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Formal Wedding Here??… Never Again...
This is a review of:

Beach Palace All Inclusive Resort

Detailed Ratings
Accommodation Value:
4.0
Communication:
1.0
General Location:
4.0
Wedding Sites:
2.0
Wedding Value:
1.0
lisajgarcia3

By lisajgarcia3, · 1,451 Views · 3 Comments

PROS:

-           Treated our guests like royalty

-           Resolved every issue we had relatively quickly

-           Amazing food

-           Comfy beds

-           Lots of great entertainment around the campus

-           Gave us lots of benefits for having more than 75 nights booked for our wedding party including:

   o       An extra $700+ credit on our room bill for exceeding 75 nights

   o       A free welcome reception on the beach

   o       A free cocktail hour during our wedding

   o       2 free hours of service at our reception

   o       A free upgrade for our room (we booked Concierge and the Presidential Suite was available so they gave us the suite)

-           Gave one of our guests the wedding booking rate (~$300/night) instead of the walk-in rate (~$500/night) even though the guest brought someone that wasn’t pre-booked

-           The service staff (waiters, check-in desk (except for the guy with the gold tooth who was pretty rude to most of our guests), cooks (I became facebook friends with some of them because they were so nice!!), bartenders, ALL of the managers, the PR Relations Coordinator, Patricio (who resolved our transportation issue for us quickly and eloquently)… EVERYONE (again except for the guy at the front desk with the gold tooth) were ……. Absolutely……… AMAZING!!!!! Never been treated so kindly and warmly in our lives and if we come back it will be to check on all of our Beach Palace family…. WE LOVE THEM!!!

-           Lots of options for kids entertainment including games everyday at the pool, a water slide, a kids room

-           Convenient location including walking distance to bars, malls and nightclubs

-           Bus stop in front of the hotel that goes everywhere!!

 

CONS:

-           Welcome bags were a nightmare. We paid $3.50 for guests to walk into room and have our personalized welcome bag sitting in room waiting for them on their bed... we had to pay the fee regardless of the fact that guests were getting the bags in the elevator, front desk, you name it... or in some cases, not at all...

-           The signs promised (signature drink sign on bar, etc.) were either VERY tacky (I’m talking an easel holding a bulletin board with leftover scotch tape and staples all over it) or weren’t there at all

  o        We had a signature drink at the welcome reception and they didn’t have a sign with the name of our drink and I had to tell the waiters what the name of the signature drink was

  o        Also at the welcome reception they had a used bulletin board (as mentioned) with two 8.5 X 11 random papers with our wedding logo. I had to go up to the room and get some tape and extra wedding paper I brought to fix the sign so I wouldn’t be embarrassed. Me and my bridesmaid fixed the sign while the guests were walking in... wasn’t too happy about that.

  o        No sign displayed at the pre-ceremony mixer stating our signature drink for the wedding. Also no sign at the entrance, as promised, with our wedding logo stating “welcome” to the pre-wedding mixer in the Sports Lounge.

If I would’ve known Beach Palace was going to fail at signage, would’ve brought my OWN SIGNS!!!

-           We had to check our bill a few times before they got it correct throughout the wedding process

  o        Also a side note: We had a credit of $440 at the end of the event. You have to use credits on your bill within the hotel during the same time period as your stay. It's not "policy" to give you cash back if you overpay for anything.

-           The transportation company was HORRRRRRRRRIBLE!!!!! Our contract said “TraficTours” would provide free transportation for all of our guests as long as they booked through the link on our wedding website (which Beach Palace set up). The link was charging our guests for transportation so the guests had to email Nicte-Ha from TraficTours to get their free transportation. Some of the guests tried to book their transportation a few days before they got to Cancun and Nicte-Ha told them they didn’t have any transportation left and they had to book two weeks before the wedding (which none of us were EVER told). My fiancé and I showed up to the airport and saw a Beach Palace van figuring that van was our transportation. The Beach Palace van said we weren’t on the list but took us anyway and charged us $52 on our room bill to go to Beach Palace. Luckily when we got there Patricio for Public Relations refunded us the $52 and said we took the wrong van and that TraficTours was providing our transportation… confusing!! We also emailed Nicte-Ha a few times before we left Cancun to make sure we had transportation to the airport and she never responded. OUR FLORIST ended up driving us to the airport!!! WORST company EVER!!!!! Make sure Beach Palace gives you BEACH PALACE transportation. Their contractors are worthless.

