CandM2012

I had heard that their was a new pricing list but this should give you an idea! JELLYFISH_WEDDING_BROCHURE.pdf

Hola everyone!! I finally have some free time to write about our wonderful trip to paradise!!! We arrived on Saturday Feb 25, 2012. The airport was extremely busy but I could tell that many planes had just arrived so it took us about 2 hrs to get through everything and to our shuttle. But we were so excited to be in Punta Cana that we didn’t let it get us down. There are a ton of people once you pass through customs (which is a joke!) asking to take your bags and get you a taxi. We just kept saying no thanks and headed to the delta vacations booth to get our shuttle to the resort. After a quick 15min ride we arrived at DPB. We were greeted with drinks and cool towels. So nice and refreshing! We were then asked if we were in the VIP and I said no because we just booked the standard room. So he checked and then said yes you are so it was nice to see that they did upgrade us to the Preferred Club. So we were then taken across the resort to the Preferred Club facility. It was nice and cool and we were given more drinks. We quickly signed some papers and were given a choice to go and look at a few of the rooms to see what we wanted. We had our 11 yr old son with us so we were going to see what would work best for us all. We ended up with the two double beds because the room was larger. The room was very clean and had tons of little goodies. We were also given fruit and a card for a free bottle of champagne. After unloading we realized that our fridge was not working. So we called and someone quickly came up. They ended up replacing it and yet that one didn’t work either. So we just gave up since cold drinks are at the bar and we were rarely in the room. None of our other guests had and issues with their fridge so who knows! Lol. The rooms are humid but I think that just comes with fact that you are in the Caribbean. It seemed that at night the room did seem cooler even though the thermostat always read the same. And yes when you shower water gets on the floor but we just put towels down and were fine. Now after comparing all the rooms there is really no difference between Preferred Club and Standard. The only perks are a separate pool, which we did not use because we wanted to be with our guests, free computer access, which I did use, and use of the Seaside Grill for breakfast, which we did not use either. So it was nice to be upgraded but I am glad I didn’t pay for that. The resort was great all around. The entertainment staff is super and they become your best friends throughout the week. All of the staff makes you feel so welcome and all of my guests commented on this. The only person I had an issue with was Vanessa at the concierge desk. And it seemed she was rude and unhelpful to all of my guests that dealt with her. The pools were very clean and we were always able to find chairs but once everyone arrived we did go out early to try and get 16 chairs together. The staff is willing to bring more chairs to your group if needed. The beach is nice but the water is clearer if you walk down towards the left for 10min or so. We did some of the activities like step aerobics, dance lessons, kayak racing in the pool, kayaking the ocean, etc. All a ton of fun. The shows at night were good. The best was the Circus Show…definitely do not miss if it is there while you are. The stunts were AMAZING!! The casino was okay. Seems most of my guests had some luck. But beware that you must pay attention at the tables. We saw the dealers take the winners chips away and never pay them. Their way of taking advantage of the people who were drinking at the tables. The disco was lacking in my opinion. I did not like the fact that it was like a dungeon. I would have rather have had it outside under a pavilion like other resorts I have been too. But again…not a huge deal just would be my one improvement. They did play good music and we even learned some new dances while there. We did several excursions while there. We did the party boat one that included snorkeling, natural swimming pool, and viewing the dolphins. There were 11 of us that went and they made the bride and groom free but we ended up just splitting the discount amongst us and each paid $37. I would recommend this 100%. We all had a blast, even my 80 year old grandma. The snorkeling was fun and we saw lots of fish and even an octopus. The natural swimming pool was beautiful. Crystal clear water with dance music and drinks. We were able to see some dolphins but it was just to look. If we had more time I would have done the swimming with the dolphins excursion. We booked this boat through the water sports building on the beach...SeaPro I think it was. Super nice guys. Julio is who we booked with and you will find him walking around the resort pools. The whole trip was about 4 hrs. So definitely worth the money. Some of our other guests did the zip lining. They said it was fun but it took 1.5hr to get there. But they said they would definitely do it again and said the drive was long but they did get to see the country. The resort food…I thought it was great. The Mexican and Japanese were the best. We did not try the Italian or French (adults only) but heard good things from other people in the resort. Sure the pace is a bit slower but we did not mind it one bit. We are there to relax and enjoy. Also if you are debating on two meals or desserts, no worries order both. Hahaha…we ordered one of every dessert at each restaurant. It is all inclusive right!! The staff at the Asian were by far our favorites. They were super sweet and very attentive. The World Café had plenty of choices but the food does seem to get cold there fast. We ate there everyday for breakfast. The Beach Grill was very yummy. Great burgers and fries! The coco café was also good. My son loved the donuts there…he said they were much better than the ones in the world café. K…now onto the wedding. My wedding coordinator was Scarlet. The beginning was a little rough because I had not heard from anyone about the wedding the first 3 days I was there. I would go to the wedding office daily and no one was there and I would ask the front desk people and they kept saying tomorrow. So on Monday I went to the preferred club building and asked for help from Yoel (the guy who checked us in). He was able to get a hold of Awilda and she came out and met me and said that Scarlet sent me a note with our meeting time. Well of course I never got it. So she assured me that Scarlet would be there on Tuesday and that our meeting was set for 10am. Finally I at least had a meeting time. So on Tuesday Scarlet was there and all of my frustrations and