Beach Palace Cancun Brides

[shmanderz]

Hi Laura, No prob.  I totally know how overwhelming thigns are in the beginning trying to figure out what the heck you need to order and how much it is going to cost. 

 

I booked my date/location and paid trip deposit March 18, 2013.  I used a travel agent in my city and she took care of everything up until I got word who my wedding coordiator was (About November I first talked with her).  I am dealing with Renee at Palace Resorts.  When i went to my site visit I had a tour with Mario who said he would be the onsite coordinator handleing my wedding and he was really great and informative!

 

He gave me two really good tips which I have used:

1) Dont skimp on lighting.  He says lighting really sets the atmosphere and the skydeck areas need extra lighting to bring the event together and make it glow.

2) Dont bother with a dance floor unless you are on the beach.  He says just order lighting specifically for the dance area (ie. Robotic light trees) and it is much cheaper alternative to an expensive dance floor and has a similar effect.

 

Let me know if you want to know anything else

Amanda

 

Shmanderz - 

Thank you so much for sharing your plan with us! It sounds perfect! How soon in advance did you plan all of this?
 

Laura

[NJBride2014]

Hi Laura, No prob.  I totally know how overwhelming thigns are in the beginning trying to figure out what the heck you need to order and how much it is going to cost. 

 

I booked my date/location and paid trip deposit March 18, 2013.  I used a travel agent in my city and she took care of everything up until I got word who my wedding coordiator was (About November I first talked with her).  I am dealing with Renee at Palace Resorts.  When i went to my site visit I had a tour with Mario who said he would be the onsite coordinator handleing my wedding and he was really great and informative!

 

He gave me two really good tips which I have used:

1) Dont skimp on lighting.  He says lighting really sets the atmosphere and the skydeck areas need extra lighting to bring the event together and make it glow.

2) Dont bother with a dance floor unless you are on the beach.  He says just order lighting specifically for the dance area (ie. Robotic light trees) and it is much cheaper alternative to an expensive dance floor and has a similar effect.

 

Let me know if you want to know anything else

Amanda

 

That's a good tip about the dance floor.  I'm getting married at Le Blanc Spa Resort and will have my reception on the terrace and was wondering if we really need to get the dance floor.  I think i'm going to just do the lighting around were the dance floor would be instead, I really like the look of the paper lanterns.  When i asked my wedding planner from palace she says in her opinion it would look weird with out the dance floor especially if you want a lot of dancing. I just can't justify spending that much on both the lights and dance floor if we are on the terrace.  Really trying not to spend too much money on extras.  Aahh this is all adding up fast. 

[shmanderz]

Sooooo today is the final day to pay in full for my guests...STRESS!!  When everyone booked early last year all they had to put down was a $200 per person deposit to hold their booking and then full payment wasnt due until 2 months out. So today a friend of my fiance and the person she was bringing both cancelled out...It is just super annoying since it was very unexpected.  She said it was because of bills and stuff that they couldnt afford it anymore...fair enough, but from the conversation with her, she has obviously known for awhile that they were going to cancel and you think she could have mentioned it earlier than the very last day of the payment window....Kicking myself right now because I JUST purchased a ton of wedding favours, customized shot glasses, OOT bags stuff, beer koozies, etc and it turns out I wasted a bunch of money on their items.  I should have waited until this week but I live in canada and i didnt want to take the chance of stuff getting stuck in customs while shipping.  (Less than 10 weeks until wedding)

 

Ok, rant over! lol

 

On the brightside we still have enough people for free unlimited events and enough people booked to make me and my fiances trip free which is great.  Will feel very good to finally have a set number and to not be stressing about people cancelling out last minute.  I guess a word or advice to everyone planning is expect the unexpected with guests and have a backup plan ready...or wait until everyone has paid in full to order items like favours, etc...they really do add up and its not worth buying extra if you dont have it

Edited March 3, 2014 by shmanderz

[NicoleLV]

That's what I'm afraid will happen with mine and then we won't have enough room nights for the complimentary reception. We've already budgeted to pay for the reception but I would just prefer not to!

 

Speaking of the complimentary room nights, how does that work? Did you pay for the rooms already and then eventually you would get the $$ refunded back to you? Or did you not pay for the room at all bc it ended up being free? Also, your room deposit...what happened with that? I emailed Marisol about it last week but have yet to hear from her. And I asked the wedding coordinator about it and she said she didn't know and to contact Marisol. Kind of frustrating that I can't get any answers.