-           Ceremony cons: Did a walkthrough on Monday for a back-up plan in case it rained Saturday. Backup plan included: Mixer before ceremony in the Sports Lounge, ceremony in the sales office, cocktail hour in the Sports Lounge, reception in the ballroom. Setup was to begin at 10 am if it was raining. Got a call at ONE PM asking me what they wanted us to do and that they “couldn’t do the ceremony in the sales office and cocktail hour in the sports lounge.” After blacking out, screaming at the planners, having a heart attack, etc. etc. they finally followed the plan and began setup at TWO PM…. When they were supposed to have started at 10 am. The ceremony flowers had already been rained on so everything was wet and my guests were looking at the flower company move everything from outside to inside the sales office since they started so late. My bridemaids had to go downstairs to the sales office and make sure they took the sales signs down so that my ceremony wouldn’t look tacky. The ceremony began and the sports lounge couldn’t turn off the music for 20 MINUTES. One of the Beach Palace employees for some reason was holding the door open to the Sports Lounge so Alanis Morrisette, "You Oughta Know" amongst other NON-WEDDING MUSIC was blaring into the ceremony while we were saying our vows and the priest was talking. Another employee was texting during the ceremony so all you could hear were the tones of his phone going off. Meanwhile my planner stood around and did nothing about any of this. I was mortified.

-           Cocktail Hour cons: That morning, the wedding coordinator told me the Sports Lounge was a public venue, they couldn’t place the tables and flowers we ALREADY BOUGHT from the floral company and they couldn’t close it off which I wasn’t told when we did our walkthrough that Monday. So I had to force them to have the tables and flowers we bought into the Lounge. We had a very FORMAL, BLACK TIE wedding so mixed in with our long formal gowns and tuxedos were guests with cargo shorts and flip flops. We ordered Mariachi for our cocktail hour so they were performing on the Sports Lounge stage and one of the guests (wearing very short, inappropriate shorts and a tank top) decided to dance in the middle of our guests wearing evening gowns and tuxedos to our formal Mariachi. Again... MORTIFIED.

-           Reception cons: We had the entryway hallway leading to the ballroom decorated with ceiling high drapery, a few acrylic rectangle tables, an ice sculpture and champagne glasses personalized with our guests’ names and table numbers so that the entry to our wedding would remain formal and elegant. The wedding coordinator failed to tell me there would be a wedding to the right of our decorated hallway (our wedding was on the left of the hallway, theirs was on the right) so as my fiancé and I walked into our FORMAL hallway, “Baby Got Back” was blaring in the ballroom to the right of us. The guests from the other wedding were also drinking the champagne glasses in the hallway so some of our guests’ glasses were missing and they didn’t know where to sit.

 

 

 

Would I have a high-end event at this venue again?…. No. Would I have a casual mixer that I didn’t pay a lot of money for at this venue?…Absolutely. Wonderful service, great food, terrible attention to detail.

BEACH PALACE EXCURSIONS

 

WET N WILD/DOLPHIN SWIM: So much fun!! We took a boat to Moon Palace to swim with dolphins and they photographed our whole experience. You can’t bring cameras so be prepared to pay $35 for one single shot or around $70 for a CD of all of the prints. Wet and Wild had about 4 or 5 water slides and was just like being a kid again. I recommend the combo of both since I think Wet and Wild wouldn’t have been as cool without the Dolphin Swim.

 

CHICHEN ITZA: If you love history, you’ll LOVE this tour. We are huge history buffs and had tour guide who fulfilled our brains with knowledge on the 3-hour ride there. Although it was a long ride, we were blessed to have had such a great storyteller as our tour guide. The ruins were surreal and you could feel the history from the paths we walked… so cool!!

 

COCOBONGO: We went through Beach Palace’s PVP Nightlife to book a VIP section at CocoBongo for our group of 15. We were given a terrible spot (under the stage at the front of the ground floor) so we couldn’t see the stage and we were surrounded by “regular-entrance price” people. It was a waste and we would’ve been better off tipping one of the guys on the street. Luckily two of the girls we were with got on the stage that they allow people to stand on and those two were able to see the show. Everyone else just drank to make up for the terrible spot we had so it ended up being fine… definitely won’t make that mistake again though. If you have a group, tip one of the guys on the street then tip one of the waiters walking around inside the club to TAKE YOU to a VIP area. Beach Palace/PVP Nightlife doesn’t have the connections to get you a good spot inside of CocoBongo.

 

BEACH PALACE SPA: Got the Vitamin C Facial and the Citrus Massage then did the steam room and the vapor bath…. Absolute heaven and probably one of the best parts of my trip… even though my planner almost ruined it with a final bill meeting directly afterwards.

