Barcelo Bavaro Palace Deluxe

[aquatracie]

Welcome It is very helpful here!  Just read through all the pages and I am sure you will find your answers.  As we have all found out they are very slow with getting back to us with information.  I am 40 days away from my wedding day and I am  still wondering things.  But one thing is every bride comes back saying it all worked out in the end and was great! So we shouldnt all worry too much

[natalieblev]

Just a heads up...my uncle just found a great deal on resortvacationstogo.com ....He will be getting the family duplex for him, his wife and their teenage son (the one with two bedrooms, two bathrooms) for six nights for only 540 a person! I am getting married in June so that is the down season, but I checked and they are running the deluxe room and the family duplex lower in price right now as a special on that site incase any of your guests are looking to book now. Not sure how everyone is doing it but just thought I would share cause that is a great deal!! 

[trivera5521]

Awesome deal Natalie! Thanks for sharing...just wondering if anyone had any luck with having the resort send color swatches to you? Even if it meant purchasing a few of their napkins to ensure we have the correct shades.  Its tough matching shades to that PDF ugh!

[MissJali]

Hi Girls!! How's the wedding planning going?? I've fallen off the face of the earth. So much has gone on, my dad had a heart attack and we've pushed the wedding back to March 2014 (Originally October 2013) Susana tried to give me a hard time about my date being confirmed and how I couldn't change it, after I explained to her the situation, she told me to get back to her in March 2013 to book the new date, so it's a little annoying esp when the 2014 packages are out already.

 

 

Hope everyone's planning is going better than mine. I was excited to see JGCorona's review and it was comforting to know that I can bring all of my own decor and Susana will make it happen.

 

NCordero, I am very sorry to hear about what happened.

 

I just wanted to thank you girls for all of your posts, which has been very helpful to get details without having to harrass Susana since my wedding is now a year and a half away.

[mtrevena]

Hi ladies, I haven't posted in awhile but I just got back from my wedding/trip yesterday morning, so send me your questions and I will try to answer as best as possible!  As Sunny and Julissa have said, everything really does work out.  I was stressed planning and the lack of detail that happens through email, but once you get there and have your meeting, things get handled very well.  Susana was my coordinator and she did a great job.  The only problem we had was we were booked for a reception at Bar Higuey, and so was another wedding that night - they double booked the reception location!  That was extremely extremely frustrating, but they offered us an upgraded reception location at no charge and also threw in an extra hour for our reception, so they did make it right. I would just say confirm and double check everything, because even though my invoice said Bar Higuey, they had us down for 2 halls in the Ballrooms - something I was not ok with.  It all was great, so don't stress, just make sure you confirm everything.  I'll write a small review below, let me know if you have questions or would like further details.

 

Rooms - Beautiful!  We had the Panoramic Suite (Club Premium) and I wouldn't have had it any other way.  Beautiful rooms with great views and amenities.

 

Restaurants/Food - Hit or miss.  Some were good, and some the food was lacking a bit.  I will say that Chez Gourmet at the adults only side (Barcelo Bavaro Beach) was awesome with amazing service.  Definitely the best restaurant there in my opinion.  It is a $20 upgrade if you are not a Club Premium guest.  Everyone really liked the Hibachi side of the Japanese restaurant as well, but the sushi was not so great.  Definitely go with an open mind about the food because it is not served or seasoned the way you are used to.  Most food was a bit bland, but they seem to try to cater to the masses instead of serve local Dominican food.

 

Welcome Bags - We had welcome bags for our guests we thought the front desk would hand out at check in, but we ended up hand delivering them ourselves. Susana said through email that the front desk could hand them out and accommodate this, but then we asked her about it when we got there and she thought it would be confusing with so many of our guests arriving on different days.

 

Welcome Cocktails - We had a welcome cocktail reception in the Carey Lobby Bar, and that worked out great.  It is nice and open with lots of tables and chairs, and there is no charge.  The waitress comes frequently and there are great bartenders and service there, definitely happy with this.

 

Hair/Make-Up - The same lady did my manicure, pedicure, hair, and make-up, and she was great!  I wasn't even prepared with knowing what I wanted done, but they had a book and some pictures, and I based my hair on what they had there.  I had no clue on my make-up, but she did such a great job with the small things I told her, and she just took my thoughts and did what she felt would look good.  I can't say more about how pleased I was with this, my french manicure (non-gel) lasted for a week.  Great service and super friendly ladies at the salon/spa.

 

Ceremony - We had the wedding at the beach gazebo.  It is definitely a public spot, but it was so beautifully decorated and we really enjoyed the location.  We did have random people cheering for us and watching the wedding, but security did a great job keeping anyone out of our walkway and people were respectful.  I loved how it looked set up with the colored sashes, our colors were Aqua and Coral.

