Secrets Maroma Beach Resort Reviews

Secrets Maroma Beach: Hotel in general:  A+

The hotel was amazing!  No wrist band or a towel card at this hotel. Unlimited use of beach towels were really nice.  When I stayed at Iberoster in Jamaica last year, I had a tan line from the wrist band and you could only have one beach towel at a time, which was a little annoying to me.  As part of the wedding package, you get a preferential location within your booked category.  We booked the preferred club ocean view room since that would make our basic wedding package free (worth $800).  The upgrade itself cost about $400 for 7 nights. We had a fourth floor in the building 26 very close to the ocean.  Preferred club is well worth it because you get a private check-in and check-out and no wait.  You get extra amenities in the room as well.  Also, we didn’t have to go all the way to the lobby area to get cappuccino every morning, instead go to the preferred club lounge which is right by building 25.  The lounge has 3 computers and a printer. All the staffs at Secrets were always smiling and answers with “my pleasure”. They really cater to your needs and they are prompt on your requests.  I asked for the mosquito repellent wipes a couple times and they delivered to our room within 10 minutes.  Spa was amazing, we had a complementary couples 50 minute Swedish massage included in our honeymoon package, which was included in our upgraded room stay.  I could stay in that Spa all day.  Breakfast buffet had a wide range of selections.  I had strawberry and banana chocolate crepe every morning.  24 hour room service had decent selections and the brownie was the best.  They really spoiled us during our stay, it was hard to go back to the reality

Wedding Coordinator Cecilia Reyes and her team: A 

About a week before our departure, I got an out of office auto reply from Cecilia when I e-mailed her with some questions.  The e-mail said that she would be on vacation until 9/25 which was our wedding day.  I panicked and e-mailed every general email address possible to see what was going on.  Lety and Valeria e-mailed me back quickly saying that they are taking care of our wedding while Cecilia was out.   So I thought Cecilia wouldn’t be doing our wedding.  But she was already back from her vacation and we had a final meeting with her on Thursday 9/23 at 11am. We met at the lobby bar. Cecilia came with Lety and one other person, I can’t remember his name.   We went through the contract and picked the bouquet and boutonnière.  We also added corsage and boutonnières for our 8 guests.  She had lots of options for the flowers which were not listed on the website or the list she gave me through e-mail.  I picked the one with Lily, rose, and one other kind (sorry can’t remember the name of the flower….) but told her to make them all orange with a hint of yellow.  I was surprised that there was no extra charge for that.  The flowers turned out so beautiful, I loved it.  She came to show me all the flowers when I was getting my hair done at the Spa and she delivered them to everyone’s room.

The extra items we paid for which was not included in the package was the following:

1. The stereo system for the ceremony

2. Corsages and boutonnières for the guests

3. Flower for my hair

3. Chair bows

She also did not charge an outside vendor fee for our photographer, Cecilia Dumas. 

I also showed her the songs for the ceremony in I-pod.  Cecilia seemed very experienced with the music and the sound system and how it should work during the ceremony. She explained to me they will tone it down while the minister speaks and after the ceremony they will turn it back up, which they did very well.

We didn’t choose the restaurant or the place of ceremony beforehand since I wanted to look at the options in person before I make a decision.  We dined at Oceana restaurant the first night and decided to have our reception there since it is right by the pool that lights up blue at night and you could see the ocean from the restaurant and has nice breeze.

She took us to the alternative options in case of rain.  The first option was one right next to the Desires club, which was nice, but I really wanted the outside feel, so she took us to the second option which was the entrance to the theater.  She explained that they will put up a white curtain to block off the theater area. I really liked the white stone walls and the grass roof so we chose the theater area for the rain day (and it did rain on our wedding day since the tropical storm was nearby…) Then we went to the Gazebo and to the beach front area.  Since I’d be wearing 4” heels and it was really windy and I would be wearing my hair down, we decided to go for the Gazebo.  She said that they will remove the pool chairs by the gazebo and the speaker by the gazebo will be shut off during the ceremony so we will have some privacy.  We discussed the decoration for the gazebo and I just wanted the white curtain with turquoise color bows for the white chairs.

Once we decided for the place of ceremony, I had to edit the wedding schedule for the guests.  So we went to the preferred lounge and used their computer to update our wedding schedule and e-mailed it to Cecilia so she could color print them.  We didn’t want to spend money on papers or printing. Cecilia suggested we could use Secrets letterhead and the envelopes so we did. She color printed them and delivered them to our room right away so I could include in the welcome bags for our guests.  I also brought the blank name tags with the sea shell name holder for the dinner reception.  I asked them to print the names on the name card and they did a great job on that.  

We were supposed to discuss the table setting and seating at the restaurant for the reception, but we completely forgot.  So the next day I called Cecilia to meet us at Oceana at noon so we can discuss the seating.  Since Cecilia was in a meeting with other wedding party, Lety and the other guy came to Oceana. My cousin and I discussed the seating with them because during the meeting, Cecilia mentioned we have to have two tables at the restaurant for our dinner, but we really wanted one big table to avoid separation among the wedding party.  They fought against that quite a bit saying they don’t have a permission to do that and it depends on the restaurant manager’s decision.  But we did insist that it needs to be one big table. They didn’t give us a clear answer, but in the end they made it happen and we had a center circle area in the Oceana restaurant all to ourselves, which was plenty of room for 10 people. It worked out great. 

