We got married at Moon Palace 5/6/12. We had a dream wedding and would recommend it to anyone! We wouldn’t have changed a thing! We did the Nizuc Beach which was literally right next to the Tucan Terrace. It was the most beautiful setting I have ever seen for a wedding. We were thoroughly impressed and so were all of our guests, we had 27 other people that attended.  If you are contemplating destination wedding-go for it! Everyone said it was the best wedding they had been to and Palace resorts really take care of you.  Feel free to directly email me on here with any ?’s. We were there for 10 days and experienced quite a bit of the resort and activities!

 

I did see on trip advisor the week we got back that another couple who also had 30 people coming and booked themselves were put in a double bedroom and all of their people were scattered over the resort. GET A TRAVEL AGENT! It doesn’t cost you anything and if there is a problem…your guests go to them! Big relief!  After we got back from the wedding Jaimi sent me flowers, a nice card and email to see make sure all went well. Each of our guests also got a special card from her. The company is based out of the mid-west-really great to work with!

 

SECTION OF HOTEL: Nizuc

Nizuc is the middle section and the oldest. Sunrise is on one end and huge. More party section, pool is huge and this section is just huge…lots of rooms-each room has a hammock. Nice little kid section of pool with slides. Moon Grand is the other side of Nizuc and the newest-it is only 33% done. Rooms are new, balconies huge, pools nice.  A lot of older people stay in this section I noticed and it is the quietest section. At night nothing going on here.

We stayed Nizuc section and I thought it was perfect. It was small enough that we ran into our group a lot but the resort was big enough we could get away as well.  I recommend Nizuc as this is where the wedding office is as well as photo people and about a 5 min walk to the wedding beach site and both terraces for the beach weddings. Also a 5 min walk to 2 different gazebos-tucan gazebo and another one. Also everything is a 5 min walk and there are golf carts everywhere that will cart you between sections.

 

Ok I will break down the wedding first and then the resort.

 

HAIR & MAKE-UP- A+++++  Alfredo

You are able to schedule this before hand which I recommend. I was very impressed with Alfredo. I brought pics of everything and he did a great job. My bridesmaids and both moms were impressed with their hair as well! My Make-up was amazing! I used the resort credit and it was $140 and the bridesmaids and moms who just had hair was $99

 

HORSE & CARRIAGE: A++++ you have to do this

We booked this last minute during wedding coordinator meeting. $150 Picked my dad and I up on Nizuc side and took us around the whole resort-15 min ride. I felt like a princess and my Dad was really impressed! Trust me…pay for this-you won’t regret it and everyone at the wedding sees you pull up in it and they get teary eyed (what I heard after)

FLOWERS: A+++++

We did the complimentary package so my bouquet and groom boutonniere were free. Bridesmaids bouquets $45 each x 3. Groomsman, parents, usher had them made at Michaels…8 total for $30-fake but looked great! Flowers for the isle and also to throw at us after $35. I always dreamed of walking down isle on pedals and the wedding coordinator said if it was windy it wouldn’t work…but when I got there they were thrown down! Awesome!

CEREMONY: A+++++

We did complimentary wedding and it was awesome. We had our own officiant and it made it so much more special! I recommend this to everyone-as it makes it special for you b/c they know you. Humor is also a good thing as well. At moon palace they have the officiant stand between the guests so the ocean is background. Great idea! We had symbolic ceremony as our state doesn’t recognize international marriages. We got back and signed wedding certificate-no biggie. We said our own vows which was really special-highly recommend! They have a sound system and a mic if you want to use it. They play your music for pre-ceremony, bridal party and bride entrance and recession. Worked great!

PHOTOGRAPHER: A+++++ Isreal

We used the in-house photography which was Smile Market and now I think called Oceans. Kataya was about the only wedding person that emailed back same day-she was awesome. I upgraded a few days before wedding at our meeting. We are thoroughly impressed with everything. We paid $1400 for 3 hours of photography, hard covered photo book (way nicer than the ones you make on-line), photo book with like 60 6x8 photos-edited and a CD of over 600 photos all rights included.  This is pretty reasonable and they did an excellent job! I honestly thought he was invisible…I didn’t see him during the ceremony or really the reception but yet he caught some really intimate moments. Only downside is you don’t meet before hand. I saw him when I arrived on carriage.  Isreal was great to work with and you should ask for him and not pay to have another photographer come to the wedding. That is ridiculous. Most all photos on here are from this company.

