Bridget

Hello. I just returned from Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico where I had my wedding at the Grand Velas. To anyone who is thinking about or debating booking this hotel for a wedding- I strongly urge you to reconsider. The Grand Velas is a beautiful hotel, the rooms are fabulous and the staff is excellent. However, for being a five-star hotel- the food is not great. I have stayed in the past at Dreams. Dreams has a better beach and better food (at least in my opinion). But let me get to the important stuff- the wedding! The wedding coordinators, or whatever they call themselves were terrible! I was bounced from one coordinator to the next and had difficulty understanding them. The Grand Velas has three different wedding packages. I decided to go with the second package because I had 22 guests attending the ceremony. The wedding coordinators nickel and dimmed me for everything! First of all, they completely lied to me and told me that I could not book reservations for dinner at one of their dinning establishments (this was completely untrue). So I decided to purchase a dinner menu for each guest- which cost me about $110 per plate. (Thus an extra $2,000) to the wedding package price. Next we decided that we would compile a list of songs to be played after the wedding. They charged me close to $500 to rent a stereo system. I also had to pay an additional fee for flowers on each dinning table (which was fine). At the last minute that decided that it was "mandatory" that I rent a tent for the wedding (which only had to cover three dining tables). They wanted to charge me $1,000 for the rental of this tent. I told them that this was totally unacceptable- and then all of a sudden I was allowed to have the dinners I paid for in the restaurant by the beach. The package that I purchased included a one hour open bar for the guests. They stated that it was mandatory that I provide liquor for three hours and wanted to charged me $25 per guest per hour for the remainder of the evening. This is an all-inclusive resort...I just didn't understand. I told them that that was not necessary- if my guest really wanted more drinks they could go to the bar. They stated that this was not an option and that if I didn't buy this package- they would not even provide water and soda for the guests. Finally we compromised and I had to purchase liquor for the remainder of the ceremony- for which they charged me a corkage fee for. Well- turns out- they DID NOT even set up the open bar and I wasted money purchasing the alcohol. Needless to say, the whole situation was a total disaster. They did not prepare us for the ceremony and we did not even know how to proceed- and then when he did tell us what should happen- it never did. To top it all off- my aunt and uncle were unable to come to Mexico because my Uncle was ill in the hospital- I let them know weeks in advance- and they said they would credit me for the dinners- they did not- and now I have to dispute the claims with the credit card company. But let me save the best for last. We returned to our hotel room after the ceremony to find that it was flooded- the drain under the sink produced mass amounts of water, bubbles and sewage (they believe from the tub above our room) and we actually had to request to be placed in another room!!! Wonderful memories- moving in the middle of the night. Ohh, and incidentally- they state that they will put you in the honeymoon suite for the night of your wedding- this is just a lie. Again, the hotel is beautiful, and we really hoped that everything would have turned out well, but it did not. Maybe others have had good experiences- but please- at least try to find other reviews before booking your wedding here.