Dreams Cancun: 6-30-10

[texasreddirt]

Me and the new wife just got in last night. We spent 8 days at dreams, and I was so ready to be home. I think 7 days would have been a little better. We bordered on being there too long. But overall, Dreams was great. Yesterday we talked about things that got messed up and things that we didn't like about Dreams and we thought it would be nice to share a few things we learned with you guys.

 

Flight down - Our flight down was a little rough due to the tropical storm that was still in the gulf at the time. I couldn’t believe how short of a flight it was from DFW though. It was barely over 2 hours. But as far as customs ect. I really didn’t know what to expect. But things went very smoothly. When in Mexico you will go through a LONG line that actually went very fast. Then once you get to the officer he will check your passport and then have you push a button. If it lights up green you go through. If it lights up red then they search your stuff. I couldn’t figure out exactly how it was working or if it was completely random, but nobody in my party got stopped anyway so it wasn’t a problem.

 

Then when you get in the airport they have the duty free alcohol for sale. But it really didn’t seem as cheap as what I had heard from others. What we figured out is that it is cheap on the departures side. Because when we were leaving we found the cheap stuff .

 

When you are leaving the airport there will be people trying to trick you into taking their taxi/transport service. If you already have a ride arranged ignore them and go outside. There will be people with signs. Just find the proper sign and ask them what to do. Then during the ride to the resort you may find that they drive a little crazy. All the people we rode with throughout the trip were a little crazy lol. But the ride was pretty quick and only takes maybe 15-20 mins or so. It was quick. Also be aware that even though you probably paid $40-$50 for the short ride the driver will still want a tip. If you forget (or dont know like me) they get pissy and ask for it.

 

Arriving at the resort - When you get to the resort they have people that will meet you and take your bags. They will also show you where the front desk is located so you can check in. One thing we kind of noticed was that a lot of people get "upgraded". But after seeing the difference in the two rooms it’s really not much of an upgrade. The only difference was which way your room faces. And both have pretty equal down falls. If you face the lagoon, every morning you will have to listen to the dolphin trainers blowing their whistles and all the people outside that get up "early". Then if you are on the ocean side you have wind that will make the door make noises and various other noises. So really the only advantage is looking at the ocean versus the dolphins. And some people may actually prefer the dolphins. And no matter which room you have you will have to deal with the birds in the interior of the building. They are very loud in the morning. It also seemed that people rooms were almost never ready when you get there. They will hold your bags and send you to go eat. Which was fine with us since we were very hungry.

 

Wedding - When we checked into the hotel they called Cecilia and let my wife <--(still getting used to this word lol) talk to her. They set up a time that afternoon to plan things. She was VERY nice and we both loved her. One thing I want to add right now so I don’t forget......is that after reading on here about how busy they are with the wedding stuff, I expected them to be a little busier with that stuff than they were. I was there for 8 days only saw 4 including ours. And only one of those was "big". I thought they did one or two a day or something. But that was not the case. It made me wonder what it was that made it so hard for them to communicate back with you when booking the wedding.

 

But getting back on track.....we did both really like Cecilia, but she did make some mistakes we were unhappy with. We only spent about 20 mins to finalize what we wanted for the wedding. But our wedding was very simple and we had very few demands. One was that we DID NOT want a religious ceremony. We made it VERY clear and I saw her write "non-religious" on her paper. Then once the wedding started and the minister started by praying, we both looked at each other with "wtf?" looks on our faces.

 

The next issue was with location. We had originally wanted to use the gazebo. But after getting there and seeing it we knew we didn’t like it anymore. And the old gazebo was the main draw to Dreams for us. Neither of us really liked the new gazebo but would have used it anyway if it wasn't for the wind. The wind was so strong there would be no way anyone could hear without the sound system. And we really did not want to rent the sound system for 10 people. But not only did it make it hard to hear it also blows sea spray up there. We went up there to take pictures and would have to wipe the lens every 2 or 3 shots.

 

So with all this we decided the beach would be better. So we asked her what our choices were for using the beach. She said that we could do it on the big beach but that it would be less private. That and there is graffiti on the seawall. Or we could do it by the lighthouse which would be more private. So we decided on the lighthouse. After speaking with her we walked over and looked and really could figure out where she meant because it is very rocky over there. But we assumed she knew what she was doing and that it would be okay. This was a huge mistake. You'll see when you get there but the place she meant, was directly in front of the beach bar 20 feet from people laying out and people swimming behind you. We actually got lucky with the people swimming part as there happened to not be any at the time. But on a normal day there could be a dozen people in the water 30 yards behind you wedding. But a bunch of the people laying out turned their chairs to watch the wedding. So much for the private part of it .