 

But your wedding does sound wonderful and sorry about the last minute cancellation, but I'm glad it doesn't effect the big picture

[shan0487]

You pay for your room and you get refunded the money after you return home in the same form of payment.  (I paid with a credit card and was refunded the money to my credit card about 2 weeks after I returned).

That's what I'm afraid will happen with mine and then we won't have enough room nights for the complimentary reception. We've already budgeted to pay for the reception but I would just prefer not to!

Speaking of the complimentary room nights, how does that work? Did you pay for the rooms already and then eventually you would get the $$ refunded back to you? Or did you not pay for the room at all bc it ended up being free? Also, your room deposit...what happened with that? I emailed Marisol about it last week but have yet to hear from her. And I asked the wedding coordinator about it and she said she didn't know and to contact Marisol. Kind of frustrating that I can't get any answers.

But your wedding does sound wonderful and sorry about the last minute cancellation, but I'm glad it doesn't effect the big picture

[shmanderz]

I booked with Sunwing Vacations here in Canada so it is a little different.  It was only a $200 per person deposit to reserve your flight and room and then full payment wasnt due until 2 months before (Today was the deadline).

The way it works is for every 11th guest that books with Sunwing we get 1 person free.  Since we had over 22 guests book me and my fiance's trips were free.  The $200 we both paid to initially book the group package with Sunwing is being put towards upgraded seats on the flight and we also extended the return flight by a week so we can do a honeymoon, so there was a change fee for that.

As for the deposit we made at Beach Palace to confirm the date and skydeck ($300) I was told that money would be deducted from our final bill with the hotel for the wedding.  I am going to bring the copy of the depsoit confirmation so I can make sure they honor the $300 credit at the end.

 

That's what I'm afraid will happen with mine and then we won't have enough room nights for the complimentary reception. We've already budgeted to pay for the reception but I would just prefer not to!

Speaking of the complimentary room nights, how does that work? Did you pay for the rooms already and then eventually you would get the $$ refunded back to you? Or did you not pay for the room at all bc it ended up being free? Also, your room deposit...what happened with that? I emailed Marisol about it last week but have yet to hear from her. And I asked the wedding coordinator about it and she said she didn't know and to contact Marisol. Kind of frustrating that I can't get any answers.

But your wedding does sound wonderful and sorry about the last minute cancellation, but I'm glad it doesn't effect the big picture

[Bella Rios]

They told me that they don't give refunds back, and that I could use it on extra wedding services. Now they have told me that they no longer do that and that I would only be able to use that credit on our guests room and that our guests in return would give me cash. Such a bummer, and our guests have had to pay 2 nights in advance and the rest when they check in.

[LauraM]

I have been told that the "free room nights" are only good for future visits, after our wedding stay. When I first booked my wedding, the "free room nights" were able to be used as credit for wedding extras. Not surprisingly, the rules have changed since I signed the contract.

I'm currently in the process of cancelling my wedding and re-booking via a travel agent. My wedding planner, Marisol, hasn't responses to any of my four emails over the past 5 weeks =( so frustrating.

Edited March 5, 2014 by LauraM

[LINDS2014]

Hi @ LauraM - that's AWFUL!  And such a lie!  For us, and so many others, we are using our 7 complimentary nights during our wedding visit.  I do recall something about them saying you can use them for a future visit, but it wasn't mandatory.

 

It seems they like to bend the rules for some and change the rules for others.  I would personally fight them on it... or go through your travel agent as you're doing - ours has been amazing in fighting for us!  One of the best decisions we made was booking through our travel agent & not directly with the resort so that you have someone else on your side.  They typically don't want to piss off a travel agent for fear of losing future business.

 

I also have Marisol and she is the WORST at getting back to me & only giving selective information to help herself.

[LauraM]

LINDS2014 ... thank you for responding! It's good to hear that I'm not the only one having problems with Marisol. I have heard from others that their travel agent is able to get better deals/more info. That's why I'm going to use one.

My battle now will be getting a refund from palace for the $2,500 deposit I put on the wedding. My contract states that I can cancel within 45 days of the wedding without a charge. The problem will be getting someone to respond to me! I don't want to call them because I like keeping everything on record, in writing. I'm going to try emailing their PR dept, rather than Marisol. I've already cancelled my room, and was fully refunded via their booking dept within 2 weeks. Something tells me things won't be so simple with the wedding dept...