AOverall, we had a great wedding and were very happy. That said, we had some issues. Although they didn’t ultimately detract from our wedding, they were annoying enough that I doubt we’ll return to MP. This is a review of our entire experience, so some of it may not reflect on MP specifically (e.g., travel agent experience). The pictures are the few my friends and family have provided to date; we don't have our real pictures yet. Wedding Date: 6.24.12 # of people: ~30 On-Site Coordinator: Valeria Rehearsal Dinner Location: El Carribeno Group Room Block: Nizuc Side (except 1) Ceremony Location: Tucan Gazebo Cocktail Hour: Tucan Terrace Reception: Arrecifes (Terrace) [B][U]BOOKING PROCESS[/U][/B]: We used Wendy from Wright Travel (site sponsors). I was not thrilled with our experience and don’t think I would go out of my way to recommend her, but wouldn’t dissuade someone from using her either. She was very prompt with her communication, which is great and something I very much appreciate. That said, our initial room block communications made it clear that we were just guessing re what type of rooms to block, but expected that our guests and potential guests receive quotes for all room types (subject to availability). However, until we complained, our guests were only being quoted prices for the room type we blocked unless they asked for other rooms, and they didn’t know anything about the resort to ask about other, cheaper, options. And when we did complain, I felt like Wendy gave us a little pushback, and I had to dig up the old emails to show her the exact substance of our prior communication on the topic. We also had some problems with our booking through the wholesaler (described below) that I don’t believe was Wendy’s fault, but still soured us a little on the experience. [B][U]PRE-ARRIVAL COMMUNICATION[/U][/B]: Do I even have to say anything? Virtually non-existent and worthless. [B][U]ARRIVAL/CHECK-IN[/U][/B]: We had specifically requested rooms on the Sunrise side, yet we were placed on the Nizuc side, and nobody bothered telling us until we arrived (we first discovered it when our van driver pulled up at Nizuc). Furthermore, we discovered that just one of our party (my brother and his family) was placed in Sunrise because he had booked a family room and (they claimed) no such rooms existed at Nizuc. I felt like this was very poor service, and they should have offered him something different. His family consists of one girl in college, one girl in high school, and one boy in middle school, and the “family” room was just two adjoining rooms. They could easily have been accommodated in two adjacent rooms, if indeed Nizuc had no family rooms. Which isn’t even true, because when we complained loudly, they suddenly found one. But by that point, my brother and his family had settled into their room and didn’t want to move (which I think was a mistake, they were very far away and it was very nice to have everyone else close by at such a huge resort). MP also originally placed one of our party in the Nizuc lobby building, far away from the rest of us and subject to the extremely loud thumping music (the rain drove every activity into the lobby), even though those people had booked the same type of room as the rest of us. When that member of our party complained a lot, suddenly a room near the rest of us miraculously appeared. We also discovered that our own reservation had somehow been booked as a 2 night stay and a 3 night stay, instead of a 5 night stay, so when we first looked into using the resort credits, we only had a 3 night stay amount, and had to go back to the front desk to get this fixed. This little glitch caused us additional problems later on, because the front desk could add in the credits but somehow not change our reservation to a 5 night single stay. On more than one occasion our use of credits was held up because they had us in their system as checking out 3 days early. And I was somewhat annoyed that we had to go back and forth between the front desk and the resort credit people. Good customer service would recognize that this was not our fault and would get it fixed behind the scenes, yet we had to bounce between the front desk and the resort credit people often. [B][U]RESORT CREDITS[/U][/B]: Quite simply, I think their system sucks. As most of our guests discovered, if your stay is short, most likely everything you want to do with your credits is booked by the time you arrive; if you have your heart set on something, figure out how to book it before you arrive. And waiting in a long line to be told that most things are booked sucks. We booked some spa stuff for my (now) wife, and booked a massage for both of us. We had asked Valeria if they could allow us to use more than $300 at the spa because I have a broken hand and couldn’t do any of the tours. She asked for us but the response was no, so we decided to cancel the massage. Well, guess what, you can only cancel the appointment by waiting in the long line again, you can’t do it on the phone. And even after that, the massage still showed up on our bill at checkout. And though I had the “cancellation” sheet