Marinah84's Planning Thread - 3/14/15 - Crown Paradise Club Cancun

marinah84 · April 28, 2015

Quick update

I ordered a Christmas ornament of our cake from this Etsy vendor (https://www.etsy.com/shop/CMYKlays). It was very reasonably priced, especially as the original vendor I found on Pinterest started at 150-400!!

It's adorable! I love it!

kcole123 · April 28, 2015

Omg that is just the cutest thing. And of course now I have to look.

calgarybride2015 · April 28, 2015

Omg that is just the cutest thing. And of course now I have to look.

haha you beat me to that, now I wanna look too!!!! I love Christmas ornaments.

marinah84 · April 29, 2015

I almost like her version better than my actual cake I thought the real one was a little tacky, I'm more of a simple look. They put way to many flowers on there for my taste. By that point in the night, I was just glad we had a cake before the photographer left lol!

She was very professional and did a great job. Highly recommend!

marinah84 · April 29, 2015

Crown Club Paradise Cancun - Resort Review

I've requested BDW add this resort to the "Resort Reviews" section, as I can't find it, but in the meantime, I'll put this here! If I have anything else to add, I will

My review of Crown Paradise Club Cancun with 30 guests & 2 kids:

Hotel – 8/10; Overall, we were pretty pleased with the hotel. We looked for a cost efficient resort that had decent reviews on the hotel, and was kid-friendly. Some of the rooms smelled a little moldy when we checked in, but that’s a pretty common thing in the tropics. The hotel was very clean overall, the grounds very well taken care of. Most of our guests booked the standard rooms, and were updated for free to the upgraded rooms with hot tubs in the room. We had 2 kids with us, so we had the standard with 2 beds. It was adequate for what we needed. The biggest complaint I had was the tub was VERY steep to get into for the regular room (shower was in tub) and had the same issue with the honeymoon suite room. They should (for the honeymoon room at least) have a walk in shower only, not a combined shower/tub. The kids also used the “seat” in the edge of the tub as a slide, and bathtime was a little rough! The hotel is close to the airport, and decent location to get downtown/go shopping/etc. The resort next door is run down, and some of the guest rooms overlook it. It’s not a huge detraction for me, because we didn’t spend much time in the rooms, and we joked we had our own “ruins” and didn’t need to go see the Mayan ones haha. There were some renovations going on the night before the wedding, including jackhammers; luckily they finished knocking down one of the on resort buildings before the wedding, or there would have been issues (it was LOUD).

Beach – 8; I didn’t have a huge issue with the beach, but in this part of Cancun, all the resorts are right next to each other. The sand is very light tan, and the water gorgeous. The wedding area is not separated, however, and while no one could come on our part during the ceremony, the post-ceremony pictures we had people who were rude and walking through/behind pictures and we kept having to wait. It’s not a huge beach, either. It was great for what we wanted/needed, and was a GORGEOUS backdrop for the ceremony.

Food - Buffet - 7, Restaurants 8, Room Service - 5; The buffet food was pretty good, we could always find something to eat. They did offer a good variety of food choices, though many times the choices were the same/similar. They had several fish items that were absolutely delicious, which I don’t typically go for “mass produced” seafood. The desserts were good as well. The restaurant food was amazing – but the portions were SO TINY. We ate at Wayne’s Boots Steakhouse for our “rehearsal” dinner, and my husband was literally pissed because he thought we paid extra for it. The portions were tiny – the steaks were probably 2oz, maybe 3, and there was hardly any food. DELICIOUS, but not much on the main courses. We (bride & groom) ate at all of the restaurants except the Mexican because we ran out of time. Everything we had was absolutely delicious. My advice – order 1-2 appetizers and 1-2 entrees per person, depending how hungry you are. Room Service - there is a $5 charge now for room service, since they give you a mini fridge that they put water and (assorted, depending on room) pop & beer. Supposed to be $5/person, they only charged us $5 for the room (got it day of the wedding for the bridal party and people getting ready). Food was meh – burger was burnt on the bun, not a lot of options, but didn’t take more than 30-45 minutes to get there, which isn’t bad with the size of the resort.

Bars/nightlife - 7; The bars were ok – this is a family-centric resort, so it’s not excessive. There was a pub style bar that is connected to a dance club, which was fun. We were mostly late 20s/early 30s, so we’re past the “party all night and get wasted” stage (for the most part LOL). The karyoke night was fun; they did cancel the trivia night because not enough people came. It was adequate for what we needed/wanted. We didn’t go to any of the nightly shows personally, though some guests went to the Elvis one and said it was the best they’d seen at a resort.

