Jennybell1
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Posts posted by Jennybell1
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Have a good time. Can you let me know how Sandos is? We were planning on having our wedding there - but now Im sitting on the fence.
Thanks!!!
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I wish I had your prices - in Calgary, Canada - direct flights to cancun are one, hard to come by and for some reason the most expensive. Flights alone start at $600 and go upwards to $1200.
Count your blessings........
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I voted and picked NUmber 1 - are there any pics of you wearing the actual dresses? The only reason I ask is bc the dress can look great in the magazine, but not look the same on the bride who is ordering it. We all choose which dress we like better, but we really aren't helping much bc we havent seen the dress ON YOU.....I would hate to pick a dress that I like only to find out that maybe I like dress#2 better on you...just a thought
I hope decision making gets better for you!!!
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J88 - Where are you planning on going? Mexico, Jamaica?
The resort I picked is in Playa Del Carmen and it is very family freindly, but I used to work in Mexico with a tour company and I know of a few resorts I would reccomend if your thinking the Mexico route.....let me know
I loved Moon Palace - I stayed there in Dec 2006 and even though it reained and like downpour rain the whole trip - we still had a fabulous time. Everytime we left the resort, the weather was beautiful - weird huh?Quote:We are looking in the Cancun/Playa area, we want to be close to Cancun. I have looked at dreams and Moon palace up close, but I am not sure about either one. We have a daughter who will be 3 at the time of the wedding, and we need a place that is kid friendly, but also that has a kids club that will allow children her age (most that I have seen are 4 and up). Plus a lot of our friends have, or will have very young children. Any advice will be great, I am going to check out your resort, it sounds nice.
Anyways, they had a great kids club at the time. And the resort is quite big - plus you can play at 6 other resorts if I remember correctly? I loved it there, but I didnt pick it for my wedding bc I wanted to be closer to 5th ave - needed some place for all of us to go and party....lol and I had been there before. Im the type that wont go back to the same place twice. Oh if you pick moon palace make sure to book the kitchen tour - it only happens on tuesdays (well back in 2006 anyways) but it was soo neat!!! It is def something totally different and costs nothing. We found out about it when we stayed there and it was all the rage! We thruroughly enjoyed it. They show you how they make all the fruit designs and so much more. Fantastic!
I picked Sandos bc it has the kids club and its close to 5th ave. Plus I have heard it has the best beach. However I am now hearing mixed reviews about the food - so I am not sure about that. I am trying to do a site visit if at all possible to see for myself. Sandos is a VERY big resort and has a lot to do. There will only be 3 kids at my wedding and I needed a resort that wasnt swarming with kids from one end of it to the other. Sandos has a quiet pool area (adult area) with swim up bar, etc. Friends of my FMIL stayed there a few months ago and she said they loved it.......
Barcelo Maya is good too - my parents stayed there on the last family reunion (i couldnt be there) and everyone loved that resort too. I thought about booking there, however I like the MExican feel of the resorts more then the luxurious look of the resorts. In my mind if I wanted that I would go to the States or somewhere in Canada. I want that for my honeymoon, but I want a more informal intimate mexican feel for my wedding and sandos looks just that. Its not a concrete resort - its more colourful. However that is only what I want and my opinion.
I have been to GBP and it too was a great resort for families. Also a lot to do and the resort like many others is beautiful.
My best suggestion is talk to a TA and give them your price range and your dates. They can narrow things down for you so that it isnt such a daunting task. Then you can picked based on that. Trip advisor helps, but you have to take everything with a grain of salt, bc you usually here about bad things way before you would ever hear the good. Plus sometimes there is no pleasing some people and all they will ever have is a bad outlook on things.
Just pick what is best for you and your family. That is all that matters.
I am biast to the Playa area, but the mayan riviera and Cancun are also very beautiful and wonderful places to stay. If you want alot to do outside within close proximity, you will want cancun or playa - the mayan rivieria is a little further away from things. Even moon palace was about 30 mins from cancun and over 1.5 hrs to xelha and 2 hrs to tulum.
Are you planning on doing the honeymoon there too?