 

DECORATIONS: A+++++

We did the in-house Zuniga Productions for decorations. I was very impressed and actually everything turned out better than I had thought. We paid $1100 total and thought we had the perfect amount of deco. $250 for plain black dance floor. Worked great for our 30 people-could handle a group of 50 tops.

We did a string of 10 lights to separate off the terrace and beach-$100. You can see them in the above pic at night. 6 tiki torches $8 each-3 on each side of terrace and 4 Christmas tree lights around 4 palm trees. You can also see in the right side of pic a white couch set up and light up coffee table (pink) for 10 people $150. While we had pictures taken on beach I saw our guests all sitting on it having cocktails.

I was really impressed with our table decorations. I thought they were going to be ¼ the size cuz of the pics they sent…they were huge! Real orchids inside a bowl of water-purple, white and blue (they died on request). Bowl on top of mirror with 4 candles around $70 for each set-3 sets and they threw in a 4^th for free on the couch/coffee table. Wow the decorations exceeded my expectations!

MUSIC: A++++ PSAV

We did the in-house dj/music people. They had another company JSAV but they quoted over $200 more on each quote for literally the exact same thing! We went with the 2 speaker system, IPOD/CD/MIC set up $366 total. My husband is in the music and producing biz and he said this was perfect. I made up a cocktail, dinner and 1^st dance playlist. They had 2 guys there to make sure all equipment was ok and they controlled my iPod. When dinner started they automatically switched to the dinner playlist. I had made up before hand the playlist for the whole evening with fun oldies and some new stuff. Everyone loved it. There is no reason to have a DJ for $1400 unless you don’t have any music. It would be cheaper to download songs for your IPod then to pay for a DJ. This way you get to listen to your favorite tunes!! Our officiant did the few announcements like our entrance and 1^st dance which wasn’t a big deal.

RECEPTION: A++++ overall for everything!

Palace resorts had a promotion for certain room nights booked. We had 60 room nights so we got a private function for free for 2 hrs. Ceremony was at 5pm. Reception was 6-10 so we paid for 2 extra hrs which was only $60 a table-we had 3 tables. Our set up from the above pic in the decoration section was perfect and more intimate for our group rather than the circular tables. Everyone felt close! We didn’t do cocktail hour cuz it was cheaper to just to private function. We didn’t have dinner till 7 so from 6-7pm people just had cocktails, hung around the couches and took pics and chatted. They all loved it!

FOOD: A+++++

We choose the BBQ menu and it was awesome! Actually all the food at Moon Palace was delicious! There was plenty of it and everyone seemed happy!

CAKE: A++++ Cheesecake

This was about the only decision I let my husband make and everyone loved it! My husband said at the end of the night he saw girls running over and stealing pieces of cake. People were talking about it the next day. We took it back with us and munched on it for a few days.

Cake topper we brought (wally and Eva)

SERVICE: A+++++ +++++ ++++ Over the top service-very impressed

The service for the reception was amazing. Guillermina, Keny the bartender, Marcos and Armando the Captain. Guillermina took your plate after you picked out food and brought it to your spot for you. They were on top of all the drinks for everyone. Keny made everyone special drinks upon request—my mom really liked the drink he made her. They called everyone in the group by name-how they remembered, I don’t know! They were all amazing and if they lived here in the states I would use their service again! WOW-Thank you!

A celebratory shot :)

The service as a whole at Moon Palace is really over the top. They go out of their way to make you happy! Better than any resort I have been to—even top resorts here in the US.

 

WEDDING DEPARTMENT: C+

WEDDING COORDINATOR: A- Zaray

Zaray honestly did the best she could do given the circumstances. They had another wedding coordinator out due to appendix being taken out so the other coordinators had her workload but palace resorts really need to hire another coordinator.  I would email her and get a reply in a week-unless I emailed my travel agent Jaimi and then she would respond right away cuz I think Jaimi would email her boss. My husband and I had already decided that day of wedding nothing would bother us and no stressing out…as long as we both showed up-it would be an excellent wedding! And it was my dream wedding…better than I had ever hoped for. There were some things that got a little off track but it was ok. If you like to be in control of everything and detail oriented than you may have a hard time and have to learn to roll with the punches. Even after you have the meeting with the wedding coordinators you still feel lost and not sure how everything is going down. They will explain everything to everyone right before hand and things will turn out but be prepared and have a couple friends on top of details for you and have them talk with wedding coordinator if things aren’t right. 