Staff – 10; Seriously, they were AMAZING. They remember you, and especially after our wedding (where a bunch of drunk guests jumped in the pools, and instead of freaking out, the staff was laughing and taking pictures…apparently it doesn’t happen often, even though the outdoor reception area is RIGHT on the pool lol), they would make a point to seek you out. Somehow, my staff nickname was “Mami” (probably because I had the two kids); they would say hi and remember my drinks, and try to get me to do shots LOL. Very pleasant experience all around with the staff. I made sure to tip decently as well, and we did tip very generously for the staff at the wedding due to the excellent service.

Pools - 8; There were 2 family pools, 1 kids pool and 1 adult pool. We went to all the pools – my kids were small, and I loved there were different “levels” of pools. The main pool (infinity looking over the ocean) had a lot of activities and games – one of which on the first day was who could go furthest underwater…if I hadn’t been worried about my lash extensions, I would have kicked their butts with my swimmers lungs haha. The family pool had a bigger section, then a small pool which was perfect for most of the time with the little kids. It wasn’t hard for us to get chairs, and we went during spring break time. The adult pool we stopped in on the last day – other guests had told us that it’s very quiet, and while it had it’s own bar, it was very mellow…except when they blasted music. It seemed ok to us – be careful of the drop off in the middle, other guests said they sit to watch new people slip off LOL.

Wedding Coordinator - 10; Evelyn was FANTASTIC. She is the ONLY wedding person on site, and she runs around like a mad woman. She was amazing over 18+ months of emails (starting in September 2013, before we were even “officially” engaged lol) and got back to me very quickly. I was very organized (I made her a packet with instructions & pictures) and she did a seriously awesome job. I was worried about miscommunication, or price jumps because everything was so reasonably priced, but everything went really smoothly.

Ceremony - 10; We met the group room minimum (was 15, I believe they now have a 10 room option), so our basic ceremony was included. The basic ceremony included the chairs with sashes, the aisle runner, shell decorations, and the altar setup plus the minister. It was fantastic – well coordinated by Evelyn, and ran very smoothly. We did have TONS of guests watching – I barely noticed them, but some guests took pictures of all the people watching, and it was a lot. If that bothers you, this probably isn’t the resort you’re looking for, haha. Minister did well, it was a little hard to understand him sometimes, mostly because we were looking into the sun and I was trying hard to keep my eyes open. They let us do a guest-led sand ceremony, which turned out beautifully. We used beach sand, and brought a little sifter to get out the pieces of shell/etc (it was a good idea!), and used oil pourers to pour into a picture frame. We also did a tequila shot (blue margarita) at the end of the ceremony – they served it for us (including non-alcoholic shots for the kids and adults who don’t/couldn’t drink) and it was super cute. My husband spilled it on his white bowtie/shirt; probably due to his hands shaking so badly, haha, but we got it out. It was a great way to end the ceremony!

Private Dinner Reception – 9, DJ - 6: We upgraded to the private dinner reception on the pool, and it was definitely worth the extra fee. The setup was great, next to the infinity main pool with poolside bar shut down for us at 6pm. We went with the 5 hour reception (630-1130), and it was the perfect amount of time. It also came with some of the extras I would have had to buy a la carte with the 3 or 4 hour option (microphone, fireworks, lights for the area, etc) – so it only ended up costing about $200 more than the 4 hour, and was a great amount of time. Dinner was good, the drinks were fantastic, and the shots were FLOWING. The staff loved how many tequila shots the guests did…apparently we can drink! The DJ was just so-so; he wasn’t very good at MC’ing, but we also made the decision the week before to have a DJ, because I didn’t have time/desire to coordinate an ipod since mine died and I’d have to buy a bunch of music that I didn’t already have. For $100/hour, he wasn’t terrible and well worth not having to worry about the music. The guests LOVED the maracas to shake for a kiss – highly recommend doing that! They sell them on the resort for $3 for 2, if you don’t want to bring them/go off resort.

Photographer - 10; We used Samuel Luna, who was absolutely amazing. I’ll do a full review on him soon, but he was perfect. A little slow on responding via email, but he’s a very busy person! The resort vendor fee was very reasonable - $150 was the only charge, and it was actually the only charge we had for outside vendors.

Make-up & Hair - 10; I used Sara Tamargo, who was fantastic. You can see my review here (http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/reviews/r/4968-sara-tamargo-makeup-artistry/), and they did not charge me a resort fee to bring her on for either the trial or the day of the wedding.

Overall, I’m extremely pleased with our wedding experience. We wanted a reasonably-priced all-inclusive resort with beautiful water/beach, that was both kid-friendly and had adults-only options. I’d definitely recommend this resort!