nerves were put to ease. She is a super sweet and caring person. We went over everything and had it all set. So not sure why it took so long but we were the only wedding all week so maybe that is why the staff was off. I picked out the songs I wanted for the wedding with Scarlet too. She had about 5 or so to choose from. I picked Somewhere over the rainbow for the maid of honor and then Canon in D for me. I had my hair trial on Monday at 4pm. I definitely took advantage of this free trial because I wanted to see how good they would do. Well I was there for 2 hours and had figured everything out. The girls in the salon speak very little English so communication is quite difficult. Luckily I had 4 years of Spanish in high school so I was able to explain some things. Now the best part is (not really…this is me being sarcastic) when I show up on my wedding day there is another girl there to do my hair. Ugh…so why did I spend so much time at the trial. But I had Bella this time and she definitely knew how to do hair in comparison to Rosa who did my trial. Overall I liked my hair…not going to say I loved it but I wasn’t in tears redoing it all. I did my own makeup so I cannot comment on that. I just went to sephora at home and had them do my makeup and I also watched you tube videos and practiced the month before. Then on the trip at dinner each night I had my fam rate my make up so I would know what looked best when thurs came. They do offer to setup a rehearsal dinner at one of the restaurants. Well we chose the Italian and then found out on the day of the rehearsal that it was closed that day. So we just skipped it and did our own thing. Wedding DAY!!!! Our ceremony was at 5pm so we all just hung out by the pool that morning and then around 10:30am I left to go shower and got everything set in my room. I ate lunch with my fiancé at 12:30 and then headed to the spa at 1pm for my hair appointment. I left the spa at 2:30 and headed back to the room with my maid of honor to start my makeup. My photographer was supposed to show up at 3pm but we ended up meeting on my way back to the room. He said he always gets there early to be sure. Then him and the videographer showed up in the room at 3pm and started their stuff while I finished getting ready. Around 4pm I was ready to go meet Mark. We met in the hotel lobby before the ceremony because I wanted to get as many pictures as I could. So we took pics for 45min and then Mark headed down to the beach while I went back to the room to wait for Scarlet to get me for the wedding. The wedding was on the beach. It was beautiful. I added the sheer drapes hanging off the trees, chair sashes, and petals for the aisle. All very simple but who needs a ton when you have the ocean behind you. The staff did a great job of keeping people from walking behind us along the water while the ceremony took place. We did have people from the resort watching from a distance but that did not bother me one bit. J We had Pastor Rick York perform our ceremony and he was great. Everyone loved him and he did everything we discussed. Oh yeah…I forgot to mention that on your wedding day you get a cell phone to contact your wedding coordinator at any time. It was very nice to know that I could call Scarlet if I needed anything. After the ceremony was over we did our champagne toast immediately after and then did group pictures. Well just after we finished the group pics and started to get more of us two it started to rain. Boo…but it let up 20min later so we then just continued our pics. I was just happy that it did not rain during the ceremony. Funny thing was it was clear as could be and it just came out of nowhere. So we just stood under a hut on the beach and enjoyed being married!! Hehehe. The guests told us there was also a rainbow after the rain…so guess it was our blessing from above! J We finished pics around 6:15 and then headed to the room to grab a few things and then meet our shuttle at 6:30 to the Jellyfish with all of our guests. I hired Photosouvenir for our photographer and videographer. Reno was a pleasure…definitely fun and quirky but a super sweet guy. He contracted Florian Koetter to do the video and he was super sweet as well. I am still waiting on the pics and video since we left 2 days after the wedding. But we have been in contact since I have been back so I have no worries. I will let you all know how they turned out and I will post a few pics once I get them. I did have to pay a day pass for them which was $79. The flowers were beautiful. I picked them out from their book that they have. I am not very picky so was able to find something I liked no problem. I went with roses and lilies for me and with gerber daisies for the boys and my maid of honor. I also ordered a daisy for my hair too. These were brought to the salon when I was getting my hair done. They steamed my dress for free. It came back perfect. We did not send his pants and shirt to be steamed only because after being there for 6 days the humidity took out all the wrinkles. We headed to the Jellyfish Restaurant for our reception so I cannot help all of you out with the reception on the resort. But while we were there I saw a private dinner poolside and the setup was very pretty. I think it was for a company that came down for the week. For those of you going to the Jellyfish…it was SOOOO BEAUTIFUL!! I am so glad I decided to go off of the resort. The food and service was excellent and my guests loved that they had more premium liquor choices. But I will write a review on this under the Jellyfish forum. You definitely cannot beat the price for all that you get. Oh yeah…I forgot to mention the cake. We choose the chocolate cake and it was delicious. It has chocolate cake with a chocolate mousse in the middle. The white frosting was so fluffy and good. And as most have said the cake was huge. I got the one that said for (10) people, that was included, and it was a 2 tier cake. So no need to order any extra. That cake could have been for 30 people. I do have a pic of this I can post. I also brought a cake box down from the US so that I could transport it to the Jellyfish. So if any of you are doing this you must bring a box because the resort does not have anything. They also included 4 roses to decorate the cake with once we got to the restaurant. A nice little touch. Well I guess that about sums it up for now. I promise all of you that you will fall in love with DPB. I would go back but there are so many other places I want to see I am not sure I will. It was a great trip and all of my guests had a ball. I am so happy I did a destination wedding!! Best of luck to you all. Feel free to ask me any questions and I will post pics once I get them. Carrie <3

