All inclusive Hotel vs. Villa

chofita 2012 · January 14, 2012

I am planning my wedding for March 2012 and I have started to look into wedding venues and locations to allow people to save. I am half "tica" and therefore will have a lot of my Costa Rican family attending. I expect about 70 people, which is rather big for a destination wedding. I had been to a all inclusive destination wedding in the past and loved being all together for the week, but I have a feeling that an all inclusive week in Costa Rica wouldn't be the same, so I'm think of renting out a villa in Manuel Antonio. My fiance would like to be able to spend the whole week with the guests, so feels like an all inclusive may be better. Any suggestions??

marooon13 · January 16, 2012

I attended an all-inclusive wedding in Mexico last year. It was amazing being able to spend a whole week with the bride and grooms closest friends and family- since many of them live throughout the US and aren't able to see each other as often as they would like. We will also be having an all-inclusive wedding. It will give a chance for our families to get to know each other better- on a completely different level. Good Luck!

justineheart · January 18, 2012

Hey! I'm also having a larger wedding (50) and fell in love with a few villas in Manuel Antonio.

I've done a lot of reading but there isnt a lot of options for brides who are choosing to do a villa instead of a resort. Personally after reading about villa's i think its the best way to go!

I've yet to be able to decide on which villa i would like to go with and still have a few questions. (basically finding a villa that can accomidate 50 people or even within walking distance of each other??? Do you happen to no if there are any in the area)

But to answer your question!

From what i've read depending on the villa you choose you can have the option for a chef to come and prepare your feels for you / have an all inclusive option. My understanding is that for $50 a day per person you have an in house chef (you may also have to pay for food). It seems like that can all add up quickly, but I've found it still cheaper per person to go this way instead of a resort (for your guests at least). But for me a big positive is you can create the menu and deal with any food issues people may have like allergies, picky eaters because trying to find food that all 50 people can enjoy is hard!

I've also looked into some villa's (not in Manuel Antonio) that give you an all inclusive option and you just have to pay for the groceries and a 20% shopping few.

Most villa's will also include a bartender with the chef and you get a maid (or 2) for the whole week

This is one of my favorite sites if you are still trying to decide on villa's.

http://www.villascostarica.com/weddings/index.html

Hope this helps! and if you have any info could you please please please help me out!

timon · January 22, 2012

I read your posting and wondered where, except maybe a villa in the south of France, you would find a villa large enough in M.A. to hold 70 people? What you are looking at would be between 6-10 villas for that amount of people.

When you said that all inclusive in C.R. would be different, what did you mean exactly?

I was at a wedding in Jaco about a year and a half ago at a beautiful 20 room boutique hotel that the brides parents had rented for 6 nights and it was an amazing time. There were 84 of us at the wedding but only 56 of us actually stayed at the hotel and the entire week was over the top. The hotel pointed out that since we were the only guests we had the run of the place so with there help we basically planned a 5 day/night, party.They actually planned the wedding for the bride and groom on the beach in Playa Hermosa and transported everyone to and from the wedding site. The reception was held at the hotel in the open air restaurant but they actually asked us if we would rather have the reception at the pool which was more than spacious enough to hold a reception of 200 people. From what i gathered from the bride, groom and parents, the hotel took care of everything from flowers to the non-denominational pastor and the legal requirements for being married in C.R. I don't remember the name of the place but it was the only hotel in Jaco that was not in town but on the mountain side of the highway and they were either the highest rated or 2nd highest rated hotel on tripadvisor.

My thinking would be that at the villa or villas you would have to pay a chef , usually 50-100.00$ p/d, then the cost of the food and drink???. Well those prices are already built into a hotels costing. So if you think about it 1 villa 2000.00$ p/n( on the cheap side), would be equivalent to 10 hotel rooms. A 20 room hotel would cost you about 1/3 the price of the villas that you would need to accommodate 70 people. Another bonus was that this place also had it's own spa and yoga classes everyday for hotel guests.