Cecilia as well as her team worked so hard to make the wedding go smoothly.  Everything she said she would do was done.  We had a simple wedding with only party of 10, and since I wanted our wedding to be stress-free as much as possible, I did not plan too many details, but these details were taken care of by her and her team.  

Hairstylist at the SPA - Marivelle: A

First of all, the room in the Spa I got my hair done was very grand, very luxurous.  They had a huge mirror hanging from the ceiling and it was completely private and really relaxing.  Marivelle was my stylist and did a great job on curling my hair the way I wanted. I explained to her exactly what I want on my trial run, which was on Thursday 5pm (my wedding was Saturday). I did make two appointments (one trial run and one for the wedding day) with Carla through e-mail about 2 weeks before the departure.  Marivelle does not speak good English but I had a few pictures and I used hand gesture to communicate with her. She used a humidity resistant hair spray and she applied it to my hair every curl she did with curling iron.   I was pleased with the result of the trial run, and she did even better job on my wedding day. She was more used to handling my hair the second time around.  So for that, I strongly recommend doing a trial run. It was raining on my wedding day, but she comforted me by saying “it is good luck to be raining on the wedding day” and she gave me her really pretty pair of earrings.  She was so sweet.  I also asked her to pin the curls so the curls hold up in the humidity.  The curls softened once I went outside to get to the ceremony site, which gave me perfect curls, not too tight but not too soft.  In all honesty, I’ve had a better stylist before, but overall I was very happy with her work. The cost is about $47 with 15% discount, so I paid $94 for two sessions.

Wedding Ceremony: A

I had my hair appointment at 1pm and I was done by 2:30.  They called the golf cart for me to go back to the room since it was raining.  I went back to my room and started on my makeup.  Cecilia came around 3:30 and informed me that the rain stops but then starts back up, so I had to make a decision to move the ceremony from Gazebo to the theater entrance. I was disappointed that we couldn’t have it at Gazebo, but everything worked out.  It did stop raining right before our ceremony. Cecilia coordinated the music during the ceremony very well.  My dad and I walked the aisle with Stevie Wonder’s “Ribbon in the sky”.  It was the right timing and right volume.  We had an English speaking minister.  She read a poem called “Marriage by the Sea” which really spoke to my heart.  Sade’s “by your side” played while she was reading the poem.  The ceremony lasted about 20 minutes and we had a Champaign toast right afterward. The staffs promptly served us a glass of Champaign to all of us right after we exited. I had 6 songs played from the start till we started taking group pictures right outside of the theater, it was a perfect length.

Dinner reception: A

Dinner started a little late as we were taking pictures, so we had our guests wait a little at the Oceana restaurant. We just ordered off of the menu and we ordered two bottles of Sake, my mother in law did the toast in English and my brother did another one in Japanese.  After the dinner, we did the cake cutting.  We didn’t upgrade the cake as it wasn’t really important to us.  We chose the tres de leche cake, which I really liked. 

I was really nervous about how my dad and my brother who do not speak English can interact with my in-laws throughout the wedding trip, but everything worked out and I am so grateful for them coming all the way from Japan for our wedding.

Overall, all of my guests loved Secrets Maroma and I made the right choice choosing this resort. I still day dream about our stay at Secrets:)    This was a very long review, but hope it is helpful to anyone thinking about having their wedding at Secrets Maroma.  Any questions, please feel free to ask!

Pre-Trip:

We used Destination Weddings, as our travel agent for all of our (and our 63 guests’) needs. Our primary contact was Cheryl Wilson. She was amazing! She was very attentive and flexible with all of our travel requests.

Wedding Pre-trip:

Cecilia Reyes is the wedding coordinator at the resort. I think she prioritizes requests and correspondence in order of wedding dates. Once we were 60 days out, she and I communicated almost every day. She is amazing and a true professional. She and her staff manage two weddings per day – one on the beach and one at the wedding gazebo.

We created our save-the-date using Microsoft Publisher and a stock photo of the resort.

We utilized Papitre in Charlotte, North Carolina, for all of our wedding invitation and wedding program needs. The design came from Envelopements. They were amazing!

We printed the reception menu and the escort/place cards ourselves. Paper from Paper Source in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Welcome Kits and treat bags:

We utilized minimus.biz, amazon.com, and orientaltrading.com, for all contents. We got the clear plastic bags at Michael’s and I used our wedding logo on a round sticker to close them.

Welcome kits contained: granola bars, fruit snacks, advil, pepto bismol, individual blistex, alcohol prep pads and personalized koozie.

Treat bags contained assorted candy from wonka mix-ups, charms candy carnival, and tux and gown wedding buttermints. The guests loved it!

Communication with guests:

We secured their dinner selections ahead of time and Cecilia Reyes, wedding coordinator at the resort, allowed us to personalize the main entrée at the wedding reception.

We also created a wedding newsletter with information we thought would be valuable to our guests.

Before you leave: flight info to travel agent to secure included ground transportation, food selections, TSA link, weather reminders, and passport reminder. 

When you land: link to the Cancun International Airport and clearing customs.

While at the resort: dress code reminders, schedule of events, and spa information.