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Thats a great short list - I looked at all of those properties too when we didnt have any kids coming with us. Having your FMIL as a guest and not your TA is great idea.....luckily she knows how things work and she will get you a great TA! Lucky you! Thats half the battle it seems.Quote:
Originally Posted by MaggieandJay 
Right now my short list is
Azul Sensatori
The Royal PDC
Aventura Spa Palace
I am leaning towards Azul Sensatori; My FMIL is a travel agent but we agreed that she wouldn't be the travel agent for the wedding but I am letting her pick the TA since she has all the experience. Once we get that done I am going to try to book a date
Honeymoon thoughts? -
I just sent you an email - bc I would love to see your pics. Plus your input on a few things.Quote:
Originally Posted by kbloco1 I just got married this this weekend and would agree and disagree with you. maria was good and is hard working but the food there is not good. I would say you get what you pay for. Sandos is a lower cost resort which means you are paying for what you get. The french restaurant was great though!!! While I would not return to this resort again, the wedding was beautiful as is the resort. they keep it very clean and the beach is gorgeous. We enjoyed our wedding(even with a few minor issues) and know that everyone who gets married there will love their wedding and the pictures you will get. Food, as you can see, some like it some don't. Go with the expectation that the food isn't good and you can't be disappointed. With have many pictures(over a 1000) and if you would like to see some send me an e-mail and I will send you some of whatevr you would like. [email protected]
Congrats btw!
I bet you had a beautiful wedding!
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Please tell us more about your trip and post and pics you might have - we wouldnt even know where to start asking questions.
I am thinkinging of going to Capri for my honeymoon - so any info would help
Thanks
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Congrats and welcome to Alberta! Im originally from the GTA and moved to Calgary back in 1997. I moved just outside of Calgary last year. Trust me you will love getting around Calgary - way better then TO. I lived there until I was 18 and I would still get lost! LOL Basically impossible to do here once you figure out that the "streets" always go north and south and "avenues" always go east and west. Oh and the majority of the "trails" go north to south. Trust me it wont take long....lol
You will have a ton of places to check out and make sure you check out the "canadian brides - where to shop" thread on here - tons of info in there as to where to get OOT items, dresses, etc.
Good luck and all the best!!!
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THanks Jennifer for posting and answering my questions. I def feel more at ease with the decision of Sandos. I always take trip advisor with a grain of salt for sure, bc like I said, sometimes there is no pleasing some people. It just kinda scared me a bit with the food poisoning issue coming up alot in the last little bit. But I know now we arent moving our venue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bride-chill-a Hmmm...good questions. Here is my personal and honest opinion on my experience, on the things you mentioned above.
Food: I really enjoyed the food at the buffets. We tried 3 of the a la cartes: Asian - hated it, Steak house - pretty good (it's kind of like the Keg actually), Brazilian - very good. But I still seemed to enjoy the Buffett food more, funny enough (especially the Italian). As for getting sick...that's a tough one as far as pin pointing what makes a person sick. My stomach was all wrong when I got home for about a week after, but it always is when I get back from Mexico. You could likely get sick eating off the resort but even more likely is that people aren't eating the foods they are used to, not on a regular routine like at home and are probably eating alot less veggies and fruit than usual. Add in a whole lot of booze...and of course you will be sick! I honestly don't know how people know they got food poisoning unless they got their stool tested by a doctor.
Rooms: I have to admit, I wasn't crazy about the rooms on the Beach side. They are noisy and a bit older. The Riviera side is much, much nicer. More room, quieter area and more modern. If you still decide to go here, I would recommend staying on that side (the pool on that side is awesome - the only one on the resort with a swim up bar and it's bigger and quieter too). Having said that, if you like the beach (and you stay on the Riviera side)...then you will walk. If you want to be where all the action is...then you will walk. The Beach side is good because it's right where all the action is, but it's also noisy because of that. It's about a 5-10 min walk to the other side. It's not too bad, but sucky if you are on the other side and forget something in your room, or something like that. The carts come around but only seat 5 people so there is usually a line up. You can walk to your room faster than if you were to wait and then get a ride. In my experience in Mexico, we always end up walking far because most of those resorts are huge.
