tkuzma's Mayan Riviera Wedding Planning Journal- February 7, 2013!

[Ashley Lovlin]

Awesome thread! Very helpful as I am also from Canada, flying sunwing (I am in Prince George, BC flying out from Vancouver). I am nervous with the negative stuff about sunwing but too late now! lol. I was just curious if you ordered your pinata through the hotel and how much did it cost? I would love to have one and was thinking it might not be that great of an idea with no kids, but saw that your adult guests loved it! So now I totally wanna get one too. Is that the cake stand the hotel provided? I know they aren't "cake masters" but yours turned out super cute! Will they decorate it how you want it or did you have to do that? I'm ordering real touch flowers that match my bouquet to go on the cake but I really like the ribbon around it too! And for the water bottles- is this something the hotel provided and you just put the labels on or did you buy the water from town and do it all yourself? I just think something like water bottles the hotel should be able to provide but I don't mind putting on the labels and the crafty stuff. Were they really helpful at the hotel with the crafty stuff or did you do everything prior to coming and just have them set it up. Any insight appreciated! THanks

[alexisinjamaica]

I love everything you did! Beautiful job!!
 

[tkuzma]

Originally Posted by murmel 

 

Great wedding planning journal! Future brides will get so many wonderful ideas.

 

You look stunning! And glad to hear you managed to find a bridesmaid dress last second that looked perfect. Just hope you manage to get your money back for the other one.

 

Thank you murmel for all of your helpful suggestions & tips- your insight was very much appreciated!!!

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashley Lovlin 

 

Awesome thread! Very helpful as I am also from Canada, flying sunwing (I am in Prince George, BC flying out from Vancouver). I am nervous with the negative stuff about sunwing but too late now! lol. I was just curious if you ordered your pinata through the hotel and how much did it cost? I would love to have one and was thinking it might not be that great of an idea with no kids, but saw that your adult guests loved it! So now I totally wanna get one too. Is that the cake stand the hotel provided? I know they aren't "cake masters" but yours turned out super cute! Will they decorate it how you want it or did you have to do that? I'm ordering real touch flowers that match my bouquet to go on the cake but I really like the ribbon around it too! And for the water bottles- is this something the hotel provided and you just put the labels on or did you buy the water from town and do it all yourself? I just think something like water bottles the hotel should be able to provide but I don't mind putting on the labels and the crafty stuff. Were they really helpful at the hotel with the crafty stuff or did you do everything prior to coming and just have them set it up. Any insight appreciated! THanks

 

Small world! I was born and raised in PG, and until several months ago, my parents still lived there!

 

I did order the pinata from the resort WC- I paid $120 for it, and it was filled with a ton of sweets!  I also got to select my shape and colours.

 

Haha, thanks for the cake compliments!  I had seen pictures of some previous disasters, which made me nervous, and I decided I wasn't going to leave it to chance and bring my own cake decorations.  I then gave them the ribbon (bought at Fabricland), fondant shells and cake topper and they arranged it on the cake nicely.

 

We bought the water bottles at $1 a piece from the resort WC and my now MIL glued them on easily.  The resort then put them in coolers in our transport vehicles on the day of.

 

Let me know if you have any more questions

 

 

Originally Posted by alexisinjamaica 

 

I love everything you did! Beautiful job!!

 

 

Thank you kindly!

[Jess878]

you did an amazing job, i think I will so the same regarding the cake decorations. Im afraid of the cake looking mess.. Thanks for posting the vendors you used.

[jrack]

Originally Posted by tkuzma 

 

Travel Agency (Flight Centre) & Travel Company (Sun Wing)

 

Unfortunately, this is one of two sections of my journal in which I do not have positive feedback.  However, I thought it would be prudent to make other brides aware of our experience because I know that we were not the only couple who had a negative experience with these two companies.

 

We chose Flight Centre as a TA because I had previously travelled using them on several major international trips, and they had done a decent job and had gotten me very good prices for them.  I was initially even more excited to use Flight Centre for our wedding planning because their Edmonton office was the head office for DW planning in Western Canada.

 

The initial consultation and resort search was fine, but after our guests and we had paid our deposits, our future interactions with them turned sour.  Our primary TA went on maternity leave and failed to tell us- only after several unanswered emails did I decide to make a phone call to the office myself and was then told the news.  Our primary TA lost information on some of our guests who were planning on staying a 2^nd week in Mexico.  The TA that took over emailed our group with my name spelled wrong on multiple occasions and kept writing my groom’s name as Mike (his name is Chris).  She failed to respond to our guests’ inquiries on multiple occasions. They had promised us the honeymoon suite at our second resort (El Dorado Maroma), and it was only after multiple angry phone calls and emails that they begrudgingly gave it back to us.  The list continues, but I’ll stop now.