Arrival at Cancun Airport:

During the inbound flight, you will receive and need to fill out a customs form (Hacienda). After passing through immigration, you collect your bags and proceed to the exit.

You will hand the form to the customs agent and press the button on what looks like a traffic light. A green light means "go" and red means "inspection" in which case, officials perform a quick inspection.

Unless you are interested in the tours for free stuff option, you should proceed directly to the transportation area and look for your assigned travel agency representative.

Depending on your arrangements you may have to stop at other resorts to drop-off or pick-up.

A non-stop trip takes approximately 30 minutes.

Once you are at the resort, prepare for a little taste of heaven.

You will be greeted by someone who will welcome you home and take your baggage. Then you will proceed to check-in, where they will offer you champagne and a cool towel. The staff is awesome, better than the Ritz Carlton!

Rooms – depending on your personal preference; I would suggest a swim-out or an ocean view in the main building or building 16, 17, 26, or 27.

If you up for it, spring for the Preferred Club Honeymoon suite – 2^nd or 3^rd floor of building 27. It’s worth every single cent.

Each building has its own concierge, Sebastian took care of building 27. Our every need was taken care of without any hesitation.

The food – lots of variety, room service is available 24 hours a day, outdoor grill, waiters will bring you anything you want all the way down to the beach.

The drinks – same as above J

Wedding Specific

My stuff:

Make-up: Melissa V. Parry, Hair and Make-up artist, mvpbronzegoddess@gmail.com; in Cancun

Dress: Sarah Danielle Destination; style 5563, natural and no shawl

http://www.sinceritybridal.com/us_en/sarah-danielle-destinations/5563.html

Shoes: MaxStudio – Soraia Sandal, off White satin, I had them dyed to match the girls dresses http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/3081233?cm_cat=datafeed&cm_pla=shoes:women:sandals%2fslides&cm_ite=maxstudio_%27soraia%27_sandal:288786&cm_ven=msn_cashback&mr:referralID=b0bf8fba-f000-11df-ad8e-001b2166c62d

Sash and flowers:

FascinatingCreations, etsy.com, long sash and multiple life-like flowers with crystals

Garter:

Gartergallery, etsy.com, yellow jackets garter (2)

Bridesmaid dresses:

Dessy - convertible dress in American Beauty

http://www.dessy.com/dresses/twist-short/

The wedding ceremony and reception décor:

We utilized Gabi at Planner 1 events. One word – AWESOME! She delivered on every request! Her info is below:

Gabi Lavor, Director General, glavor@planner1events.com

www.planner1events.com

Food was delicious.

Music – we downloaded the acoustic version of traditional wedding music for our ceremony, a mariachi band for the cocktail hour, and DJ Mannia for the reception. We sent them a playlist and a representative came to the resort to meet with us three days prior to the wedding.

We extended the reception an extra hour, genius idea from the hubby J

Photographer:

J Pruett Photography – Jim and Danita Pruett took our engagement photos and captured every moment of our wedding ceremony and reception magnificently. Their pictures are worth 1,001 words J

http://jpruettphotography.com/blog/?p=65

Videographer:

We utilized the resort videographer – we posted the video on our wedding website.

www.alanaandtito.com 

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me directly. Cheers, Alana

Pre-Trip Planning:

We booked our trip through honeymoonsinc.com with Melanie Viola as our travel agent. She was great and they are very knowledgeable of all the resorts on the Mayan Riviera and were helpful in our decision making process.

Wedding Planning with Cecilia, the wedding coordinator at SMB, prior to the trip was a bit frustrating. She is very sweet but I really had to dig for information. Reading other reviews was very helpful! She is extremely busy and a lot of times would take a week or more to get back to me on an email, and would have answered a very detailed question with one sentence that didn’t make much sense. So… figuring out plans became more time consuming than expected. One of the most important things I realized was that if something about the wedding package doesn’t work for you, like flowers or food for example, you can come up with your own idea and she will work with you.  She really is very good and willing to please but is a little vague on information, which made communication difficult at times. Often times I would read reviews or see pictures from an SMB wedding and see something that was offered that she didn’t tell me about. Reading reviews was one of the best things I did in planning because it showed me that there were more options, I just had to search for them. Sometimes if I had a lot of questions I would email her and ask her to call me. We talked on the phone several times.

Getting to Mexico:

Getting there was so easy! The planes we took did not have anywhere to hang my dress so I just had to lay it in the overhead compartments and hope no one put there luggage on top of it, which did actually happen, but we were on the way back. We had to wait in line for about an hour to get through customs, but actually going through was a breeze. This was surprising because we had packed a lot of decorations for centerpieces. We also had 2 giant fish bowls for centerpieces as our carryon items along with my wedding dress. No one said a thing about any of it. I was told by a friend to bring any receipts for décor items or gift bags with me, so I had those just in case. Once we got through customs it was just a matter of getting outside to the area where the travel vans pick you up. Once you get out there, there is a beverage stand, Margaritaville I believe, that sells the priciest but best piña coladas I have ever had! I’m telling you it was well worth the price! They don’t skimp on the alcohol either! We used American Express Travel throughout our entire trip and were very happy with them. They were so professional and nice. It didn’t take very long to get to the resort… about 30 minutes and we had to drop off one other couple at a resort in Cancun before we got there. Once we arrived it was breathtakingly beautiful and the staff was so welcoming! I knew we had picked the right place from the moment we got there.