I paid $33 for flowers in my hair-I love the flowers but at my hair appt they didn’t know what I was talking about…they called around and finally Zaray brought me my flowers to my room 2 hrs before wedding and my friend put it in my hair. Horse and carriage was 10 min late along with Zaray and my flowers but it was cool…all worked out.

IPOD disappeared after ceremony and a friend had to almost yell at the captain working my wedding to hunt down Zaray and get it…it got there 30 min later. My guest book and cake toppers arrived after dinner after I said something. All of these no biggie but it would have taken a little stress off me if I had known more before wedding and trusted that the wedding coordinator would be on top of my wedding only. But all is good and we loved Zaray. We tipped her $50 after wedding.

 

GIFTS FOR GUESTS:

We did 21oz mugs for everyone. http://www.qualitylogoproducts.com/custom-travelmugs/baby-bubbakeg.htm

 

It is called baby bubba mug 21 oz We didn’t order from this company but used my MOH’s friend Erica whose company does custom printing on everything. Shot glasses, cozies, mugs ect.  egogel@bankersadvert?ising.com  She gave me the best deal and let me order only 30. It was around $300. I know a lot of the girls on here go over the top and give their guests tons of stuff and make a bunch of things. Our guests were totally happy and really impressed with the mugs we gave them. We filled them with candy before we left and also made up a little welcome letter. Everyone carried these around and used them the whole time. They give you little glasses so this worked out great…plus everyone could recognize people in the group if you had this mug. It kept drinks cold and hot. I had mine in the sun for 2 straight hours and there was still ice left in it. My mom uses hers now for coffee. Hauling 30 of those down was enough. Also $300 I felt was enough to spend on guests as well.

 

ATTIRE: A+++++(for us)

We were all very comfortable and didn’t get hot. It was sunny and in the 80’s. Groom, groomsman, usher and Dad wore linens from Mens Warehouse. We had a 50% off coupon-just call them, ask for wedding dept and they will give you one. $75 each person for linen shirt and pants. All worked out great!

Bridesmaids dresses were Alfred Angelo $157 each and sizing was perfect for everyone. Ordered on-line and had them sent to house directly. Loved the color for beach wedding.

Bride’s Dress: didn’t want the poufy thing and was very comfortable. $450 total with $70 alterations - shoulders and bottom hemmed up. Found here in Denver, CO at Mariels. You try dresses on in your size only and take it home. Very unique dresses and all under $1000. Perfect for destination weddings!

 

ROOM: A+

We loved the room they gave us. I said earlier that I think our travel agent made sure we got a nice room. Ocean front top floor corner unit. When we arrived there was a honeymoon cake for us. Champagne that we immediately opened! Jacuzzi in every room.

We did have a problem with our air conditioning but after 2 trys they moved us 2 rooms down and it was much colder. They take care of you here. Trust me!

View from room

Our room after they moved us. 1st room was 2 to the left. on the corner.

 

ROOM SERVICE: A++++++

We loved the cheeseburgers! Food was good and great for late night snacking. Breakfast was good but the buffet in the lobby was much better.

 

RESTAURANTS- A+

Rehearsal dinner at Arrecifes, the Brazilian Steakhouse! Great Choice! Great food and service. Ask for coffee…they do a cool fire show! I asked day before to move our dinner from 6 to 7pm and they were fine. Anything wedding coordinator tells you…just go ask the restaurant or the individual people-they will hook you up. They were not that busy and honestly any restaurant will go out of their way for your group.

We had our welcome dinner at Palapa Delfines and Angel, a wait staff person and maybe manager was over the top. We stopped by our first night and ate and told him we were having 25 people meet there 2 days later and he took all info down and had tables set up and a special meal prepared for everyone. Even a special dessert. 