 

So when it came down to wedding time we met Cecilia at the location and she had everything ready. It looked very nice. Pretty much exactly what I expected. They laid down some kind of woven mats to make the walkway. But those caused a problem also. The wife had bought shoes according to walking on the side walk. So when she tried to walk on the mats her hills sunk into the mats. So she quickly pulled them off and it made for a good laugh . That was just an oversight on our part though.

Another issue was with the marriage license. It was quite clear it was typed up by some that speaks English as a second language. They misspelled arms (armas) and used incorrect capitalization for the date. The wife is a teacher so this is a problem for her lol. My spelling and grammar isn’t top notch as you can tell. But I’m a Civil Engineer, not a journalist. Ask me math questions lol. But on something like that you want it to be right. It’s like getting a tattoo with a misspelling lmao. So Cecelia is going to mail us a new one.

 

The rest of the wedding was great though. Even though the minister did the wrong type of ceremony, he was still very nice and we both liked him. The cake looked great. And we were happy with everything else.

 

Dolphins - Overall everyone that came really liked the resort. But we did have some complaints. I guess I'll start with the dolphins. That is one of the major draws for the resort. It is really cool to get to see them on a daily basis. I thought it was interesting to see how much they love interacting with the people. You can tell they like doing it. And when there isn’t even anybody out there, they will come jumping out of the water and playing with each other. There is a blue mat on the side of the pool and one would get out of the water on the mat and scratch its bells and back. It was pretty funny. The down side to the dolphins is that the lagoon stinks. It is not cleaned anywhere near enough. You have to walk past them to get to your room and every time you do it smells like a port-o-jon. And the water is not blue like it shows in the resort photos. It is a dark green/brown color. They really should put more effort into keeping it clean.

 

Service - The service was very hit or miss. Some of them were very nice. There was even one guy at the buffet that remembered my name every time I came in. But there are plenty of them that are pretty unfriendly also. Even though you're not supposed to tip and they are not supposed to take it, people do tip them and those people get better service. And some of them act annoyed at helping you if you do not tip. So my advice is to tip the ones you use the most at least a couple of times. The service at the restaurants was better than the bars though. And also the people taking care of the rooms and bathroom did a great job. All the bathrooms at the resort were always very clean.

 

Food – The food was great. We did learn that each person should order their own appetizer meal and desert. Unless you go to the buffet the portions are pretty small so you’re going to want the appetizer also. We both agreed that the best food was the French night at the buffet and the sushi restaurant. We split up having room service bring breakfast in bed and going to the buffet to eat. Both were pretty good. The only thing is that room service takes about 30-45 mins so if you’re hungry just walk down to the buffet.

 

We only ate outside the resort twice. And once was still technically at the resort. We decided to try the Mexican food place the resort owns. You do you have to pay to eat there and it was fairly expensive. But it was some of the best Mexican food I have ever had. I got chicken enchiladas and they were like none I have ever had. And I’m from Texas so I get a lot of Mexican food lol. Then the other place we ate was also a Mexican food place down town. It was called Mextreme. It was also very good. Not like the other place but it was still good. We ordered guacamole and chips to get started. We didn’t know they were going to bring all the ingredients out to the table and make it fresh right in front of you. He also made it without ever touching anything he put in it. He had a neat trick he used to juice the lime. He used a fork, spoon, and a knife to it. All without touch it. We ate every last bit of it. But I’m going to have to stop talking about food because I’m getting hungry and its lunch time .

 

Beach – There are two beaches at Dreams. The small one is much closer and we used it much more. The storm that was there the week before had brought in a lot of seaweed but they had crews out there the whole week cleaning it up. So it wasn’t too bad. The kayaks were pretty fun to cruise around the bay. But the snorkeling was pretty much pointless. There was nothing to see there and you really couldn’t see very far anyway.