The Resort:

SMB was everything I had hoped and more! The staff literally treat you like royalty the entire time. The grounds are beautiful and they keep them immaculate. They even have people out at 5 in the morning to rake all the seaweed off the beach and burry it in the sand. The beach is pristine… we couldn’t even find a shell the entire two weeks we were there, just powdery white sand. The rooms are very nice! We got an ocean view room, which was well worth it because our view was amazing. We also got the preferred club, which offers some additional benefits and use of the preferred club where they have computers, their own bar with hors de hourves offered all the time and espresso.  This was a nice perk.  These rooms are also closer to the beach, which was great. The food at SMB was impressive; much better than I expected for an all inclusive. The only restaurant I would not recommend was Oceana… really was not good. Everywhere else we loved. Especially breakfast at the world café… AMAZING! The room service food was also surprisingly delicious. We ordered steak, enchiladas, oatmeal, and burgers from room service and all of it was good. The coffee they give you for the room is delicious as well. The resort is soooo beautiful at night because all of the pools are lit with blue lights. It’s really romantic. It is nice that they have the dance club as well. We had a lot of fun there a couple of nights and some of our guests really enjoyed it. Overall, our guests were so impressed with the place and all thought it was well worth the money for the trip. Many of them said it was the nicest place they had ever been.

Wedding:

Once we arrived at the resort we met with Cecilia almost immediately. It was very nice of her to meet with us right away because we had an appointment to meet her two hours before and our flight was delayed. She was very knowledgeable of the plans we had made prior to arrival. We planned most the details prior to arriving at SMB so we only had to decide on a couple of small details. She showed us around the property to decide on a plan in case of rain. She told me that we didn’t need a rehearsal but it made me feel more comfortable to have one so we did the day prior to the wedding. I didn’t want the rehearsal to be a big deal or pay extra money for a rehearsal dinner so we used the theme night dinner as the rehearsal dinner, and invited all of our guests. This turned out to be the best idea! The theme night was the “lounge night.” It was free to make reservations for us all to sit together, the food was wonderful, there was a live saxophonist the entire dinner and a fire show afterwards. This was a great option for us without costing any extra money.

We had our ceremony at the gazebo and the reception literally right beside it at the gazebo terrace. This was nice because the gazebo was used as our dance floor. I loved that it was all outdoors as well. I was worried that the weather would be too hot since it was July, but it was absolutely perfect! A nice 75 degrees and breezy in the evenings! We went with the Secrets Ultimate Package but I definitely tweeked some things. I hired my own photographer and used the money from the photography that came with the package for other things. We wanted a heavy hors de hourves reception and not a sit down dinner so after some negotiating, the chef came up with a nice menu for us that was substituted for the plated dinners that came with the package. We brought our own stereo system and speakers (small, but loud), because the cost to rent them was outrageous. We used our ipod for music. The things I added to the package were

-upgraded bouquet

-chair bows

-extra bridesmaid bouquets and boutenniers

-rose petals for the isle

-bubble machine for the recessional and reception

-gazebo décor

The money from the photo package covered most of it. The gazebo décor was definitely the largest expense, but I cut corners in other places because I thought it needed some color. I’m glad I did because it turned out beautiful and made the pictures look so good! Feel free to take a look at the ones I attached. I used all roses and planned on the gazebo roses being the same color scheme as the isle rose petals with lots of coral, pink and red and noticed that the gazebo and isle definitely didn’t match, as I was walking down the isle, since I didn’t see things before hand. Also planned on the chair bows being light yellow, which was the color she showed me, and they were definitely bright orangey yellow, but when I go back and look at pics, it all blends together nicely. The ceremony went off pretty perfect and Cecelia did a wonderful job with everything.

The reception started at 7:30, 30 minutes after the wedding so my husband and I could do some pics together. The Mariachi band started playing right about 7:30 and they were a great way to start the reception! The morning of the wedding Cecelia came to the room with a cart to take all of centerpiece decorations down. I showed her how to put them together and she did it exactly how I showed her.  The reception area was beautiful right beside the pool, because of the blue lighting at night. It was very windy though, and I wore my hair down so it definitely looked wind blown by the end of the night. What I ate of the food was great and all of our guests enjoyed it. They set up the bar very close to the reception area so it was convenient and our guests really liked that as well. Cecilia stayed for almost our entire reception to make sure we had everything we needed. She was really awesome! We were supposed to be finished around 10:00 but everyone was having so much fun dancing, they let the reception go till around 11:00 or 11:30 when they finally kicked us out. After the reception, we went to Desires lounge with some of our wedding party. It’s a little cheesy but fun. We enjoyed having a place to continue dancing end the evening.

Overall, I am ecstatic that I chose SMB for our wedding and honeymoon! It was a true paradise and I could not have imagined anything better! We stayed 2 weeks and had such a wonderful, relaxing time and were treated like royalty the entire time. Not to mention the beach is incredible and on the 2^nd largest reef in the world.  