 

Another night the Lounge Bar on roof top of Moon Grand side helped us decorate for a friend’s b-day and made her a special cake with her name and candle. The service at Moon is 5+ stars! They go out of their way to please you and always say “my pleasure”

 

I really enjoyed the Buffet restaurant in Nizuc Lobby. Breakfast-amazing French toast-you have to try! COFFEE is awesome here-best coffee I have ever had. I like regular black coffee and it rocks! Lunch and Dinner are also great. Have them make you a fajita-steak and chicken are both mouth-watering. They will make whatever you want and one of our guests said you have to call down day before and tell them you want crab and they will get it for you!

 

Ice Cream at Moon Palace is AWESOME!! Everyone in our party kept sneaking away to grab an ice cream cone or make a sundae. When we had to leave to go to the airport I brought a cone with me cuz I just had to have one last one!

 

EXCURSIONS:

Free bus to Sun Palace and Beach Palace. They are both on the Cancun hotel strip and a great group excursion. We met at lobby 11:40 and bus leaves noon and have to be back to bus by 4pm. 1^st day we went to Sun Palace-it was only 12 of us and the water was freaking to die for. Clear blue, turquoise-we swam out to the buoys and you could see to the bottom. Felt like bath water-80 degrees. That day there were waves you could ride-body surfing and boogie boarding. Everyone loved it! They have waiters that come bring you drinks and food on the beach-it is all-inclusive at any palace resort you go to! We took 19 or us there again the day after the wedding and everyone loved it. We prefer Moon Palace though b/c Sun Palace is much smaller and seemed really crowded. We like our space and to do our own thing. Moon Palace was great for this and a ton of restaurants to choose from! Just take the free bus-Sun Palace is Adult only and Beach Palace allows families. Beach Palace is close to shopping as well.

Jet-ski’s one day $66 per person-awesome

 

Dolfinaris-Swim with dolphins—you have to do-Amazing. We used resort credit but would go and pay out of pocket for this again. We were with one other couple and 2 dolphins. They swam by us and got to pet the front and back sides of them like 6-7x. We each got to hold onto their fins and they swam with us attached. We got to hug the dolphin front and on back side. We played “splash” or water fight with the dolphin. Gave them commands on doing flips and dancing. It was one on one for 40 minutes with the dolphins! Awesome!

 

Xel-Ha- This was extra and not part of resort credit. For 2 it was around $285+/-  Amazing! Well worth the money. They pick you up at 7:30 and you get back after 7pm. You arrive at 10am to Xel-Ha which is all-inclusive and have to be back on bus at 6pm. This is an inlet from the ocean-a huge area! From the top-it takes over an hour to snorkel all the way back. Tons of tropical fish! Hammocks to lay in, cliff diving, animals, zip-lines and other fun things.

Bicycles-on the Nizuc side-you need tennis shoes to ride-free-we rode on trails around golf course and around resort-fun but hot!

Gym-they have ok equipment. Treadmills, elliptical, dumbbells, machines, spin bikes, mats ect. They have classes each day. My only regret is not trying out the high impact spinning class-I am a spin instructor and wished I could have tried out class. Never crowded-need tennis shoes.

 

Beach running was great! Beach is never crowded and you can always find a chair to lay out on. Water is not as clear as Cancun hotel strip. Nice sand and they maintain well!

 

SPA:

Husband liked his deep tissue, I wasn’t impressed. I wasn’t impressed with my French pedicure and it smeared 3 hrs later so I had a gf re-do day of wedding. Use resort credit otherwise too expensive…except hair and make-up-they are wonderful!

 

RANDOM TIPS:

Have everything ready to bring to wedding coordinator and bring a list of ?’s. Make sure you have things labeled and just a bag for her to bring whatever you need to reception. Music Cd’s, cake topper, camera ect..

 

Day of Wedding: Don’t stress—just remember…as long as both of you show up-nothing can go wrong.

 

Get a travel agent! They make sure your group is taken care of!

 

Sunscreen-sun is intense. Bring extra for your group

 

Do drink mugs for your guests! They will appreciate it and will use them after!

 

We were blown away from how well we were treated here at Moon Palace. I would recommend any palace resort and especially Moon Palace. People say that it is a huge resort and it is BUT everything is within a 5 min walking distance, at least from Nizuc side. We will be back next year for our one year anniversary! Same with some of our guests!

Nizuc Lobby

Sunrise Section-pool area. Swing bar. Actually swings, good music-way cool!