The other beach, the one that was just rebuilt, sucks in my opinion. It’s way too big now. And the sand they brought in to fill it up with is full of broken seashells. So it hurts to walk on. Then if you get out to the water and want another drink you have to walk all the way back. We went to this beach once and decided not to come back. But I do not think this was Dreams that did this. They say that the beaches are owned by the government. It actually says that you are walking onto federal property when you walk onto the beach. So while I’m not sure, I think this is the reason it was rebuilt.

 

External Activities – We talked with the trip people several times trying to figure out what we wanted to do while we were there. We wanted to do all kinds of things and were only able to do some. But we learned that you need to ask A LOT of questions when talking to them about these things because they do not always tell you everything. For instance you need to ask if the price they give you includes transportation. Many times it doesn’t. Also one morning we woke up at 6:30 am so we could go snorkeling. We had purchased the trip the day before, but after waiting for our ride for 30 mins we were informed they were not going out that day due to wind conditions. Well, it would have been nice if they had called our room to let us know before waking up at 6:30. So we traded it for the “Captain Hook†trip. This trip is two pirate ships that go out on the bay and have a battle while you eat dinner. It cost about $90 a person after transportation and everything, but it was well worth it! They were very entertaining and we had a great time. If you do this though you need to plan on it being from 6:30-10:30. It was kinda long, but you will have a great time and laugh a lot.

 

One day we were sitting at Oceana eating lunch and saw this crazy looking boat pull up. It had what looked like a giant window on the front of it and resembled a submarine. Then we saw some people getting off of it. I thought about running over and asking them what they thought about it but I was trying to finish my lunch and decided against it. Then my wife noticed they were wet. We both agreed that they must have stopped and snorkeled or something also. So after eating we went over and asked the tour guy what it was all about. They told us it was a submarine/glass bottom boat. They talked about how fast it was and that it was the only one in the world ect. The trip was 50 per person and went to 3 different locations. So we thought “Hell ya! Sign us up!â€. As soon as we climbed on I knew it was not a submarine. Mainly from the fact the top was open to the bottom lol. But I thought, well maybe it partially submerges. Well come to find out it is nothing more than a neat looking glass bottom boat and does not submerge at all. The trip goes out to the isle of woman straight across from the resort. Before we left they told us about how fast the boat was and that it could get to the island and back faster than anything else. Well, as we were headed across I kept waiting for him to punch it, but he never did. It was not very fast at all. Hell, I think a jet skit is faster than that boat. Also before we started out the driver wrapped himself in a tarp. A girl sitting behind him said “Well that’s not a good sign†lmao. She was right. Everyone on the boat got soaked with spray. We had a water proof camera with us, but several others were having trouble keeping theirs dry. The trip across was pretty cool getting to see the resorts from way out. Then, once we got there he explained what we would be looking at and told us to head below to the viewing room. Almost immediately, I started getting seasick. Once everyone got below one of the other guys started heading back up with a sick look on his face. I knew that if I wanted to keep from yacking then I had better follow him. It wasn’t long before everyone but 2 people were back up top looking at the horizon to keep from throwing up. Once the other two got done looking and came back up top they told us we were going to go ahead and head back since everyone was sick. And it was a very good thing. I couldn’t have handled being out there much longer. And there was one small girl who was having a really tough time. To sum it up, I do not recommend this trip unless you know you can keep from getting seasick.

 

Over all we really liked it. But it had some good and some bad. One of the downsides to us was people’s kids. When you are sitting in the pool relaxing and having a drink you don’t want some 7 year old splashing around getting your sunglasses wet. Or some other kid screaming bloody murder while his mom ignores him and lets him continue. But these small things were not deal breakers by any means. So I would still recommend Dreams to anyone wanting to have a wedding. But I think when we go back we will stay at a more adults only kind of place. I like to relax . I feel like there is more I should add but I’m done for now lol. If you have questions, feel free to ask!

[carolina24]

thanks for the review! congrats and can't wait to see some pics

[TanyonL]

Great review. Thanks!

[tiffanyan02]

Thanks for the review! It was good to here about some of the trips!

[luchdiamond]

Congratulations on the wedding.

[sandinmytoes]

I enjoyed the details you included. Great Review thanks!

[Rachel&Chris2011]

Great review!

[Rachel&Chris2011]

Thank you for all the info! Sounds like you guys had a great time!

[gersbja]

Very helpful review.... But when i was reading it kinda sounded like you just had an OK time?  Would you highly reccomend Dreams?

[Caprice35]

Thanks for the review & congratulations