For photography we used La Luna photographers and could not be happier with the professionalism, service, quality, and price! The pictures are amazing! Check out the link to our slideshow:  http://lalunaphotographers.com/blog/gallery/melissa/weddings/cari-elliott/. I would definitely recommend them and the resort to anyone! This is an extra long review and I still feel like I left some things out but hope it helps!

My husband and I stayed at the Secrets Maroma after our wedding in Cancun which was amazing and then came the huge letdown of our honeymoon. To begin with the road to get to the resort is an absolute nightmare to reach the resort, it was one of the bumpiest drives I have ever taken. We booked the ocean view honeymoon room and upon check in we were told it was not available and we could check back tomorrow and maybe one will open up. They said we could not get a refund for the night even though we paid for the more expensive room. We didn't want this to get us down so we went to the room and tried to enjoy ourselves and not let this ruin our honeymoon. The next day we went back down to the front desk and they said they still did not have our room and would not have it till the end of week. This didn't do us any good since we would be long gone by then. They did not seem to even care and still refused to refund us for the $1000.00 difference in the room categories for the week that we were there. We paid for the expensive room and ended up still paying for the expensive room but got the standard room with absolutely no view. The Restaurants there had a two hour wait every night and the nice ones required reservations that were all booked out for the week, so we spent the whole honeymoon eating out of their room service menu and buffet. I would have rather eaten McDonald's that the food that was served to us there :( Our second day we discovered there was a huge ant infestation in our box that is outside our room. There were ants and bugs everywhere so we called the front desk and they said someone would come up and take care of it. They came the next day :( So we spent a hole day trying to kill all the bugs that were in our room. There were never any chairs at the beach or the pool, so everyday we tried to get up early and see if we would have any luck and everyday we failed. The entire staff just treats you like a number and has no concern for you. I think because they have so many honeymooners and anniversaries there they show no special treatment or concern for you. I can't tell you how truly disappointed we were, We will never go back to this resort and caution future honeymooners who are considering it. We lost a lot of money and our experience of having a dream honeymoon like the website promotes. 

This is our $500 night ocean view honeymoon suite..... NOT

Our Wedding Weekend was AMAZING - with a few minor hiccups but I can explain those in more detail below.

Arrival to the Hotel:

Seemless - a golf cart took us (my husband and my parents) to the Preferred Club private check-in and were greeted with cool towels, champagne and snacks. Thank goodness b/c we were starving from traveling! We booked a group through our TA of 36 rooms for our 61 guests and through our negotiations, we ended up getting our room and parents upgraded to Preferred Club (we had Ocean View). 

Carlos our Concierge met us after we were all squared away and took us up to our room in building 26. My parents were in building 17 I believe, just across the property. 

I had shipped 5 boxes to the hotel prior to arrival (about a month before) containing our welcome bags and some other things I knew I didn't need to carry with me and I had emailed Cecilia the night before to ask her to have the boxes brought to my room when I arrived. Sure enough, the boxes were there waiting for me :) My communication with Cecilia was great over the course of the 9 month planning process and this was a pure example of how she is a woman of her word.

We made the welcome bags that night and had the hotel pick them boxes up from our room the next day to gradually have the welcome bags delivered to everyone's room - this made me a little crazy...see more below.

Thursday 11am - Finalize wedding with Cecilia

We met Cecilia to discuss the final details for the wedding and since we had met 2 times prior and had great communication, we really didn't have a lot to discuss. We had been going back and forth with the reception location and decided to have it behind the Gazebo Terrace area. Cocktail Hour was on the lawn behind the Terrace and Reception right behind that. My father met with the Food and Beverage Manager of the hotel, Daniel, and we talked a lot more about food options for our guests and ironed out some questions with him. We had our welcome bonfire Friday night which we had to finalize the amount of furniture needed and such and we had also decided that even though we brought our own Ipod, we need the sound system to be set up so everyone could hear the music and we also had some speeches so the microphone came in handy. All of these details were finalized on Thursday morning.

Hair trail at the Spa Thursday 5pm:

I had my hair done back in NYC by my girl and she took lots of pics and directions on how to do my hair but I ended up just showing the picture of where the inspiration came from to Blanca (who was amazing) and she actually did it better than my girl in NYC! I was glad I did the trial with her b/c we played a little with the front of my hair - either parted or all back - and then after wards she helped to change the look to something I could wear to dinner :) I felt great after I left the spa that night knowing exactly what my hair was going to look like for the day of. My mom also did the same thing and was so happy she did too.

Thursday evening:

We didn't plan anything formal for our guests since only about 32 were arriving at different times and we figured many of them would want to have dinner and relax and get to know the amazing resort. We did however just tell everyone who was there before dinner that we would have a little happy hour meet up in the lobby bar before dinner to say hello and have a drink.

Some people had told me that they hadn't received welcome bags and this alarmed me - looking back I should have let it go - b/c the hotel wanted to make sure everyone stayed in their assigned rooms in order to deliver the bags but for some reason it drove me nuts that people didn't get them since we paid to have them delivered.

Friday:

Beach Bonfire

We planned this for after dinner so our guests could go to dinner where ever and with whoever they wanted. For the bridal party, we planned to go to the Caribbean night fire show by the pool and met for drinks in the lobby first. It worked out nicely - Cecilia had the hotel save us tables for the 22 people we had included. The only thing I was disappointed with was that the tables were next to each other not together but it worked out.