Hey Venus... No prob...we did a la carte meals with appetizers during cocktail hour and salads for all before dinner. We had 16 people total + 2 (photographer and videographer). Unfortunately I did not bring my camera to the reception so I am waiting to see the professional ones along with all the guest photos. For food we did butterfly shrimp, mozzerela cheese sticks and the chicken bochette (a little chicken kabob). They were all delicious. We also tried the spinach and ricotta hot pocket and that was good too but we went with the cheese sticks because those are my son's fav appetizer. But they were all delicious with my fav being the shrimp. The chicken brochete was so tender and the grilled veggies were so yummy on it too. For the salads we went with the cesar and the arugula with shrimp. My fav was the arugula and the cesar was okay but they used anchovies in the dressing so it had a slight fishy taste. We had tried the seafood salad but a little too many weird things in it for me...lol!! But I am sure if you like seafood you would love it! As for the dinners Mayte reprinted the menu of the main dishes without prices as I requested...that way everyone wasn't basing their choice on cost. It turned out great. We all got a variety of items...from the cajun snapper, filet, lobster, jellyfish steak, grilled seafood platter, and grilled langoustas (not sure about the spelling of that one). We served red and white wine throughout dinner allowing guests to order drinks if they chose to as well. I was so shocked that when they brought out the white wine for me to taste it was one of my favs from home...Cavit Pinot Grigio. Another sign this place was meant to be for our reception!! hahaha. The drinks we went a la carte as well and my fam is BIG drinkers and the total for all the drinks came to $800. I found that to be very reasonable for all the shots and specialty drinks we ordered. I will post some pics once I get some!!

Hey everyone!!! Well we just got back yesterday from Punta Cana and all I can say it was the best decision we ever made. Both Dreams Palm Beach and the Jellyfish were perfect. I cannot say enough good things about both. I will be sure to post a long review on how everything went but Mayte was awesome and so accomodating. On the day we met to go over everything she told me that it was pretty unlikely to be able to get strawberries for my dessert so we moved onto other options and when we got there for our reception...the chocolate and strawberries were there and were the best ever (seriously)!!! She pulled through and did everything that we asked. The DJ had played all of the songs that were from my list, that I emailed Mayte 5 days before the wedding, and also added a few based on my music choices which I was perfectly fine with. I would reccommend him 100%. The MC, Jorge, was awesome and so sweet, and spoke perfect english. Honestly the cost of everything was well worth it...the drinks were the bomb and my guests were so happy that they had Corona beer...lol!! You will not be dissapointed and Mayte was there the whole time and everyone said how impressed they were with her and the service. Oh and the food was AWESOME. I got the chef's pasta (I think that is what it was called) and it was chicken with mushrooms and white sauce. Seriously...this was sooooo good. I know who orders pasta at a fish place...well I did and it was one of the best meals of the whole week. We had the passion fruit mojitos as our signiture drink for all of the guests when we walked in and they were so good and all the guests loved them. We ended up getting so many throughout the night that they ran out of the mixings before we left. Again do not second guess anything when it comes to the Jellyfish. It is as BEAUTIFUL as all of the pics on the website/facebook and you are sure to have the best time celebrating your weddings there with your family and friends. I will write a more detailed review this week when I get some time. And feel free to ask me any questions!! Good luck everyone with your planning. Just writing about the trip makes me sad that our week has come and gone...missing DR big time!!