3 Comments


Planner, Weddings Romantique/Suha Pressey gets a D- (especially since she forgot our rings at our ceremony!!!)… Other than that EVERY OTHER VENDOR WAS AMAAAZING and truly exceeded our expectations. We were truly blessed to have these vendors there for our weddings… these vendors truly made our dreams come true:

 

Florist: BLOSSOM DISENO FLORAL Y BODAS

Rental Company: GAMA

Photographer: KISMIS INK PHOTOGRAPHY

Lighting, Sound and DJ: JSAV CANCUN

Hair and Makeup: Styling Trio

Videographer: Cancun Wedding Video (Miguel/Mike Cantarell):

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Thank you for your review. Your wedding reception sounds awful :(. I'm so sorry you went through that. A big draw back is definitely the small size of the hotel - there aren't a lot of spaces to use! Why did they not let you go with your back up plan of the ballroom??

 

Hopefully you still had a good trip and can look back at the good memories instead of focusing on what went wrong.

 

Thank you for the tips about the signs. I'm definitely going to bring my own

 

Ours is planned for the the sky deck with back up in the ballroom. We are praying for no rain. We are in December though so weather should be okay

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We just got back from our wedding on July 18th, 2014. We stayed at the resort July 14th - July 22nd. After much research we decided to book our wedding at the Beach Palace Cancun, Mexico. Trip Advisor was the biggest reason we booked with them. We had about 25 rooms we book through Wendy Hicks at Vacation Express. We had about 51 guests with us for our wedding and all stayed at the Beach Palace. I will break my review down by pros and cons. We booked the Sky Deck at 6:00 P.M. ceremony and cocktail hour and reception immediately afterwards at 6:30 - 11:30 P.M. I have lots of pictures and other suggestions if anyone wants to see or hear more :)

 

Pros:

1. Maria Rebeca is an AMAZING wedding coordinator and I highly recommend requesting her for your wedding. She worked above and beyond to resolve issues that the management caused.

 

2. Waiters, Waitresses and Bartenders: let me list all the ones we loved: Kids pool usually had the amazing Yanet, pool bar had Yadira, Esteban, Jorge, Luis, Miguel. Our honeymoon dinner on 07.20.14 had Miguel as our waiter and romantic dinner on the beach on 07.21.14 had Nestor, Jorge and one other gentleman who made the experience beyond amazing (please ask Nestor for his name). Our wedding on 07.18.14 on the sky deck and bar had the most amazing, Bernabe, Nestor, Geovanny, Jorge, Miguel ( bartender) Jorge (Banquet Capitan on charge). They never let our drinks go empty and knew the drinks our guests loved. Front desk - Diane and Isis were always beyond helpful and smiling.

 

3. Styling Trio!!!!!! Highly recommend for wedding hair. They are expensive but a preferred vendor so no outside vendor fee. Worth EVERY penny! They come to your room and everything! I did the $575 for the trail hair and make-up which was also worth it.

 

4. Resort spa - hair Meriva (spelling)? Did a great job on my rehearsal dinner hair and makeup.

 

5. Food and drinks were fabulous

 

6. Tempo for Steel Drummers was perfect and worked with our specific song requests

 

7. JSAV - Benjamin did a wonderful job at our wedding as our DJ. More slow songs would have been nice, but I should have specifically requested that.

 

8. Pure package was beautiful but not sure I would pay $300 per table again. Center pieces could have been a little better because they were basic. Loved the table linens and chair linens.

 

9. Housekeeping for our room and room service was best I have ever seen! They took care of every need without hesitation. Only couldn't deliver the amazing cappuccinos they make downstairs.

 

10. Pool and beach are good, but recommend finding a way to save your spot because if you don't get a spot by 9 AM you won't have a spot.

 

11. The upgrade Presidential Suite that they gave us was BREATH TAKING! I loved having that suite that day of my wedding because the gals got to spend the day with me in my room and then after the ceremony before the reception the bridal party had a moment to get ourselves together before the introductions. LOVED IT!

 

12. Dreamart Videographer (Dana would know which name) had great ideas and thought outside of the box to get the video. I have not seen it yet, but he thought to interview some of our guests which was a GREAT idea. They also worked with us on our time which was great.

 

13. I didn’t want to pay $3.50 per welcome bag to be delivered so at the welcome cocktails Maria set out all the bags and we could hand it out to our guests. She did a nice display for it too :)

 

Cons:

 

