Dreams Cancun 06.08.10 Starfish Destination Wedding Bride Review

[StarfishBride2010]

Hey ladies! I am back from our wonderful 10 day stay and wedding at the Dreams Cancun Resort. I have to say that I am a little bummed about this website as this is my second registry as I was banned originally for sharing the name of my travel agent. I tried to get back on under my previous name of JuneWeddingDreams but didn't get one response from Tammy or her administrators. However, I didn't want to leave all of you behind and not help you when you all have helped me so much through this entire planning process. So my shout out goes to all the past and future brides that have been such a instrumental part of my planning process. I know many of you have been waiting for this review so here it is...(I hope it stays posted)

 

Mexicana Airlines - B

 

The flight was pretty good. I was a little disappointed that when I got onto the plane the flight attendant looked at me and shook her head no and said she already had 2 other brides who brought their dresses onto the plane and that I would have to fold my dress into 3 to get it into an overhead compartment. All I was thinking was "thank goodness the resort is pressing my dress". By the time I got off the plane with it the dress was at the bottom of my garment bag. It caused a little extra stress and frustration. The one GREAT thing was we had 9 pieces of luggage and we put aside almost $400 just to get our luggage there due to the overage charges their website had posted. But we checked in with my mom and dad and they allow 2 free bags per person so when we split it all up we only had to pay for one extra bag which was only $40. Wow...what a great way to start the trip!

 

Travel Agent - A++++++

 

Without going into too much detail because I don't want to offend anyone or break any forum rules without knowing it. I want to just say that we had the most wonderful agent and we found out a week before we left that he was able to rebook our trip and save us $966 on our 10 day stay in the Honeymoon Suite. Let me just tell you how excited I was. He made my day and my week there! He basically helped us pay for our photographer to spend 4 days with us in Mexico by watching the price changes of the resort. As we talked with more and more people at the resort we found that our travel agent got our group the best rates out there. He has a ton of connections with the Dreams chain and was able to ensure we had the best rates for all of our 27 guests.

 

Airport - A

 

Let me tell you...I was so nervous about getting through customs with 9 pieces of luggage and I was so worried they were going to question the total value of all the items in my suitcases. But as soon as we got into customs they asked me why I had so many bags and when I told them I was getting married they let us through. My fiance hit the button and was the only one to get the red light. He had 5 of the 9 bags. The officer looked at him and said which one of those bags is yours (with a smile) and Rob my FI said the one army bag he had. They looked throgh just that bag and let us go.

 

I immediatly flagged down one of the cart boys to help us get all of our luggage to our Apple Vacations van and I was so glad I did...people at the airport were looking at me funny We filled up our van with all of our luggage...thank GOD we were the only people in our van aside from one other couple because we wouldn't have fit anymore pieces of luggage in there!

 

Arrival to Dreams Resort - A

 

I was so excited to get to the resort. I have to say when you first pull up to the lobby area of the Dreams you aren't impressed by the appearance. It isn't as big and elborate of some of the other resort entrances, but I can tell you that the service is unlike any other resort I have ever been too. We were immediately greeted with champagne and cold towels. At check in they called Cecilia right away to let her know that I had arrived. I spoke with Cecilia on the phone and arranged to meet with her the next day to go over our wedding details. She was very busy getting another wedding going at the time. It was great with me because I was so tired from the days travels.

 

Honeymoon Suite - A

 

We booked the honeymoon suite for 10 full days and I don't regret it. We were on the 5th floor and had an unbelievable view of the gazebo. The room had a full living room and dining area downstairs and the upstairs was a lofted bedroom. It had 2 full balconies one of which had a full table and 4 chairs. We also had 2 full bathrooms in the room (one upstairs and one downstairs). It was great for getting ready as we both had our own space. For all the women who are worried about the new gazebo...DON'T BE! Its gorgeous and breathtaking. At night the top of the gazebo is a bright blue and it looks awesome!

 

Restaruants - B+

 

I have to say this was a different experience for me as well. I'm used to wearing a braclet at the resorts and having to make reservations for dinner. You didn't have to do either of these at the Dreams. There was also only 4 restaurants to pick from 3 of which you could bring children to (we had 6 kids in our group) so most of the week we only had 3 restaurants to choose from. After 10 days I wish we would have had a couple more options to eat at. I have to tell you the food was fabulous! I know there has been mixed reviews on the food at the resort but I can tell you that I loved the food. I didn't have a bad meal the entire time I was there.

 

Only one of the restaurants (World Cafe) was air conditioned, which made for some hot dinners. The website says that guys have to wear pants to dinner, but that isn't true. Many of the guys wish they would have brought more shorts because they were allowed to wear shorts to every single restaurant all week long.

 

Wedding Coordinator - A++++++++++++++++++SUPER

 

Cecilia was my wedding coordinator and I fell in love! She was so sweet. She told us she has 46 weddings in June alone. So she is super busy, but she had everything under control when we arrived. I didn't have a ton of contact with her prior to my departure, but you all need to be rest assured she will make sure your wedding is perfect! We met with her the day after we arrived for a little over an hour. I was a crazy bride with a ton of stuff (obviously with my 9 suitcases) and had 3 suitcases that I wanted to go over everything with her so she knew what we wanted. She had some great ideas on flowers, centerpieces, etc. I also told her we were going to be purchasing a bunch of tequila for a tequila tasting table to be placed at the reception and she told us a great place to go to get the tequila at a really reasonable price.

