2013 Gran Caribe Real/ Royal Cancun Brides

[ncalvar]

No offense taken! That's my same concern. Lol! I'm hoping they have it figured out because mine is scheduled for the roof terrace as well..... crazy that they book so close together.

[ncalvar]

Just spoke w my WC and they have two different terraces. I hope they're far from one another since they'll be going on at the same time. Lol

[Kaitlyn Wawryko]

Haha Ya I just talked to mine too! She said they will be separate. The one that I'm on has the green floor ( I don't think it's green anymore tho but there pictures are out dated she said) that over looks the pool on the roof. Which terrace are you on?

[Emily11386]

Hey ladies. I did a site visit a little while ago and the villas terrace and the albatros terrace are not close to each other. You won't be able to see each other or anything. I'm having my reception on the villas terrace (not the green one)

[Kaitlyn Wawryko]

Thanks Emily

[Alicia415]

My fiance and I just returned from our site visit to The Royal. I will start by saying that I was even more impressed with The Royal than I was ever expecting. The hotel is absolutely gorgeous, the food is delish and the staff is extremely accommodating and polite. I apologize in advance if I get too detailed, but hopefully it’s helpful. We were there from Thursday 11/29- Sunday 12/2.

 

Check-In

Check in was quick and easy. We arrived at the hotel around 11:30 and were gretted with champagne, water and cool towels. We were able to go into our room within 15 mins…I expected we would have had to wait longer considering it was early. The hotel was not as full as it likely isin the peak months, so this may be why we were able get into our room earlier. I imagine it is not always the case in the peak months.

 

Hotel Lobby

 

 

 

Rooms/Hotel

We stayed in the Royal Junior Suite, which is the basic room at The Royal. It was big, gorgeous and very very clean. As others mentioned, all of the rooms are ocean view, so you really can’t have a bad room. I was pretty impressed that this was the standard room. For those of you that haven’t seen the hotel in person, it is more gorgeous (if possible) than what the pictures show. It is extremely clean and well kept. The beach is gorgeous and very big. There are tons and tons of lounge chairs as well as cabanas so we never ran into an issue get chairs. Again, this m

ay be because the hotel wasn’t completely full. The pool is equally stocked with chairs and cabanas and is also extremely clean. I usually get a little skeeved with resort pools but I had no problem going in. Each day we usually split the day at the beach and the pool.

 

View from Pelicanos

 

 

Royal Junior Suite

 

 

View from our room

 

 

Hair/Make-Up Trial

I got my hair and make-up trial done, which came out amazing! I’m using Fernando Fuentes for my make-up and he works with a hair person ( I don’t remember his name, but if you use Fernando for make-up and want hair done as well, this is who is usually works with). Fernando and the hair guy came to the hotel for the trial. They had offered for me to go to The Hilton (I believe) which is where the hair guy works so I wouldn’t have to pay for guest passes, but prior to actually being in cancun and meeting them in person, I was a little hesitatnt in going there. I would have no problem going now though after being there. For my hair I had a couple of pictures of what I wanted and he repliated it perfectly the first time. He asked if I wanted to make any changes but honestly I loved the way it came out. For my make-up I didn’t have a picture and figured I w

ould just let Fernando try things and let him know what I liked/didn’t like. I loved what he did the first time around ( I only asked him to add eyeliner on the bottom, since I usually wear it) which he did. He only uses MAC products. After we were all set with my hair and make-up for the wedding day Fernando and the hair guy re-styled me with a more “going out†look, since we were going out later than night and so my fiance wouldn’t see what I looked like. I loved the way my hair and make-up looked for that also!! Overall, they both did an excellent job and I HIGHLY recommend them! My trial was $180 in total for both hair and make-up. For the wedding day, It will be $280 for me and $150 for my bridesmaids/mother/mother-in-law. It usually a bit higher but tehre are going to be 11 in total for hair and make-up so he gave us better prices per person. I belive for the bride it’s usually $330 and for bridesmaids it $100 for make-up and between $60-$80 for hair. I think the prices are pretty comparable to NY prices for hair and make-up. Fernando is extrmely easy to communicate with with and is very responsive to emails.

