Hi Brides! I just wanted to share the experience that my husband and I encountered with our recent wedding at Paradisus Playa Del Carmen on May 18, 2013. I've waited to share my story since I was hoping for resolution with the hotel, but we have gotten absolutely no where. We booked our wedding close to a year out and went with the Tailor Made Package and also upgraded our reception to the Gabi Club. We've sent numerous emails to the Romance Team/Managers, Hotel Managers, Quality Managers, Event Managers, etc since the event.. Here's what happened: My husband and I booked our wedding close to a year in advance. We opted for the Tailor Made package and also, we chose to upgrade our reception location to the Gabi Club/Lounge. When the time came for our reception, everything was running smoothly, until around our dinner service when a drum and fire show began on the sandy part of the outside of the Gabi Club. Again, on the outside of the Gabi Club, which we reserved for OUR private event. There were also private event signs placed all around the perimeter of the sandy area/decks of the Gabi Club/Lounge. Not only did this interrupt our reception unnecessarily as we rented and reserved the entire space, but our DJ, who we paid for, couldn't compete with the loud drumming and noise from the fire show during our dinner. This forced him to stop playing any music until the fire show quieted down. This completely ruined our wedding reception - the one very special day in our life which was planned a year in advance and it cannot be repeated. I went up to the coordinator several times as did other guests while the "show" was going on, and they kept telling me only 5 minutes more, which doesn't matter in the first place because the show shouldn't have been happening at our reserved location. Well, the fire and drum show continued and lasted 30-45 minutes. We went and spoke with Ana, the Romance manager on site on Sunday. Her resolution was to offer us a group dinner on Sunday afternoon for Sunday evening for our 30 remaining guests. This does not fix the wrongdoings that took place on our wedding day. Nor would it even be possible as most have already made reservations as the hotel suggests making them in advance. We were both quite taken back that this was the only suggestion offered in fixing the situation that had occurred. We are still extremely disappointed in the way that this entire situation was handled. We reserved and paid for the Gabi Club/Lounge to be privatized and restricted for our use. Instead, the hotel had chosen to allow another venue to take place on our paid for area, in which you made money. This is absolutely unacceptable and breaks the contract. We asked for the complete upgrade fee back from the Gabi Club ( nearly 4k) and also I forwarded several emails to hotel managers, etc, as I stated above. Would you like to know what the resolution was from the VP of Melia Hotels? Well, it was an upgrade to Royal Service for our next stay at Paradisus Playa Del Carmen. Can you believe that? We stayed in Royal Service both of our past visits to PPDC and that is not going to make up for the error on the hotels end. This was not the only error in our wedding celebration, so if I were a bride, please chose your venue wisely. PPDC is still unresponsive and is clearly more interested in getting your money and keeping it rather than following their contracts and providing you with a wonderful wedding day. I will update this post if we come to any type of resolution.
It was awful and the way that the hotel has been following up is quite disappointing. I'm not sure how there could have been such a mistake as this was booked so far in advance as well as all of the private event signs around the area. Its been almost 2 weeks since our first correspondence and still no resolution.