week I really wanted to try more excursions and be out and about than waiting around for the rehearsal to start. I didn’t think rehearsal was THAT important as I kind of got the jest of it since I saw another wedding being performed the day before. So I knew where to go and where to stand. I did however did get lost and not know what to do after the ceremony but just kept on walking back where we first started, which was the right thing to do… I think.

 

Wedding Day

 

As noted above, the ceremony was perfect to us, even though the minister kept on calling me Rachael and not Rachelle but I didn’t care. When we were at the Gazebo, honestly nothing mattered. We had Gino (recommended) to perform our ceremony and he had pretty good English. We had our own script and gave it to him before we arrived to Cancun. He improvised some parts and made the script sound like it was his own, instead of just reading off the paper. I was very impressed with him as well. Overall, it was very touching and special to all of us.

 

Flowers

 

Flowers were done well. I wish I picked more of a peachy color than a really flashy pink but it still turned out pretty well. Flowers were honestly the less of my worries. They had some really nice bouquets to pick from and Claudia was willing to mix and match the flowers or colors which turned out better than I would have done myself.

 

Cake

 

I chose the vanilla cake which was very moist and on the sweet side, but no complaints. I did however had a cake topper that they did not use and also, did not return. Which was kind of disappointing. But my husband and I decided not to make a big deal or complain about as that day was really perfect to us and the fact that Claudia gave us so many extras.

 

Cocktails

 

They set up the cocktail area really nice. The Mexican Trio definitely added more character and I highly recommend it. It was very entertaining. I didn’t have much of the food as I was getting photos taken but everyone told me it tasted good. Especially the Shrimp tempura.

 

Reception

 

Claudia let me mix and match the Gold menus, which was nice of her. We had the Grilled Scallops, Seafood Chowder, Dreams Trilogy and the Bella Alaska Cake. Everyone told me they enjoyed their meal. During the meal we squeezed in some speeches which were very touching and after the meal we squeezed in a couple of dances. We all had a blast on the dance floor with the little time we had.

 

Videographer

 

I was VERY IMPRESSED how the video turned out and I could not have asked for more. The sound was clear and they also played our aisle song as the intro. It was definitely worth it since it already came within the package.

 

Overall

 

It was perfect to us. We would absolutely recommend to get married there as Claudia made our wedding memorable. Remember ladies….. TIP, TIP, TIP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If there are any questions, I am more than willing to answer = ) I hope you guys enjoyed my review! Sorry if it was kind of unorganized.

 

Pictures will be posted once we have received our professional pictures.

[Teira1031]

Hello, I am also working with Claudia for my wedding, i'm curious how much you recommend tipping her if you dont mind my asking?

 

Thanks

[tiffanyan02]

Thank you for the review! It sounds like it was great and I'm glad to hear the gazebo was fine. Good reminder on the tipping part! I thought doing part before was a great idea!

[AishaB]

Congratulations and thanks for the review!

[meldal101010]

Thats so awesome that she covered the soundsystem...It normally rents out for $180 + 11% tax PER hour...you got a great gift from her!!

 

Your wedding sounded amazing. I hope you'll post pics Congrats on becoming a Mrs!!!

[StephyD]

Congrats!!!! Great review

 

That's funny... I never even thought about tipping the WC! Thanks for mentionning it.

[peterpanpixiedust]

Awesome review. I love seeing. I was thinking of tipping next week on our site visit. Kind of a preview of our appreciation.

[KelZavs20]

Great review! Congrats on becoming a Mrs.!!!

Can't wait to see your pro pics!!

[Rk_cheung]

Thank you Ladies!

 

Teira1031: I tipped her $100 US.

 

StephyD: In the beginning of my research I also didn't know I had to tip the WC but after reading many reviews and how people tipped and got great service, I decided too as well. It's not necessary but its also to show your appreciation and perhaps get that extra great service and in my case I got great service and bonuses.

 

Peterpanpixiedust: I'm not too sure tipping in so much advance will be a good idea, since the WC have weddings everyday they might forget about it. But you can give it a try = ) But that's very sweet of you to think about showing your appreciation that early.

 

Pictures: I tried posting up my non professional ones but it keeps on giving me an error. Anyone help please?

[carolina24]

Thanks for the review and congrats!!!

 

do you have a photobucket account? that's the easiest way. you can create one for free and upload the pics from your computer or camera. then it'll give you several codes to use. you just copy the IMG code right onto your post and the pics show up. Let us know how it goes