in my hand, the front desk clerk said that we had to go talk again to the resort credit people to straighten it out; she couldn’t help us because it was a different system. Again, good customer service would recognize that this was not our fault and would get it fixed behind the scenes, instead of telling us to go get it fixed. Basically, I believe the resort credit system is just a gimmick to get you to spend more money while making the resort appear as if they are giving you lots of “free” stuff, and all the standing in line stuff is part of the design. I don’t know how much of our $1500 credit we ultimately used. We spent a couple hundred on hair and makeup, we got the vouchers for the tequila box set and the cigars, and we did a few wine upgrades; maybe we spent half. [B][U]ROOMS/RESORT[/U][/B]: Our room was very nice and right on the beach walkway (so not as private as I would have liked). Room service and housekeeping were great and very prompt. At one point we had a bunch of ants coming in (a big problem considering they were in our daughter’s crib), which they came and dealt with and the ants didn’t come back. The one big problem we had was that on our last day, it POURED for quite a while (we had a lot of rain over the 5 days), and our room started to flood (came under the front door). Luckily we were in the room, and my wife discovered the water (it’s hard to see on a white marble floor!) by stepping in it. We had to use every towel in the room to stop the flow. Luckily, nothing was damaged and we took everything off the floor. They were not as quick at dealing with that, we finally left to meet our friends for dinner, but it was cleaned up when we returned. I suspect we were not the only room with this problem, and quite frankly I was surprised at how poorly the resort handled rain. Leaks everywhere, including the covered walkways. [U][B]RESTAURANTS[/B][/U]: El Manglar: This was easily the worst food we had; the buffets at Sunrise and Grand were better, as was the breakfast buffet at Arrecifes on the other side of the lobby. We ate our first night dinner here because the other restaurants’ wait times were super long. After that, we learned that we needed to show up at the nice restaurants right as they opened, so as not to wait and get good food. Los Caporales: Ate one dinner here and really enjoyed it. [URL=http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/881691/width/600/height/450][IMG]http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/881691/width/600/height/450[/IMG][/URL] El Carribeno: This became our go to spot. Our rooms were very close to the Grand side, so it was actually the closest restaurant. The food was good (both buffet and dinner) and the staff here just treated us so well. We had our rehearsal dinner here and enjoyed it. Then, after our poor experience at Arrecifes the next night (see reception discussion below) we headed over here to hang out at the upstairs bar, but it was closed so we sat outside on their covered patio and the staff came out to serve us drinks. After a bit, the manager came out to tell us that they were closing but we could go hang out and drink upstairs. We told him that they were closed, so he made a call, and then said that he would keep his bar open and they would continue to serve us. And they were very attentive to us the entire time (we were a large group with lots of drink orders). That kind of service, on the night of our wedding and after the poor service at Arrecifes, was very appreciated. We came back for dinner the next night and once again were treated extremely well. Los Tacos: This place is very hard to find, but unlike the consensus here, I don’t think it’s worth seeking out. Not bad, but totally unimpressive. Arrecifes: Decent breakfast buffet, and I enjoyed the dinner food and the salad bar was also good. But the dinner service was terrible. [B][U]WEDDING CEREMONY:[/U][/B] Our ceremony was at the Tucan Gazebo. We originally requested to be at the Bugambilla Gazebo as we expected to be staying at the Sunrise side and did not want the location to be so far away. Of course, we ended up being placed right next to the Tucan so the location worked out great (and in retrospect, I would not request Sunrise; I really liked being in Nizuc and very close to Grand). Tucan is a beautiful spot, with a nice long entry sidewalk, lots of open space around the Gazebo, and not a lot of people around. Considering how much it rained over our 5 night trip, we got lucky and had great weather on our wedding day. The ceremony went great overall (we wrote our own script and had our own officiant), but they completely screwed up the music for our wedding, even though we provided them with a CD of just 5 songs and filled out a little sheet Valeria gave us with track numbers for each part. Seriously, when you write “Track #2” for the carriage entrance, how do they play track 3? And when you indicate “track #4” for the bride’s entrance, how do they play track 1 then track 5? Such a simple task, and they completely blew it. While it ultimately doesn’t matter, I married the woman I love next to the beach, in front of family