It's up to you. I would check out the other resorts and see how the reviews were. There are definetly nicer hotels out there and yes, I did look around when I got home, wondering if I should have had it somewhere else. I looked at a few other threads and although the hotels seemed nicer, they didn't have the criteria I was looking for (i.e. not many of the resorts to a beach ceremony - strangely enough, or maybe they don't allow kids, or they weren't in as good of a location).
So, I would probably do it there again because of the size -it had something for everyone and everyone was really happy and really liked it. We actually didn't have one complaint from any of our guests (we had 33 people). The other reason I would do it there is because the ceremony set up was beautiful and they had a decent priced package and specialize in weddings - which again, some of those other resorts didn't. Plus, the price range was decent for our guests. And lastly, we loved the location and that it was on the Playacar strip because it was close to town.
If I were to go back to Mexico again, we would not stay there again because it would be a different kind of trip (just the two of us). We would probably go somewhere that's more of a boutique hotel and adults only.
I hope that helps! You have to take those trip advisor reviews with a grain of salt. The people who had bad experiences are the ones that like to share them the most.
Good luck and keep us posted!
Jennifer
NOw its on to deciding where to honeymoon.
Thanks so much for your help!!!!!
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Hi Maggie,Quote:
Originally Posted by MaggieandJay So have you ladies started deciding on resorts yet? I have a short list but I am not sure
We picked Sandos Playacar Beach in Playa Del Carmen, bc we needed a kid friendly resort and I heard great things about their beach. As for the honeymoon - not so easy. I have flip flopped all over the place; from Barcelo Maya, to the Eldorado Roayl and now onto Secrets. I cant seem to keep my mind made up when it comes to the honeymoon.....lol
How about you? What has made your short list?? -
Thanks again for looking! Its always nice to know all your hard work is going to pay off when the guests see them - or atleast you hope so....lol
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Do you know if they ship to canada?
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Just wanted to let you ladies know that I found those drawstring back packs for the single men travelling in our group. They are heavy duty addidas bags and I just love them!! Not the cheap flimsy material that looks like its going to rip the minute you put a magazine in them. I found them at the Bentley store in Red Deer's Bower mall and they were on sale from $19.99 down to $5.00 PLUS they had a BOGO sale on for the second one at half price - so I actually got four bags for the price of three. Will post pics on here tonight if I can to give you a better look. Bought two addidas bags and two really cute bags for my neices. I am so glad I found them! AND a great deal to boot!
If anyone is looking, bentley is the place to go for the drawstring bags!!!
Have a great rest of the day!
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I bought 4 of these from Bentley in Red Deer and they are amazing Addidas ones for $5.00 each regularly $19.99 each. Nice thick quality bags - not the thin cheap material or the vinyl. Really nice - I willhave to post pics on here when Im done. I also got two for the girls in a different colour scheme and its not addidas but they are fantastic! I just love them!
They are sooo much nicer then the ones from OT -I was just about to order mine from OT when I cam across these. So glad I didnt!
If you dont have a bentley store, look for a purse, bag or backpack store...I see them all the time. Good luck!
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I got mine at Stampin up - super cheap and they were the perfect size.
Hope that helps!!
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But then dont you pay shipping 20 different times??Quote:
Originally Posted by msglave In order to get everything for free, you place separate orders. If you are ordering 20 bags, it's 20 different orders. -
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So sorry to hear about your misfortune with the pashmina's
I hope everything will get resolved for you!!! -
Looks great! Your guests will love it!
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done...hope that helps
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Thanks for your post and Im glad you feel better. It makes me feel like Im not alone either with all of the post from the other ladies in similar positions Its hard for all of us to wait bc we want this so badly, but it will happen and usually when we least expect it. Men definitely do not get it, but in truth we dont totally get them either. We obssess over it and they think its no big deal. Like Riley has told me, I want this ring to confirm his commitment to me, but he asks, "Do you see what I do around here? Dont you see? If I wasnt committed to you, I wouldnt have bought this house with you, and I wouldnt do all these things for you. I am committed and want you to be happy." So they see things as what they "do" for us, where we see it is more of a gesture I guess. I just think about all the things he does for me and our house, and I know that it will happen soon enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by krizstyling I love your post =) The fact that you have your OOT bags together makes me feel a ton better =) I thought I was going a bit far ahead by just emailing Playa Fiesta for rates and dates available in '12 but seeing that I am not alone in the planning stages (because lets face it, men just DON'T get it) makes me feel a TON better.