 

Photographer/Videographer

We are using Photos in Cancun (Derek Campbell & Lorena) for both photography and videography. Derek and Lorena do the photography and 2 others do the videography. We didn’t meet with the videographers but they work with them exclusively. We are doing an all day package for both which is up to 10 hours. They are absolutely amazing to work with and such genuinely nice people! We met with them on Thursday afternoon at our hotel. We sat in the lobby and didn’t have to pay for guest passes. They are very familiar with the hotel and the guest pass policy and they did not want us to pay for guest passes. We discussed what we liked/didn’t like for pictures ect. We wound up asking other questions on all different topics about the area and vendors and they provided such helpful information for everything. They were more than happy to answer any question we had. We actually wound up scheduling a session to take engagement pictures which we never even thought of doing there! They picked us up at hotel Sunday morning at 9 am and went down the block to the public beach where we took our pics! They came out absolutely amazing! They are just fun and easy to work and made the whole experince relaxed and enjoyable! They took us to a little taco stand/bar which their friend owns for a “Loaded Corona†which was amazing and fun! We were unfortunately leav

ing that afternoon so had to end the day too early! I can’t say enough about them! They go abaove and beyond for all of their clients and HIGHLY recommend them as well. For our wedding day a full day package for photography and is $4,950. This includes a 10% discount for using both services. They have different hourly packages as well, but I wanted to be sure to capture the full day.

 

Menu Tasting

We chose to taste the below items. Overall everything was really very good and the presen

tation was absolutely gorgeous. Each salad was delicious and very different from anything you would normally see. I think we are going to go with the Avacado stuffed with Crab. That was our favorite. The spring salad and goat cheese is a stack of sliced tomato and goat cheese, that was also delish! The Caribean sald is a a layer of pineapple, a layer of crab, a layer of avacodo and cavier on the top with a few shrimp on the side. I did love that as well, but I didn’t love the cavier. The entrees were actually a bit dissapointing which I was surprised about. Anything else we ate at the hotel was delicious, but for some reason the 3 options we chose were not the greatest. The chicken were 3 pices of chicken rolled up likea sushi roll and stuffed with salmon and mushroom. It was OK, a little bland. The beef was again, just OK, a little over cooked for what we liked so we asked Diana if our guests could choose their temperature of their steak and she said no, but we could request to have it cooked medium for everyone. The salmon was good, standard salmon I guess. Again, I just was not blown away by any of them. We are going to go with the chicken and beef dishes, which I think would appeal to most people.  The desserts, however, were abolsulely amazing. Each and every one of them were better than the next. I think we are going to go with the cannoli trio, which are 3 chocolate shells in a cannoli shape stuffed with hazelnute chocolate mouse and raspberyy sauce on the side. It was a tough call to pick one of the 3.

 

Salads

Spring Salad with goat cheese and almond oil (PE-1)

 

 

 

Carribean Salad with shrimp, smoked pineapple & jasmine flower pesto (PE-3)

 

 

 

Avacado stuffed with crab pulp au fresh dill vinaigarette (SP-2)

 

 

 

Entree

Bellavista chicken breast stuffed with salmon & mushrooms (RD3-1)

 

 

 

Beef fillet with dijon mustard varnished with provencal herbs (PE-1)

 

 

 

Salmon fillet varnished with sauce bernaise au red chilli (PE-4)

 

 

 

Dessert

Cheesecake with chocolate (PE-1)

 

 

 

Paris chocolate shell stuffed with fruit au white Cinzano flavor (SP-2)

 

 

 

 

Cannoli trio stuffed with praline & raspberry coulis (SP-3)

 

 

 

 

 

Coco Bongo

We went to Coco Bongo one night, which literally about 2 minutes down the road. We took the public bus which stops just outside the hotel and cost $1 USD/$9 pesos per person Prior to going I had a little concern about taking public transportation, but honestly it was completely safe. Coco Bongo was awesome! I was expecting a club, but it’s actually not really. They actually put on performances throughout the entire night, which were soo good! In between the performances the DJ plays awesome music which you can dance to. On the weekends (which is when they do the shows) it is$70 per person for entry and open bar all night. Once inside you are kind of stay in one spot and there is a water/waitress assigned to your area, so they bring you drinks all night. We got a 10% discount for booking it thorugh Olympus at the hotel so it came out to $63 per person. Overall, we had an absolute blast their and want to set up a night for everyone to go our wedding weekend. It’s good for all ages, not necessarily just the younger crowd.