and close friends, it was still pretty disappointing considering all the effort that went in to picking the songs and providing them with the CD and track list. [URL=http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/881690/width/525/height/700][IMG]http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/881690/width/525/height/700[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/881689/width/600/height/450][IMG]http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/881689/width/600/height/450[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/881688/width/600/height/450][IMG]http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/881688/width/600/height/450[/IMG][/URL] Overall, Valeria was fine as a wedding planner, we didn’t ask much of her and didn’t have complaints either. Still, my final memory of Valeria was at the end of our cocktail reception when we asked about replacement bracelets (she had cut ours off for the ceremony), and she said “don’t worry, I will see you at the dinner and will have new bracelets for you.” We never saw nor heard from her again. We never did get replacement bracelets, but nobody seemed to notice or care. [B][U]COCKTAIL/RECEPTION:[/U][/B] Our cocktail went smoothly, no complaints at all. I didn’t eat any of the food, but it looked fine. Our reception dinner was on the terrace of Arrecifes. There appeared to be another reception dinner also on the terrace, around the corner. I have read on here about how people were made to feel special and not just like another diner, but we felt like the opposite, we felt like an afterthought, that we would have received much better service inside. They brought one tiny plate of appetizers for each table of 8; my wife had to ask that they bring a second plate for each table. After they brought our initial drink orders, nobody ever again asked us if we wanted more to drink. My mom’s empty iced tea stayed that way. We had to go get them so we could “cut the cake”. And then get them again to serve the cake. At the end of the evening, we had to go complain to the manager just have everyone asked if they wanted coffee or other drinks. And when the manager did come, he wasn’t very apologetic. Just an overall disappointing experience for a wedding dinner reception, and one we were never able to share with Valeria because she never showed up or contacted us (and wasn’t in the office when we stopped by the next day). [B][U]PHOTOS[/U][/B]: We used Smile Market, the resort photographers. Now that I have received our shots, here's my updated review. I am satisfied with what we received. We ordered the Superior package, I think; it was the cheapest option that included the CD of the images. In any case, my expectations were fairly low, and they were met. We got some decent pictures, and some decent photo products, at a reasonable price. That said, if you are very particular, you'll want to make sure to provide them with a lot more direction and supervision than we did. The guy was competent, but he didn't get a ton of good candid shots, and his "eye" for shots was just ok. And he never said goodbye, he just disappeared. But we provided him with very little direction, we didn't want to be bothered. If you really care a lot about the photos (and have the money to spare), there are surely much better choices out there. He did get some great shots of our daughter, for that I'm happy. [URL=http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/886930/width/464/height/700][IMG]http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/886930/width/464/height/700[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/886931/width/464/height/700][IMG]http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/886931/width/464/height/700[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/886932/width/600/height/398][IMG]http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/886932/width/600/height/398[/IMG][/URL] [B][U]OVERALL[/U][/B]: We had a great wedding with family and friends at a beautiful resort. We ate and drank good food and liquor for days. And perhaps most importantly, our daughter had a fantastic time. Everyone was super nice to her, and she learned how to say “hola”! What’s not to love? So in the long run, I and my wife are happy. [URL=http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/881686/width/600/height/450][IMG]http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/881686/width/600/height/450[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/881687/width/600/height/450][IMG]http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/image/id/881687/width/600/height/450[/IMG][/URL] That said, there were enough hiccups that I don’t know if I’d return to MP. It’s a lot of money, money that could probably be spent better elsewhere, if I wasn’t planning a wedding. And lastly, my ipod was stolen from one of my bags after the bellman picked them up and before we got on the shuttle for the airport. Didn’t notice until I was on the plane. Not a huge loss, I have all the music on my computer and it cost $110 to buy a replacement, but it leaves a very bad final taste in my mouth.