Michelle & Dan’s Barcelo Maya Palace Review

24^th May – 7^th June 2011. Wedding date 1^st June 2011

Sorry if its long winded, sometimes I just can’t stop talking ha ha

We flew from Gatwick with 23 family and friends and had a relatively good 10hour flight. What with the ash cloud we thought we were lucky to get there ha ha. The transfer took 1.5hrs as we had a drop off on the way. I’m sure it would only have been an hour if we went direct. All the kids were so tired by the time we checked in.

Check in – Well this part didn’t go to well. Firstly they messed up our friends rooms putting their two children in separate room to their parents. After an argument they were changed and upgraded to a corner suite. When we got to our room we couldn’t get in as they gave us the wrong key. The bellboy turned up with our luggage and let us in to which we were overlooking a bush!! And they had put us miles away from everyone else! Bearing in mind we booked 12mths in advance and requested a pool view and all as close as possible. We took the long walk back to reception to tell them about the key and ask to be moved. After a 30min argument with the VERY rude supervisor we got the room we originally booked, near everyone else and with a pool view. My husband had also requested champagne in our room on arrival which we did not get until the 2^nd night after another complaint. After all that and the long flight I sat in our room at 9pm and shead a little tear. Not the best start to our holiday….

Hotel – the grounds were beautiful, very clean and super tidy. The long columned walkways made it a pleasure getting around the hotel. The pools were beautiful. The lobby overlooked the sea was just breath taking! The sea was gorgeous and warm, a little rocky around the Palace end but a 5min walk up the beach it was gorgeous. Most of the other staff were very nice, the waiters around the pool were fun and very friendly bringing us Mojitos without asking what more could we ask for, lol  The restaurants were fantastic. Over the 5 hotels onsite we stayed in the Palace but could eat at all the hotels and all their Al a Cartes. We ate in the Italian, Caribbean, Steakhouse, Brazilian, French (definitely our favourite by far). We had a group meal in the Japanese on our second night and the show tables are great. Very entertaining. Men had to wear long pants in the Al a Cartes. Be warned all the Al a cartes shut one night a week and different nights week to week. This is not something we found out till we got there.  The buffets had a good choice of food to suit everyone. The Coral grill also had a good selection of food and drinks.

OOT bags – as reception weren’t that approachable we decided to give the bags out ourselves. My son took these round on the second night and dropped them at each room before dinner. They went down a treat and everyone loved them. (so well worth doing).

Wedding – Well our WC Victoria did mess up a few things so be prepared for things to change when you get to resort. We had the Blueberry dream package and was told we could have our evening meal in the French Al a Carte. (we chose our times, set menu etc before getting to resort). At our meeting with Victoria she told us the restaurant was closed that night which was very upsetting (we had our heart set on it)  there was a chef convention on that had been arranged for a year, so she shouldn’t have promised it to us. After another heated debate she upgraded our meal to Playa Azul. All in all our wedding day turned out perfect but it was not nice having the hiccups at the start. Myself and my BMs had our hair done in the spa at 11am (beautiful and very professional) Victoria had dropped our flowers back at our room while we were there. The flowers were exactly what I asked for and we were very pleased with them. The ceremony was at 3pm at the Palace Gazebo (legal ceremony which was about 20mins total) the judge was very nice and spoke English very well, we had a champagne toast to follow. Then pictures, and our cocktail hour was at 6pm at the Palace rooftop terrace. Our evening meal was on the beach at Playa Azul which was beautiful, The pictures do not do it justice. Victoria pulled it out the bag and she did a great job with our table decorations, placecards and gifts etc. Overall we had the day of our dreams and would love to do it all again!!

Photos – we hired an outside photographer and you have to pay a fee of $300 to do this. Well worth every penny. Anel from Adventure photos was brilliant. We couldn’t of asked for a nicer person to take our photos, she was lovely and did a great job at capturing our day the pictures are amazing!!

DVD – we used the onsite company to do our video. We also paid for an extra hour coverage so he would come to Playa Azul and film the speeches. We are not to happy with the DVD. The 2hrs filmed have been cut down to 25mins and not edited in a way we would have liked. Very staged and frozen looking. I have emailed to enquire about bits missed so watch this space on that one.

Our family and friends had an amazing 2 weeks at the Barcelo with all the hiccups at the start we would still return, all bar the rude front desk supervisor it was the best hotel we’ve ever stayed at and I’m sure our family and friends would agree. It really does have something for everyone. We had the wedding of our dreams and it was the best place to get married. We definitely made the right choice in choosing Mexico to become husband and wife. I can’t believe our day has been and gone, all I can say is thank you to all the BDW girls that have helped me over the last 18mths I couldn’t of done it without your support x

Pics to follow :o)