 

US outside of Coco Bongo

 

 

Our Lady of Guadalup Chapel

The chap is really even more gorgeous in person! I absolutely LOVE it and can’t wait to be walkign down the aisle in it! We were lucky enough to see a wedding going on to!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other Details

My only gripe with everything, is that that the wedding coordinator/hotel really does not go out of their way to throw in or include anything additional, even for having a wedding there. For instance, since we are having a wedding and bringing down  at least 75 people for at least 3 nights each on top of the cost of the wedding, you would think maybe they would upgrade us or even give us a break on the price for the site visit. There was none of that. I also think the guest pass policy is a bit absurd. We luckily got out of paying for our photographers, but were not so lucky with the hair and make-up people. What would it be for them to throw in 2 guest passes at $60 each. They were not using any of the hotel amenities or eating any food, so I don’t think it was really very necessary to have to pay. Additionlly, we were told by Diana that my niece/flower-girl would not be able to come into my room to get ready and take “getting ready†pictures at all. I understand the whole no-children policy at The Royal, but again, she would not be in any other area besides my room. We just kind of agreed with her and said OK, but I know that we will somehow get my nice in my room. I just feel like they could be a bit more accommodating for couples that are giving them a huge amount of business.

 

I hope this was helpful! I could honestly write a ton more, but I think I’ve hit on some of the major points. Feel free to ask me anything specific though!

[wedding14]

Hey ladies after our wedding were wanting to travel somewhere else for honey moon any suggestions? What's everyone doing? Also I found out today private reception only goes to 830pm and that you have to pay 10 per real guest to stay till 930. I also am wondering if they will provide stereo equipment for reception and microphone so I could use my own iPod and music. Any one know ? Thank you! Also anyone do their makeup and hair with the person provided by the royal? Please upload pics !

[mizpriya]

Originally Posted by Alicia415 

 

My fiance and I just returned from our site visit to The Royal. I will start by saying that I was even more impressed with The Royal than I was ever expecting. The hotel is absolutely gorgeous, the food is delish and the staff is extremely accommodating and polite. I apologize in advance if I get too detailed, but hopefully it’s helpful. We were there from Thursday 11/29- Sunday 12/2.

 

Check-In

Check in was quick and easy. We arrived at the hotel around 11:30 and were gretted with champagne, water and cool towels. We were able to go into our room within 15 mins…I expected we would have had to wait longer considering it was early. The hotel was not as full as it likely isin the peak months, so this may be why we were able get into our room earlier. I imagine it is not always the case in the peak months.

 

Hotel Lobby

 

 

 

Rooms/Hotel

We stayed in the Royal Junior Suite, which is the basic room at The Royal. It was big, gorgeous and very very clean. As others mentioned, all of the rooms are ocean view, so you really can’t have a bad room. I was pretty impressed that this was the standard room. For those of you that haven’t seen the hotel in person, it is more gorgeous (if possible) than what the pictures show. It is extremely clean and well kept. The beach is gorgeous and very big. There are tons and tons of lounge chairs as well as cabanas so we never ran into an issue get chairs. Again, this m

ay be because the hotel wasn’t completely full. The pool is equally stocked with chairs and cabanas and is also extremely clean. I usually get a little skeeved with resort pools but I had no problem going in. Each day we usually split the day at the beach and the pool.

 

View from Pelicanos

 

 

Royal Junior Suite

 

 

View from our room

 

 

Hair/Make-Up Trial

I got my hair and make-up trial done, which came out amazing! I’m using Fernando Fuentes for my make-up and he works with a hair person ( I don’t remember his name, but if you use Fernando for make-up and want hair done as well, this is who is usually works with). Fernando and the hair guy came to the hotel for the trial. They had offered for me to go to The Hilton (I believe) which is where the hair guy works so I wouldn’t have to pay for guest passes, but prior to actually being in cancun and meeting them in person, I was a little hesitatnt in going there. I would have no problem going now though after being there. For my hair I had a couple of pictures of what I wanted and he repliated it perfectly the first time. He asked if I wanted to make any changes but honestly I loved the way it came out. For my make-up I didn’t have a picture and figured I w