 

I was very generous with her because I got to know Cecilia not only as my wedding coordinator but as a person. I bought her and her 6 year old daughter a bunch of stuff from the states. I bought Cecilia a Wisconsin Badgers t-shirt and a hat and gave her a starfish necklace I gave all of my female guests at rehearsal. In addition, I bought her daughter 2 t-shirts, nail polish, lip gloss, hairbands, a Justin Bieber CD and a necklace as well. I gave her the gifts and a $100 the first day we met for all of her efforts to date. When the wedding was done and we say everything she did for us at the wedding my FI insisted we give her another $200 in addition for how well the wedding turned out. I also gave her assistant a starfish necklace as well for all of her help.

 

Dreams Spa - A

 

The Spa was wonderful! My mom and I went and had a pedicure first. As we were getting our hair done my MOH had a pedicure. We all got hair and make up done as well and I have to say that they exceeded my expectations. My mom and MOH weren't going to have the spa do their makeup until they saw mine and loved it! They did a great job. My photographer was snooping around the spa while we were busy and came running into where we were getting our hair done and said someone needs to go get your dress Lindsey...you are getting dressed in this spa...it will look like a magazine cover with the waterfall wall, white curtains and colored walls...so I did. I cannot wait to see the pics which I pick up tomorrow and will be sure to share!

 

My FI and I had our couple massage over the water in a tiki hut on our last day there. I have to say it wasn't a very good massage. It was REALLY REALLY oily! They put so much oil all over my body and hardly worked out any of the muscle tension. I wasn't impressed with the massage.

 

Rehearsal - B

 

Rehearsal was a swimsuit rehearsal the day before the wedding. That was just a walk through of the days events. Dinner everyone got dressed up and went to dinner. We had dinner at the Oceana...we were going to do Himitsu but it was really really small and I don't think 27 people wouldn't have fit in that restaurant very well.

 

Oceana was really warm. They had to put us inside the restaurant at a table big enough to support all of us and it was right next to the grill. It was a really warm night so it was hot in the restaurant. Overall the rehearsal dinner was really nice. We gave all of the girls starfish necklaces and the guys all got personalized bottle openers with their names engraved on them. We gave our parents gifts and our MOH and Best Man both got nice watches. I gave a brief speech and thanked everyone for coming. It was a lot of fun.

 

Cecilia made sure the restaurant knew we were coming and we didn't have to pay extra to hold that many people...it worked out really well!

 

Wedding Day - A++++++

 

The wedding day was the most amazing day of my life! We got up (we choose to spend the night before together...I don't sleep well without Rob next to me so I wanted him to be there). We went to the pool for the morning and at around 12 I showered and headed to the spa. We spent most of the afternoon in the spa and then I finised up in our room and Rob got ready in his best man's room. I was so anxious but not nervous. I ordered some room service after I got into my dress at the spa and had it waiting for me in my room. The chicken fingers are amazing ladies! Highly recommend

 

Flowers - A+++++

 

My personal preference was to have real fresh flowers from Mexico. I know many brides do their own flowers, but if you are on the fence I would strongly recommend doing fresh flowers when you get down there! They were nothing short of AMAZING...people were constantly commenting on how beautiful my bouquet was. My preference was to go very colorful for both myself and my MOH. I know alot of women had the white flowers of some sort but as I watched many weddings throughout the week I noticed that the white flowers got washed out in their dresses. So I wanted a lot of color. Again a personal preference.

 

Ceremony - B-

 

We got legally married in Mexico and I wrote our ceremony script. The judge was not fluent in English and couldn't say a lot of the words in my script. It made for a long ceremony. But our guests made the best out of it. As we were signing our marriage license I scheduled to have some songs I brought played to kill some time. I had bubbles sitting on the chairs and they blew bubbles while were signing and the pictures turned out so cool! I was really happy with it. It was really really windy and my veil was all over the place. I recommend not doing a veil ladies if you can avoid it....it ruined some of the moments as the MOH and BM were trying to catch my veil before it flew in my face every 2 seconds. Reconsider doing the veil

 

Cocktail Hour

 

Immediatly following the ceremony we took some pictures with the group and sent them to cocktail hour on the beach. We didn't get to enjoy the food, but our guests said the appetizers were great. I choose not to do the Mexican trio and I'm so glad I didn't. I arranged to have cocktail hour music played on the beach with the sound system (music I selected) and apparently people were dancing on the beach during cocktail hour because they loved the beachy fun music. In exchange for the Mexican trio I got another hour of the sound system...well worth it.