Wishing Happiness and a proposal SOON to you =)
Its very hard to be patient when that is all you can think about sometimes...but I just lay low, bc if you push - they will just push away and make you wait even longer. They want to do it on their terms, not ours.
So I deal with it by quietly moving along with wedding plans....DIY projects only as he doesnt feel like he needs to give his input on that....it keeps me content and ecvited somewhat. This way I dont feel the crunch of timelines yet, bc its not really true yet. Im just coasting right now....and enjoying the time I have to research and plan and learn what to do and not do from other brides on here.
Its very frustrating at times when I see all the "noobs" coming on here newly engaged and Im still waiting, but IM happy for them and know that when my time comes, someone one here will be happy for me too.....lol
If all else fails.....Having a drink every now and again doenst hurt either...just stay away from the DIY projects,......lol
Glad to see you ladies on here.....we can get through this together and celebrate together as one by one our time comes!!!
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You are not alone....I joined in August 2009 - we were planning on getting married in Jan 2011 but it just wasnt enough time to save for it all. Now we are planning for Jan 2012 and I dont have a ring either yet. We also bought a house in Dec 2009 and I have a child from a previous marriage so it makes things go a little slower I think. I already have my OOT bags finished along with my Hangover kits and no proposal. I have my wedding dress even! LMAO! HOwever I do know that I will have my ring somewhere between now and the beginning of October. Its only a matter of time for me but it has been an agonizing wait. Every little holiday goes by and you wonder and wait and then a little peice of you feels let down when it doesnt happen - but you cant let it get to you. I have let it all go and I continue to plan but slowly so that I dont ruin too much of it for myslef. This guy is different from the first guy and Ir eally want to marry him, whereas my ex- ummm nope....I thought I was going to be sick in the limo and we arent talking cold feet here - this was cold body - making a bd decision ....so I understand how it feels when you want something so badly and the days keep jugging on by.....
Don't worry there are so many of us on here and your time will come...be patient.....
THinking of you and all the other ringless ladies on here too!!!!
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looking forward to seeing the pics!
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The Royal?? Never heard of it, the only one close to that I know of is Eldorado Royale.... Will have to see what I can find on it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bride-chill-a We only stayed the 7 days but if we had stayed for our honeymoon I might have switched, just for the sake of making the most of our time there and checking out different places. What about the Royal, which is right downtown on 5th Ave? It looks beautiful and it's adults only, which would be great for a honeymoon and the location is excellent!
I do have a question for you though....I have been reading trip advisor again and the most recent posts on there are not great...make that alot of the pages arent great. Talking about food poisoning and bad rooms and too far to walk and that the food wasnt that great.....too many to list.....did you notice or have any of these issues?? Knowing what you experienced now with your wedding, would you do it all over again at the same hotel or would you do things different
I am just starting to play around with the idea of moving my wedding bc of the trip advisor notes. I know that the good usually out weighs the bad and some times there is no pleasing some people...but there are a lot of not so good reveiws that have recently been posted....
Thanks!
CANADIAN OOT BAG info...where to shop!
in Wedding Registry, Wedding Gift Bags, and OOT bags
Posted
So as I promised - here are some pictures of the items I found last weekend. The drawstring bags from Bentley $5.00 each (I only needed 4 but there were many more to pick from).
I also hit Michaels and found some things for th kids
Beach Ball $1.50
Magnetic Board Games (Chinese Checkers or Snakes and Ladders) $1.50
Flip flop embellishments $1.50 Still have to buy their flip flops
I hit Claires for the girls and got each girl each of the following:
Bobby Pin Coloured Hair extensions $5.00
Puppy Dog Lip GLoss Kit (Self opening) $5.00
Personalized neckalce, anklet and ring $6.00
From Zellers - Little Makeup case for the girls $5.00