Hey Sunshine... Well right now I am planning on letting my guests order straight from the menu. I am still considering when we meet with Mayte to pick out several items and have her print them on a menu....only reason so that guests cannot see the price. I want them to order what they want and not based on price. We only have 16 of us and Mayte has said that it will be cheaper that way along with a la carte drinks. Which makes sense because i know that some people will only have a drink or two. I am having some appetizers out as well. I just picked the ones I wanted and I am letting her handle the rest. We will be there celebrating in 13 days so I can let you know when I get back what we paid. Can't wait!!!

I am definitely a more go with the flow kind of bride!! lol. I figured there is no real point in getting super stressed over little details that really will not make or break the wedding day. Once I got my confirmation email with the contact info for my wedding coordinator I sent a request for pics of the cakes and flowers. But from what I have read there are a ton more pics once you actually get to the resort and have your meeting. So I am just doing the wedding there and then heading over to the Jellyfish restaurant for our cocktail hour and reception. It was more reasonable than the resort (unless you just have a small dinner at one of the restaturants) and thought it would be nice to give our guests a different change of scenery. But I will be sure to post pics of the resort and wedding once I get back. So much to do...been slacking in the OOT bag department so that is my goal for this week.

I know...not sure where everyone went! Well I am leaving on Feb 25 and getting married on March 1. I am sooo excited and ready to go!!

Thanks for taking the time to post your review Mel!! Looking forward to my JF reception now for sure...no worries!! Also hopefully you will be able to review the resort but with you giving it an A+ that is a great relief as well!! Congrats on your wedding!!

Wow Mel...your pics are gorgeous (love love love the first one)! So glad that everything went well for you! Cannot wait to hear all the details since we are staying at DPB too. Congrats!!

So excited for all you ladies with weddings this next week!! Good luck and have fun!! Look forward to hearing all about it on your return!!!

Thanks for sharing your songlist!! I love all the dance songs you picked!!! This is a great help! Good luck on the marathon.

We are having the cigar roller! My fiance liked the idea. I thought it would add something fun to the reception as well as an experience for the guests.

Adding in my date!! Just sent the deposit and got confirmation from Mayte! Soooo excited that it is all set now! DD/MM/YYYY Dreamspb11711 ~ 7/11/2011 Jen & Bryan ~ 10/11/2011 Jessica & Steven ~ 12/11/2011 Digado ~ 19/11/2011 Melissa & Bruce ~ 27/11/2011 PJ & Jen ~ 07/01/2012 SheriO & John ~ 02/20/2012 Yvon & JC ~ 02/21/2012 Carrie & Mark (candm2012) ~ 01/03/2012

Hey Andrea, I normally do not have any issue getting responses from Leticia, my DPB wedding coordinator. Her email is [email protected]. Give that a try! I usually hear back within a day or two. Good luck!! Carrie

I saw that pic when I did a search in google and thought they were super cute! Going to send the pic to my WC and hope that maybe she will buy them for our candy table!

I ended up gettings ours for a little under $500 and that is a direct flight from Detroit, MI. I had looked about a month prior to booking and it was $900. I was ready to change it all at that point but waited it out. It seems that it really changes week to week. If you see it at a good rate be sure to contact your TA and have them hold it for you....mine held for one week. But I am worried about my guests now seeing that prices have gone up. Best of luck!!

Hey ladies... Just wondering if any of you had/are planning to do your cake/champagne right after your ceremony (before dinner)? I am asking this because we are going to the Jellyfish Restaurant for the reception but since the cake is included in the free package I would rather do that then pay for another one at the reception. Any feedback would be great! I asked Leticia if I could and she said we could arrange it but I would want a covered area to give my guests a break from the sun since we are having a beach wedding. Then maybe just have a sweet/candy table at the reception.. Thanks! Carrie

Congrats DRwedgal!!! So glad to hear that everything turned out so wonderful. I would love to see some of your pics...I am debating on a few photographers right now and am trying to make a final decision so that I have all of the big items booked!! Thanks!

Took her about 2-3 weeks to get back with me on the availability. So just keep on waiting...lol! She will respond!

thanks...think I might do the same especially that is it free!

Thanks Brandy for all of the great ideas! Eveything looks so awesome and I appreciate you taking so much time to post all of the pics and info. I just heard back from Rebecca and am going to be starting my STDs soon! Congrats!

Yeay....just heard back from Maytae and my date is open!! Super excited...now to plan all of the details.

Bummer...did you see if he has anyone else he can recommend?

I feel the same way!