1. We booked at the Beach Palace Resort in Cancun, Mexico. Since we booked through a travel agency our group was all paid in full months in advance soooo our guests should never ever be told the hotel is overbooked. One of our guests came to check in and unfortunately met, Carlos, at the front desk at the Beach Palace. He TOLD our guests they were booked and they HAD to go to another resort. I'm glad Le Blanc is the best and we should be happy they were sent to such a nice hotel, but they paid to be with us or our wedding not spend the night at another hotel. The other zinger was that the hotel was not booked that night, it was booked the following night. Carlos LIED to them and then when confronted by us and management he LIED again. After much questioned and a big scene the truth comes out that the hotel was not booked that night and even if it had been overbooked our group NEVER should have been bumped. The lies continued the next day when the president of the travel agency got involved and called the hotel, the Beach Palace LIED to them. The hotel told the travel agency that our guests saw the room and didn't like it and asked to be moved to another resort. Let's see...does that sound like something a groomsmen and his wife would say?!? No, because our guests NEVER said that. However, Wendy was able to e-mail us back even though it was towards the end of her business hours. Unfortunately, the tour operator was already closed and not able to get our guests back to our hotel that night. Unfortunately, our guests had already been moved so they missed our Welcome Cocktails and our Bachelor and Bachelorette Party for the evening. Our guests were moved back to Palace Resorts the next day, but the experience with Carlos at the front desk and Patrick from Public Relations was AWFUL and caused us to really really not enjoy our evening. Carlos even had the nerve to salute my fiancé as he was walking back into the hotel. When someone is upset a good customer service representative would not do things to provoke the groom. A groom who has many many guests and spent a lot of money on a wedding at their hotel. The next morning Norma found me and took time to speak with me and brought the general manager over, Luis, and requested that my fiancé and I meet with them so they could make things right. I got my fiancé and we met in Luis’ office. They apologized profusely for the actions of Carlos and Patrick. We appreciated the apology from Norma and Luis, but never received an apology from Patrick or Carlos. They upgraded our friends and took care of them for the rest of their stay which is all we wanted. We wanted them to make it right with our guests. WHEN BOOKING YOUR WEDDING GROUP PUT IN THE WEDDING CONTRACT THAT THEY CANNOT SEND ANY OF YOUR GUESTS TO ANOTHER HOTEL!!!

 

2. Resort credits are kind of a gimmick. We had $1500 in resort credits, but could only use $300 at the spa and when we asked to use DreamArt Photography $250 credit towards our videography we were told we could not. Even though the resort credit information did not state that weddings were a restriction. Gift shop you can only use on tequila, cigars, some towards silver and on the designer sunglasses what were marked up $75-$100 so it wasn’t worth getting it with them. We ended up getting tequila and cigars to give as gifts, but know you must pay a 16% service charge on anything you use the resort credit on so we ended up spending about $200 in services charges to use our resort credit. Cons: mind you, these are big enough that we will probably never stay at a Palace Resort again:

 

3. My sister was double charged our spa resort credit which made her exceed her credit and she had to go through hoops to get it removed from her account. I booked my mom’s hair appointment and they charged it to my room even though I told them it was for her so I had to go through hoops to get it off my account.

 

4. Pedicures don’t really last while you are at the beach or pool so I wouldn’t recommend getting it unless you need it for the wedding. That is normal though.

 

5. A lot of management cannot help you with issues. You have to wait for the exact person who booked an appointment or whatever to be able to correct any errors. It would be nice to have a manager on duty who could correct issues on the spot.

 

6. Upon arrival we have to look over our wedding options and contracts. We did not know we needed to bring our credit cards again. They already had copies of the credit cards and licenses and they wanted to copy them again. I do not feel comfortable giving my credit card over and over again. Also, we had already paid in full for everything prior to arriving. A friend wanted to add their hair to our Styling Trio contract. We said that was fine, but the hotel gave us a new contract for Styling Trio and wanted us to sign a new one for $800 something. We stated, they needed to show the credit paid already which was about $600 something and only show what was actually due which was $160. They could not do this so I refused to sign the new contract. When departing today, I was able to signs new contract for $160 and they were paid by the guest who used their services.

 

7. We had a contract with Ocean Photo for our videography services and the month of our wedding stating they were not considered an inside vendor anymore and we would have to switch to Dream Art Photo or pay the $700 outside vendor fee. We had already signed a contract and established a relationship with them so we were nervous to switch. Dana was helpful with sending us sample videos so we would comfortable with them. We will keep you posted as to how the video turns out.

 

8. We paid a lot towards additional lighting on the sky bar - the dance floor was not flush against the pool so one of our guests hit his foot on the corner of the dance floor and sliced his foot open. It took about 30 minutes to get his foot to stop bleeding and bandaged up.

 

9. Transportation wanted to pick up some of my guests 4 hours before their flight and they never showed up for my groom and I. They called a new van to pick us up and they said we were on the list, but no driver was ever assigned. We did make it to the airport on time.

 

 

I hope this review helped any guest or wedding guests for the future. My best piece of advice for anyone is to make sure EVERYTHING is in writing. I had a notebook with every e-mail correspondence between myself and the hotel and that helped greatly when reservations for appointments had been lost. Such as our romantic dinner and my mom’s appointment. They were able to fix and get those appointments and times honored.

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