ould just let Fernando try things and let him know what I liked/didn’t like. I loved what he did the first time around ( I only asked him to add eyeliner on the bottom, since I usually wear it) which he did. He only uses MAC products. After we were all set with my hair and make-up for the wedding day Fernando and the hair guy re-styled me with a more “going out†look, since we were going out later than night and so my fiance wouldn’t see what I looked like. I loved the way my hair and make-up looked for that also!! Overall, they both did an excellent job and I HIGHLY recommend them! My trial was $180 in total for both hair and make-up. For the wedding day, It will be $280 for me and $150 for my bridesmaids/mother/mother-in-law. It usually a bit higher but tehre are going to be 11 in total for hair and make-up so he gave us better prices per person. I belive for the bride it’s usually $330 and for bridesmaids it $100 for make-up and between $60-$80 for hair. I think the prices are pretty comparable to NY prices for hair and make-up. Fernando is extrmely easy to communicate with with and is very responsive to emails.

 

Photographer/Videographer

We are using Photos in Cancun (Derek Campbell & Lorena) for both photography and videography. Derek and Lorena do the photography and 2 others do the videography. We didn’t meet with the videographers but they work with them exclusively. We are doing an all day package for both which is up to 10 hours. They are absolutely amazing to work with and such genuinely nice people! We met with them on Thursday afternoon at our hotel. We sat in the lobby and didn’t have to pay for guest passes. They are very familiar with the hotel and the guest pass policy and they did not want us to pay for guest passes. We discussed what we liked/didn’t like for pictures ect. We wound up asking other questions on all different topics about the area and vendors and they provided such helpful information for everything. They were more than happy to answer any question we had. We actually wound up scheduling a session to take engagement pictures which we never even thought of doing there! They picked us up at hotel Sunday morning at 9 am and went down the block to the public beach where we took our pics! They came out absolutely amazing! They are just fun and easy to work and made the whole experince relaxed and enjoyable! They took us to a little taco stand/bar which their friend owns for a “Loaded Corona†which was amazing and fun! We were unfortunately leav

ing that afternoon so had to end the day too early! I can’t say enough about them! They go abaove and beyond for all of their clients and HIGHLY recommend them as well. For our wedding day a full day package for photography and is $4,950. This includes a 10% discount for using both services. They have different hourly packages as well, but I wanted to be sure to capture the full day.

 

Menu Tasting

We chose to taste the below items. Overall everything was really very good and the presen

tation was absolutely gorgeous. Each salad was delicious and very different from anything you would normally see. I think we are going to go with the Avacado stuffed with Crab. That was our favorite. The spring salad and goat cheese is a stack of sliced tomato and goat cheese, that was also delish! The Caribean sald is a a layer of pineapple, a layer of crab, a layer of avacodo and cavier on the top with a few shrimp on the side. I did love that as well, but I didn’t love the cavier. The entrees were actually a bit dissapointing which I was surprised about. Anything else we ate at the hotel was delicious, but for some reason the 3 options we chose were not the greatest. The chicken were 3 pices of chicken rolled up likea sushi roll and stuffed with salmon and mushroom. It was OK, a little bland. The beef was again, just OK, a little over cooked for what we liked so we asked Diana if our guests could choose their temperature of their steak and she said no, but we could request to have it cooked medium for everyone. The salmon was good, standard salmon I guess. Again, I just was not blown away by any of them. We are going to go with the chicken and beef dishes, which I think would appeal to most people.  The desserts, however, were abolsulely amazing. Each and every one of them were better than the next. I think we are going to go with the cannoli trio, which are 3 chocolate shells in a cannoli shape stuffed with hazelnute chocolate mouse and raspberyy sauce on the side. It was a tough call to pick one of the 3.