At 9pm we all headed down to the beach where the lounge furniture, cocktail tables, tiki torches, bar and desserts were set up. The sound system was hooked up to our i-pod (husband made a bonfire playlist) and there was a microphone as well for speeches. The bonfire was set up a little far from where the tables and desserts were but there were beach lounge chairs set up around it in case anyone wanted to sit down there. 

Saturday - wedding day!!

My husband was taken care of with his own room for Friday night (this is included in the package based on availability). I made sure with Cecilia that this was going to happen and had our TA confirm with the hotel as well. I planned to have breakfast with my parents and grandfather at 830am so I wouldn't run into husband at World Cafe and then had some time alone in my room to shower and get my things together to bring to the Bridal Suite in the Spa. My dress was picked up from my parents room on Friday as well as my husband suit to be pressed and ready to go.

Getting Ready:

At 11am I headed to the spa for my day to begin. The relaxation room was nice to unwind in before my mani/pedi started. My bridesmaids and mother all started to get their hair done around 1130 so everyone was around Spa and was very accommodating. Cecilia brought my i-pod docking station down to the bridal suite for me so I could listen to my own playlist while we got ready. Next was my hair and make-up with Blanca and she did it even better than she had done on Thursday. The only thing I was nervous about was my make-up. I went to NARS in NYC beforehand and bought EVERYTHING down to the brushes and directed Blanca on how it should look. 

I didn't look in the mirror as she did it, I just told her and showed her the palette that the make up artist in NY did for me and she did her best to follow it. When I looked in the mirror, I was impressed to say the least. It was exactly has it had been done before but it was very close. It was a little heavy and not blended on my eyes but I like to think I know how to do my own make up so I made some minor adjustments and was done.

The one minor thing that could have been better was my MOH requested we have some snacks - fruit, cheese, champagne, etc in the bridal suite and it took hours to come. We finally got something to eat around 130pm after repeatedly asking Cecilia but I understand that she was busy but my MOH is an event planner and she wasn't happy which I didn't want to think about at all.

Photographer: Samuel Luna - 2pm start time

I had Sam start with the groom and groomsmen in his room so it bought us a little time in the bridal suite. He came around 230pm and I had already put my dress on but we did some shots of my mom and MOH zipping me up and putting my shoes and jewelry on. He took some solo shots of me around the spa in some great areas and then it was time for "first look" pics which we did in the middle of two buildings under a palapa. After first look, we went over to the lobby, took family pics, some bridal party pics and then headed to the beach for the balance of the pics. I really wasn't as hot as I thought I was going to be - the wind kept me cool and it wasn't that humid at all so we really lucked out with the weather.

Pre-Ceremony - Kettubah signing 5pm

We did this in our room - with our Rabbi, immediate family and photographer. 

After this was complete, we had arranged golf carts with Cecilia take us near the ceremony site at the Gazebo.

I didn't know what to expect for the ceremony since I completely forgot to ask my bridesmaids to make sure everything was being set up like we had talked about - I think b/c I was so confident in Cecilia I really didn't care anymore. She knew what I wanted and I trusted her to make it happen.

We had luminaries lining the aisle and up the steps to the gazebo since our ceremony took place at sunset. I used Gold Tiffany chairs (which we used at the reception as well) and had the harpist playing.

I walked down the aisle to "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles and I told the harpist to play whatever he wanted for the rest of the bridal party - we really were very flexible for this.

Cocktail Hour

Cecilia copied the pic I had given her of the center peices exactly - orchids in water with floating candles and marbles and votives all around it. The Caribbean Trio played music and entertained everyone and the food was great. The entire wedding we had the Platinum menu BTW.

Reception

The centerpeices all looked great - the placecards were places on a table with my bouquet and some of the bridesmaid bouquets with votives lining the table - it looked so romantic.

We had a little hiccup with DJ Mannia - when I had spoken to Erica (one of the owners) in our initial meeting we had explained the ceremony was Jewish and we were going to do all of the traditional things - Horrah, etc .....just as we were going to get introduced the MC tells us that they do not have the Horrah and were not aware we needed it. I was very upset and my husband was even more mad. This was unacceptable and to add to it, the person who was MC'ing acted like he had never done a wedding before. He asked me how I wanted the order of the reception to go and I honestly had no idea. I just wanted everyone to have a good time. 

Our Rabbi ended up saving the day and downloaded the Horrah from You tube on her i-phone and we hooked it up to their system. From there, the DJ really didn't feel the crowd and to get them to play songs for people to dance to was very hard. My brother in law had to step in and help which was almost embarrassing. 

Once they started to play dance music, everyone was up and going but it was very frustrating. This was the only thing I wish would have gone better. 

Dinner - Platinum Menu

I heard dinner was really good - we didn't get a chance to eat it though b/c we were so busy talking to everyone. We had chicken skewers for an appetizer when people sat down, then there was a Mozzarella Caprese salad, Lobster Bisque Soup (everyone loved it), and the entree was Surf and Turf (Shrimp and Filet) or Chicken option. They also served a chocolate coconut bread pudding in addition to the wedding cake.

Cake - was delicious! We had Vanilla and it was sooo good.

After the reception, we all headed to Desires to continue the party. 