 

Like I mentioned earlier, we met up with several other couples through our planning process that had similar experiences with Flight Centre.  I am very disappointed in their service and will no longer use them in future travel planning.

 

This brings us to Sun Wing, the charter company through which Flight Centre booked our holiday.  The positives: we were booked as Elite Plus (Our TA said this was included but we met another bride and groom that were charged an extra $100/person, so I don’t know if we paid for this or not), so we had a 30 kg per person allowance as well as a little extra leg room.  Also an overhead compartment is saved for wedding dresses.

 

The negatives: On our return trip to Canada, we waited several hours in Cancun airport with the rumor the flight was going to be cancelled, and eventually it was.  Flights are cancelled every day, but the large problem with Sun Wing was their lack of communication with their customers as well as their terrible customer service.  No announcements were made, cancellations plans were not communicated, unfriendly staff, and the list continues.  Barely an apology was made at bare minimum.  We will try to avoid using Sun Wing’s services again the future if possible!

Thanks for the feedback on Flight center...I'm currently having issues and I'm just booking! Good to hear from others...as I may not book with them afterall..

[pokeyholly]

Originally Posted by jrack 

 

Thanks for the feedback on Flight center...I'm currently having issues and I'm just booking! Good to hear from others...as I may not book with them afterall..

That was the first place I went to get quotes. The girl never called me back!! I knew that it would take some time to obtain the group rate from ACV but we had to call her a week and a half later. And this was at the St. Albert location. When I did receive my quote, it was much higher than everywhere else.  Definitely shop around!! 

 

[jolene028]

Wow everything looks awesome

[Ashley Lovlin]

Tkuzma- It is a small world! I've only lived here for a few years but I guess it's my home now. I definitely knew that I didn't want to get married here, or my hometown of Port Hardy on Vancouver Island so a DW was totally at the top of my list!

 

Do you think the 120.00 for the pinata was worth it? What kind of candy did they fill it with? Was there lots of popular stuff in there or was it "Mexican" candy. Just don't want to have a crapload of candy nobody likes  lol. I was originally going to find one somewhere in town and then fill it myself with candy from the walmart or costco. But was the hole really big? Would I need tons of candy? I'm trying to get the biggest bang for my buck!! 

 

Thats pretty crappy that you had to pay 1.00 a water bottle! Can you not just get them for free while you are there? How is the drinking water served on any other day? Maybe I will just hoard them for the first few days and then label them all the night before

 

Thanks for the insight, I'll most likely be asking more questions soon!

[tkuzma]

Originally Posted by Ashley Lovlin 

 

Tkuzma- It is a small world! I've only lived here for a few years but I guess it's my home now. I definitely knew that I didn't want to get married here, or my hometown of Port Hardy on Vancouver Island so a DW was totally at the top of my list!

 

Do you think the 120.00 for the pinata was worth it? What kind of candy did they fill it with? Was there lots of popular stuff in there or was it "Mexican" candy. Just don't want to have a crapload of candy nobody likes  lol. I was originally going to find one somewhere in town and then fill it myself with candy from the walmart or costco. But was the hole really big? Would I need tons of candy? I'm trying to get the biggest bang for my buck!! 

 

Thats pretty crappy that you had to pay 1.00 a water bottle! Can you not just get them for free while you are there? How is the drinking water served on any other day? Maybe I will just hoard them for the first few days and then label them all the night before

 

Thanks for the insight, I'll most likely be asking more questions soon!

 

Hello again!

 

I thought the $120 was worth the extra headache of going into Cancun and finding a nice looking one like I had.  It was also worth the amount of fun people ended up having.  The candy was a mix of stuff we know here as well as Mexican candies- enough of it got eaten so that was good.  Also the resort had a guy "operate" the pinata for us- ie. lower and raise it to throw people off like a real pinata should be.

 

I never thought about collecting resort water bottles before I arrived, which is a good idea! I had already paid the $1/bottle to my off site WC- still better than what we pay for a water bottle that size here in Canada.  Assign the labelling task to one of your bridal party members- easy enough for someone to do and another less stress for you!

[normas09]

Beautiful wedding! My FI is obsessed with scrabble to so I love the way you incorporated it. Thanks for sharing and congratulations!