 

Salads

Spring Salad with goat cheese and almond oil (PE-1)

 

 

 

Carribean Salad with shrimp, smoked pineapple & jasmine flower pesto (PE-3)

 

 

 

Avacado stuffed with crab pulp au fresh dill vinaigarette (SP-2)

 

 

 

Entree

Bellavista chicken breast stuffed with salmon & mushrooms (RD3-1)

 

 

 

Beef fillet with dijon mustard varnished with provencal herbs (PE-1)

 

 

 

Salmon fillet varnished with sauce bernaise au red chilli (PE-4)

 

 

 

Dessert

Cheesecake with chocolate (PE-1)

 

 

 

Paris chocolate shell stuffed with fruit au white Cinzano flavor (SP-2)

 

 

 

 

Cannoli trio stuffed with praline & raspberry coulis (SP-3)

 

 

 

 

 

Coco Bongo

We went to Coco Bongo one night, which literally about 2 minutes down the road. We took the public bus which stops just outside the hotel and cost $1 USD/$9 pesos per person Prior to going I had a little concern about taking public transportation, but honestly it was completely safe. Coco Bongo was awesome! I was expecting a club, but it’s actually not really. They actually put on performances throughout the entire night, which were soo good! In between the performances the DJ plays awesome music which you can dance to. On the weekends (which is when they do the shows) it is$70 per person for entry and open bar all night. Once inside you are kind of stay in one spot and there is a water/waitress assigned to your area, so they bring you drinks all night. We got a 10% discount for booking it thorugh Olympus at the hotel so it came out to $63 per person. Overall, we had an absolute blast their and want to set up a night for everyone to go our wedding weekend. It’s good for all ages, not necessarily just the younger crowd.

 

US outside of Coco Bongo

 

 

Our Lady of Guadalup Chapel

The chap is really even more gorgeous in person! I absolutely LOVE it and can’t wait to be walkign down the aisle in it! We were lucky enough to see a wedding going on to!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other Details

My only gripe with everything, is that that the wedding coordinator/hotel really does not go out of their way to throw in or include anything additional, even for having a wedding there. For instance, since we are having a wedding and bringing down  at least 75 people for at least 3 nights each on top of the cost of the wedding, you would think maybe they would upgrade us or even give us a break on the price for the site visit. There was none of that. I also think the guest pass policy is a bit absurd. We luckily got out of paying for our photographers, but were not so lucky with the hair and make-up people. What would it be for them to throw in 2 guest passes at $60 each. They were not using any of the hotel amenities or eating any food, so I don’t think it was really very necessary to have to pay. Additionlly, we were told by Diana that my niece/flower-girl would not be able to come into my room to get ready and take “getting ready†pictures at all. I understand the whole no-children policy at The Royal, but again, she would not be in any other area besides my room. We just kind of agreed with her and said OK, but I know that we will somehow get my nice in my room. I just feel like they could be a bit more accommodating for couples that are giving them a huge amount of business.

 

I hope this was helpful! I could honestly write a ton more, but I think I’ve hit on some of the major points. Feel free to ask me anything specific though!

This was really helpful thanks! I loved that you showed pictures of the food, which looks great. We plan to go with the crab stuffed avocado for starters and then do the beef filet and shrimp jambalaya, with a Indian vegetarian optoins for some of my family. And do the Cannoli trio for dessert.

 

Are you planning to have your guests stay at the Gran Caribe side of the resort while you and fiance stay at the Royal side?

 

I have to pay $350 for my videographer to come to the resort to film the wedding. They wanted to charge my photographer who is our guest for the week and thought that was ridiculous when he is staying there as a guest!!! I managed to get them to waive that.

[txbrideinmexico]

For those who have visited, is there a place at the Gran Caribe we could have an informal get together? Most of my guests are arriving Saturday May 25 and naturally, all the private areas are booked that night - probably for some of your receptions =) 

 

I just wanted to host a short happy hour to greet guests and let them get to know eachother. I think even just saying "meet by a certain pool" would work fine... Plus that makes it free to me if it's not a private event. We are expecting 40-75 guests.

 

Our other thought is to go offsite. Based on google maps there is a Margarittaville right across the street. Can anyone confirm if that is walking distance or tell me about it if they've visited? My family is nuts about Jimmy Buffett so I think that would be a fun option, and we always want to visit another Margarittaville location!

[Emily11386]

Hey txbrideinmexico, Margarittaville is right across the street, as well as the Outback and the Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory. We split our site visit between the Gran Caribe and The Royal, so while we waited for our room at The Royal we had lunch at Margarittaville. It was pretty quiet because I was mid day but it was good sized and it's some place I would definitely like to check out in the evening! I would also love to go to Señor Frogs. That would be a taxi or bus ride away.