All in all, it was a very successful wedding weekend with the exception of some issues but everyone had an amazing time, the food was incredible, the weather was beautiful and everyone was happy - that's what matters.

here are some pics

I chose to have my wedding at Secrets Maroma Beach and I will admit I was very nervous with the decision.  I was unsure at how the service would be, and I was scared after hearing from other brides who used other resorts for their wedding, that the resort would try and charge us for whatever they could.  This was not the case at all!  The resort's coordinator, Cecilia did an amazing job at organzing the wedding.  She made everything look better than I imagined.  The servers at the cocktail party and at the reception were superb!  The resort's staff made our stay amazing as well.  If you have any questions please feel free to contact me and I will answer all of your questions!

overall, we could not have picked a better place to have our wedding and honeymoon! 

I was only here from 9am - 5:30pm on a day pass. But I can tell you that I really enjoyed my day! The food was amazing, the spa was even better! Wow!  I ate, drank, ate some more, drank some more and when i thought I was done they kept bringing food around to me at the pool. I LOVED the spa at this resort. The grounds are well manicured, the brunch and mimosas wonderful and it's not too large of a place if you like this sort of all inclusive resort. I don't like that it's not in/near a village. It was perfect for me for one day, but I also can't sit still for much longer. 

Overall - Highly Recommend this resort - loved everything out it.  Our guests had the time of their lives and we want nothing more then to go back ASAP :)

Arrival:

We traveled with a group of 45 people from mostly the Northeast and it was great to escape the cold.  Once we arrived on site you were greeted with champagne & a nice hot towel.

Because we were getting married there we were taken to Preferred Club ( private bar/check-in/computer access) very nice!

Once we checked in we were taken to our room which overlooked the ocean and this room was AMAZINGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!! We had champagne waiting for us and could relax in the jacuzzi in the room or on the balcony. You can also take advantage of a fantastic room service menu & they will deliver food/drinks to your room and if you're feeling extra lazy you can have them delver everything to you in the "secret door" which is a small space that room service can access to leave food which you can open at your leisure.

Week:

We had guests arriving each day leading up to Sat ( day of the wedding) and there was plenty for everyone to do ( which was great considering we had people of different ages, singles and couples, etc).  There are plenty of chairs at the pools or beach so you never had to worry about getting outside first thing in the morning.  We mostly hung out at the pool bar ( which is incredible esp because that pool is constantly heated) and you can get whatever your heart desires.  Also - throughout the day the staff will walk around with apps ( in the event you don't want to go to any of the great restaurants).  They will bring sushi, spring rolls, chicken fingers, etc and everyone raved about this.  The staff is always available for drink service and you don't ever have to go looking for them.

Restaurants:

All amazing.. we went to the Japanese steakhouse for Hibachi one night with 14 people which was fun but overall we weren't too impressed with the chefs there ( esp because we go to these places a lot back home and have had fantastic service here).  The french restaurant has an amazing veal chop, everything at the Italian spot is great and the breakfast Buffet is out of this world ( they make everything to order, freshly squeezed juices, A++ on this)

Bars:

Always staffed - great service.

Sports Bar - Filipe worked here after 4 each night and was our BFF the whole trip he was great to all of us and made us laugh ( as well as made whatever drink/shot you wanted) the whole week.

Wedding Planning:

This was very concerning because we had chosen this resort 1 year prior to the wedding date and had a very hard time getting rates from the parent company, we almost switched hotels due to it but thankfully we did not.  Cecilia's communication was very difficult for me as I strive to be organized and I would email her and not hear back or I would make changes and they would not be reflected.  Overall, I think its the culture there to do things somewhat slower so please don't be afraid if you are not hearing from her - I would just suggest to keep all of your plans in a spreadsheet or word doc so as it gets closer you can send her 1 last overview so she has everything.

We did meet with Cecilia the Wed before the wedding.  She was very sweet and easy to deal with however she did not update any of our changes throughout the last month so it was almost like starting over.  I put together an overview in a small binder of everything for her because I was fearful she wasn't paying attention throughout the planning. 

OOT Bags:

I put together out of town bags for our guests ( I was told we would have to pay to have these delivered but I did not see a charge for this) but for some reason not all were delivered to our guests and some on certain days.  I would suggest either giving them out yourself if the group is small or maybe at a welcome party because I have read others say the same.

On the day of I did have to call her because she wasn't very proactive but as the ceremony approached she helped us coordinate.  They also DO NOT do rehearsals which was somewhat frustrating as I would have liked for everyone to have known what they were doing but everything went perfectly.  She also does not stay after the reception has started.

Beach Bonfire:

Because we did not have a rehearsal we wanted to do something for the whole group before the wedding so we had a Beach Bonfire.  If you can have this I would highly recommend it.  We went with the Caribbean menu ( it was a buffet) which was on the beach along with tables/chairs and we rented a sound system and made a play list before we left of "summer fun" type music.  We had a private bar on the beach and chairs around the bonfire.  We had such a great time here everyone really enjoyed it.