 

Cocktail hour - We had scheduled a cocktail hour for right next to the gazebo, but unfortunately about 10 minutes after the ceremony it started to rain.  I was really bummed because I would have loved for our guests to hang out at the gazebo while we took pictures, but they moved our cocktail hour to our reception location due to the weather, which caused a little confusion.

 

Reception - Our reception (due to their double booking) took place at the palapa on the beach, right by the beach gazebo.  We were so happy with this!  They do not offer this up as an option, but I bet if you ask and are willing to pay, they will allow it.  Marlene told me the first time they used this location for a reception was about 20 days ago.  It was great, right next to bathrooms, and right on the beach.  We loved this location.

 

I am not able to post pictures on here but as soon as I get them back from our photographer I will post a link to them or my facebook page.  Everything really was beautiful and so many of our guests were saying it was the best wedding they had been to.  We were very pleased with everything, and had just the 2 minor hiccups.  Let me know if you have any questions or anything I can help clarify.  Good luck in your planning and try not to stress!  

 

Mandi

[Parrish]

Mandi, Congratulations! So happy that everything turned out great for you and your husband! I am planning a beach reception, due to bar higuey being booked. I have gone back and forth with them about other options without a lot of luck. Can you tell me more about your location? Was it totally out in the open or was there some coverage if it rained? Did you have a place to dance, did you need a dance floor? How were the decorations? Any info about the location and what you thought would be great! How did you feel about the length of the reception, was the extra hour needed? Did you tell the resort you were doing the welcome cocktails at the bar or did you all just meet there? Did you do a welcome dinner, and if so what restaurant? How did you keep your guest informed about where to be and when to be there for certain wedding events? I feel like I won't know a lot of the details to tell them until I am there and get a feel for things. I was thinking about trying to use there computer and printer at the resort to print something up with details to hand out with our guest bags. Congrats again, and thank you so very much! Cassey

[Bjeantil]

Mandi:

Thank you very much for the review!

I have a couple questions....

 

Did they upgrade you to the Panoramic Suite (Club Premium) upon your arrival?

 

For your welcome cocktails at the Carey Lobby Bar where is it located and how would you reserve? if you have pics can you please share? And did you add any extra services during this time?

 I was looking to do the Cigar rolling during this time and want to save money by diong the welcome cocktail hours at this location.

 

How was your cake? Did they make it the way you wanted?

 

Did you use tropical pics or did you bring your own photographer? Same for the DJ?

 

I am definetly looking for forward to your pictures.

 

Thanks once again.

[mtrevena]

Originally Posted by Parrish 

 

Mandi,

Congratulations! So happy that everything turned out great for you and your husband!

I am planning a beach reception, due to bar higuey being booked. I have gone back and forth with them about other options without a lot of luck. Can you tell me more about your location? Was it totally out in the open or was there some coverage if it rained? Did you have a place to dance, did you need a dance floor? How were the decorations? Any info about the location and what you thought would be great!

How did you feel about the length of the reception, was the extra hour needed?

Did you tell the resort you were doing the welcome cocktails at the bar or did you all just meet there? Did you do a welcome dinner, and if so what restaurant?

How did you keep your guest informed about where to be and when to be there for certain wedding events? I feel like I won't know a lot of the details to tell them until I am there and get a feel for things. I was thinking about trying to use there computer and printer at the resort to print something up with details to hand out with our guest bags.

Congrats again, and thank you so very much!

Cassey

 

Hi Cassey, thanks for the congrats!  See below answers to your questions... Let me know if you have any others.  :]

 

Can you tell me more about your location? Was it totally out in the open or was there some coverage if it rained? Did you have a place to dance, did you need a dance floor? How were the decorations? Any info about the location and what you thought would be great!

-- Our reception location was the Palapa on the beach, it is where the animation team is set up during the day.  It was completely covered by the roof at the top, and then open around the sides.  There is no need for a dance floor as it already has a concrete floor, and there is plenty of room to dance.  We had 41 guests, so there was 1 table of 9, and 4 tables of 8 set up, with our ceremony table in between.  They set up the tables around the outside and then the dance floor is in the middle.  The bar is at one end, and the dj was set up to the side of the bar.  There wasn't a lot for decorations, but they brought in our chairs with the colored sashes into the reception from the ceremony, and they did set up white tulle in the middle, it looked really nice.

 

How did you feel about the length of the reception, was the extra hour needed?