 

Reception - A++++

 

Our reception was beautiful. We choose to bring our own music on the IPOD versus the DJ and I am so glad we did. It really allowed us to move things along and people loved the music we selected. We were able to choose our favorite songs to play and really get the party going. The tech even through in some more recent songs that I didn't have upon request of my guests so he acted like a DJ without having to pay such a huge ticket price. They even brought out the balloons for my guests like the DJ would do. We also had the light up dance floor! Ladies if you are questioning the light up dance floor I would highly recommend getting it. It made the ambience and got everyone really excited to dance. I saw a couple of weddings without it and while they were really nice the dance floor does add a nice touch to the sand!

 

The food was incredible. One of the best meals my guests said they had. We had the salad with the grapefruit, seafood chowder, dreams trilogy and then Cecilia made a special desert per my request of a big waffle cone bowl with chocolate ice cream. It was awesome!

 

Cake - A++++

 

The cake was amazing. If you can get the tres leches I highly recommend it. We had guests who didn't even like cake try it and they loved it! It was so good! We also choose to get the 2 tiered cake with 27 guests and we had more than enough! I was really glad I brought cake boxes for my guests to bring cake back to the room after the reception to have later! Everyone brought back multiple pieces and loved it more the second day!

 

Photographer - A++++++++++++++++ (BEST PART)

 

Ladies...I splurged and decided to fly in a photographer from home for 4 days. She followed our group around for all 4 days and captured so much more than just the wedding day. She brought her video camera and got interviews with my guests throughout the week and different pieces of the resort. I saw some sneek peeks of some of the pics and they are amazing. She had such an eye for some unique pictures that I have never seen before. She was worth every penny. I know for some this may not be in your budget but if you can afford to do this you will not be disappointed. There was so much more to our wedding than just that day and she captured it all. Things I will never forget. She even captured all the speeches given at dinner the night of the wedding and those are the things I will have forever. Again, if you can afford it...do it!

 

Videographer - A-

 

Even though we had our photographer there videotaping as well I wanted to keep the resort videographer to ensure we captured everything and then our photographer was going to mesh the two DVD's together into one. I'm glad I did. Miguel from CancunWedding Photography was awesome...he followed us around and took some great shots. I loved the video very much and can't wait to see the 2 combined.

 

Trash the Dress - A++++++

 

We did do trash the dress the next morning and I wore my same dress. I thought to myself I didn't want pictures with 2 different dresses and when will I ever wear my dress again and I am so glad I did because we got some great shots of me in the water with my big gown and fancy bottom. I have to say we did a jump off of the pier at the Dreams and when I jumped my family and friends were standing on the beach watching and they said multiple people freaked out thinking that I fell in They told them no that I jumped in and there were a few women appauled that I would ruin my wedding dress like that. I have to say my dress was cleaner coming out of the water than it was going in. The second time I jumped off the pier I panicked. I couldn't touch the bottom because it was deep where we jumped and when I jumped the second time the dress went over my head and I couldn't find my way to the surface. Rob had to pull the dress back and grab me by the waste and hold me up. My photographer asked if I would do it one more time because she was videotaping it and I said no way. I was too freaked out! I cannot wait to see those pics!

 

Overall - A+++++

 

Overall it was truly a wedding of my dreams. Dreams Cancun far exceeded my expectations and I owe so much to Cecilia for doing such a wonderful job. I miss her already! Any questions don't hesitate to ask. I will post pictures as soon as I can.

[wilsoml2]

Thanks for the review! Can't wait to see the pictures! Did you feel like you got better service from Cecilia by giving her extra gifts? For instance, was she more willing to do trades? We were planning on tipping her up front, but it sounds like you went above and beyond!

 

You mentioned getting pedicures at the spa, did they do a pretty good job?

 

One last question, I think I saw it mentioned somewhere that the Club Terrace is under construction right now until the end of June. Did you happen to get any more info on this? Are they just updating it or doing major renovations? I'm getting married July 2nd and had planned on having the ceremony there so I'm a little anxious about it getting done!

[StarfishBride2010]

I don't know what other brides got from Cecilia but I can tell you that anything I wanted to trade she traded for me and I don't know if it was because of all the gifts and tips or not.

 

The terrace is in complete renovation - you cannot even see it as they have walls blocking the construction area. Based on what I saw I don't know if it will be done or not. They didn't look like they made a ton of progress while we were there. You might want to think about Plan B. The garden area was a beautiful location if you didn't want to do a reception on the beach.

[carolina24]

awww yay, i'm glad you're back and that you had a fantastic wedding!! congrats, can't wait to see pics!!

[KB&JC]

Great review!! Congrats it sounds like you had a wonderful time!!

[mlabbe]

Congrats on the big day, so glad that it went so well!

[KelZavs20]

Congrats and welcome back!

Sounds like everything went perfectly!

Cant wait to see some pics!

[Thomasjsgirl]

Congratulations! Sounds like you had the wedding of your "Dreams" - pardon the pun! Looking forward to seeing your pictures!

[AishaB]

Congratulations. Sounds like your day was amazing!

[*Krista*]

Congrats! That's wonderful to hear that they let you write your own legal ceremony. I have heard of other brides doing that too. I tried to do it, but they won't allow me. I guess it's a coin toss, as most things are with Dreams. Ah well, I will just make sure my personal vows say a lot of what I wanted to have expressed in our wedding ceremony!

 

Congrats and can't wait to see pics! Sounds like you had a great experience!