They also gave my husband a room this night so we didn't stay together the night before ( had to ask Cecilia when we arrived for this)

Wedding Day:

We started off in the spa to get nails done ( I had not been to the spa before the wedding day and my friends raved about it) however my experience was not great.  I had booked a mani/pedi and when we went to check in I asked if I could have a french polish in which they told me they did not have time to do that type of polish and that I was out of luck.  My friends tried to change their appts to accommodate this ( they then told us it was too late and they were too booked up).  The reception was extremely rude and the woman who did my nails was less then thrilled.  After a number of requests we were able to get me a french mani ( no pedi) and it costs $10 more just to have that polish.

After that we went and got ready at my sisters suits ( room 2731 - if you can get this room OMG it was amazing, it was a larger room with small kitchen, huge balcony and 100% overlooked the beach).  We had our hair and makeup done by The Makeup Pros ( I will write a review on them below - AWESOME Job) and started to get ready. 

Each Villa has its own private concierge and my sisters sent up multiple bottles of champagne and food for us as we got ready

After hair/makeup our photographer ( Samuel Luna) came and started taking pics in the room and we moved our way through the resort to take bridal party pics.  After that we had 30 min before the ceremony he went to take pics of the groomsmen.

Ceremony:

We had our ceremony at the Gazebo and they did a wonderful job ( we used the florist that the resort recommended however I sent him pics of the bridal/bridal party pics that I preferred which cost a little bit extra but well worth it).

We had a violinist - incredible job.

Officiant - she was fantastic and everyone loved the job she did.

Cocktail Hr:

Our ceremony ended at 4:40 and we didn't start the cocktail hr until 530 because we wanted time to take pics with our wedding party and not keep everyone away from the cocktail hr.

We held our cocktail hr on the beach with a Caribbean trio ( so much fun) and this lasted an hr.  We did not have a bar on the beach this time but we did have cocktail tables and chairs.  There is also an area that is flat that people could stand on if they so chose)

Reception:

Originally we chose to have it at the ocean terrace but it conflicted with a resort event so at the last minute it was changed to be next to the Gazebo and it really came out very nice.  The floral arrangements I had not seen and liked ( didn't love) but at that point everyone had a few cocktails and was just enjoying themselves.  We worked with the DJ that the resort recommended and everyone loved him ( he couldn't pr ounce our new name and needed direction in terms of when to introduce people and have speeches) we also made a play list on our Ipod of songs we didn't think he would have that we wanted played ( I sent him a long list before we flew to Mexico of songs we def wanted) but overall he was fun.

We ordered Maracas from Mishka Designs with shake me at the kiss tags to leave on all the tables ( which Cecilia did for us) and I also had place cards and table cards that I left for her at our original meeting ( I requested the place cards be alphabetical which she did not do so one of my sisters fixed that before the guests came down)

Wedding Food:

INCREDIBLE!!! Originally because of the size of the group we were told we would have a buffet but turns out it was served.  We had the surf & turf and it was out of this world!

Post Wedding:

Most of the party changed and we went to our usual sports bar spot and from there went to Desire's ( we visited desires almost every night).  It was very very fun

MISC:

Flowers - had to stay on top of this to ensure they were putting together what I liked ( I constantly sent pics of what I liked and asked they send me pics of what they would be so I could change if necessary)

Music:

Sound System - well worth it we had a huge dance party on the beach at the bonfire

Violinist/Caribbean Trio - Really made the wedding they were fantastic

DJ - made us laugh and played the songs we requested

Makeup artist:

I had read a lot of reviews about the spa and decided to hire an outside resource ( Fernando is the cutest, I loved him and he had as much makeup as a MAC store).  I did have to pay an outside vendor fee for him ( but he brought 3 people which I wasn't aware of and we were not charged for that).

Photographer:

Same thing- I had read very mixed reviews about the hotel photographer and had seen some of Samuel's work and really liked it.  I am waiting to see my professional pics so I'm unsure how to review this but when he was with us he was great to deal with.

SPA:

Nail Debacle - not very happy about but overall the spa is gorgeous and my husband and I had a couples massage on Sunday and it was the best thing ever!!!! We had a few other couples with us that did the same and they all loved it!

Overall:

I would go back again for a vacation and we really hope that someone we know has a wedding there!

See some pics below:

I gave SMB 5 stars for wedding value and wedding sites even though we didnt' get married there, b/c I didn't want my review to give them any negative points!

this resort is INCREDIBLE!!!  we got married at dreams cancun (sister resort) and spent 7 amazing days at secrets.  the staff is the best we've come across.  our room was beautiful (we booked a junior ocean view in the perfered section, definately worth the extra cost!!).  the grounds are amazing.  kevin, the pool concierge was really sweet and always asked how our stay was going and if there was anything he could do for us.  the beach is perfect...we felt like we were in a post card!!  there are these pretty fish in the water that swim all around you and you can even feed them, lol!  we used the kayak a couple of times and that was great!

the food is the best we've had at any AI, even world cafe (buffet) was delicious every time we went!

cant say enough about this resort!  we will DEFINATELY be going back!!!

I was recently at this resort and have seen many brides on the forum ask about this location.  It is one of my favorite locations to shoot photography.  The scenery is beautiful and the resort itself is definitely 5 star.   Their service is outstanding.  The only hesitation for some may be that it is adult only however for others that is a plus so it would depend on your needs.   For anyone doing a TTD it is also a great location.  It has an abandoned mansion close by that is amazing for this type of photo shoot.  Secrets is a dream location.