-- Yes, I did feel the extra hour was needed.  We had everything from 7:00-11:00 and when it was done I couldn't believe it had already been 4 hours.  The time went by really fast, and a lot of our dancing/dj time was taken up by toasts/speeches, the bouquet toss, garter toss, etc.  I am very happy we had the extra hour, I think 3 hours might have been a bit too short in our case.

 

Did you tell the resort you were doing the welcome cocktails at the bar or did you all just meet there? Did you do a welcome dinner, and if so what restaurant?

-- We did not tell the resort we were doing a welcome cocktail party.  We just had our group all meet there, and handed out the majority of our welcome bags then.  We had the front desk give our guests the itinerary's that we had made up when they checked in so they knew where to meet that night.  We basically took over a section of the bar, which worked out well as not a lot of people hang out in there.  We didn't do a welcome dinner, after the cocktail party most of us headed over to the restaurant on the golf course, Hoyo 19, because they do not require reservations.  We did have a "rehearsal" dinner the night before the wedding at the Santa Fe Steakhouse, which you have to reserve for your group ahead of time, but there is no charge.

 

How did you keep your guest informed about where to be and when to be there for certain wedding events?

-- We had an itinerary made up before we left with a few things, and the rest we just kind of winged and left up to our guests how they wanted to spend their time.  You are right in that you won't figure out some things until you get there, so we just planned a few things before we left.  Here's what we included on our itinerary's:  Welcome Cocktail Party on Wednesday, Friday night rehearsal dinner, Wedding ceremony date/location/time, Reception information plus a note about heading to the Disco after, an optional champagne brunch Sunday morning after the wedding, and a planned group Snorkel tour Sunday afternoon.  I will try to email you a sample of our itinerary.

 

Hope this helps!  I'll let you know once I get pictures back.  - Mandi

[mtrevena]

Originally Posted by Bjeantil 

 

Mandi:

Thank you very much for the review!

I have a couple questions....

 

Did they upgrade you to the Panoramic Suite (Club Premium) upon your arrival?

 

For your welcome cocktails at the Carey Lobby Bar where is it located and how would you reserve? if you have pics can you please share? And did you add any extra services during this time?

 I was looking to do the Cigar rolling during this time and want to save money by diong the welcome cocktail hours at this location.

 

How was your cake? Did they make it the way you wanted?

 

Did you use tropical pics or did you bring your own photographer? Same for the DJ?

 

I am definetly looking for forward to your pictures.

 

Thanks once again.

Hi Bjeantil, see below for answers to your questions... Let me know if you think of something else.

 

Did they upgrade you to the Panoramic Suite (Club Premium) upon your arrival?

- They did not upgrade us, we booked the Panoramic Suite ahead of time.

 

For your welcome cocktails at the Carey Lobby Bar where is it located and how would you reserve? if you have pics can you please share? And did you add any extra services during this time?

- The Carey Lobby Bar is in the main building close to all the restaurants and the check in area.  It is an enclosed space which is nice for warm nights since it is air conditioned in there.  You do not need to reserve it, we just showed up and took over a section and the waitress came by frequently.  I am not sure if I have pictures of this, but once I get them back I will look and if so send you one.  We did not have any extra services during this time.  We just did cocktails there and chatted with everyone for about 2 hours and then headed over to the golf course restaurant Hoyo 19.  We did have a cigar roller, but we had him during our wedding reception.

 

How was your cake? Did they make it the way you wanted?

- The cake was good!  I was very pleased with it.  I showed them a picture I had found online of one they had done before, and told them which colors I wanted instead, and they made it how I wanted.  I got vanilla cake with strawberry filling and regular icing, and it was tasty.

 

Did you use tropical pics or did you bring your own photographer? Same for the DJ?

- We did not use Tropical Pictures, we brought a friend with us and paid for her trip in exchange for her being our photographer.  That worked out well for us as she was with us for 3 days and took much more than just our wedding ceremony and reception photos.  We did use their DJ, we got the basic DJ without using them as our MC.  He did a good job, they have you fill out a "Play List" and a "Do Not Play List" for the DJ to go off of, and then he plays some of his own songs filled in.

 

Let me know if you think of anything else!  I will try to post pictures as soon as I get them back.  - Mandi

[MissJali]

Congratulations Mandi!!! Thank you for your post! I was going to ask you about the welcome drinks as I am looking to do the same. I was glad to see your response and how you went about doing it. As for the rehearsal, did you guys have an actual rehearsal or did you wing it on the day of the wedding? I'm a little about that as well as having an emcee. As you can imagine, this is only my first wedding lol I'd like to know that Susana will do a rehearsal with us to make sure we all walk down in the correct order, etc etc.

 

 

Thanks again for your review!