Hi Ladies!

Just got back from our wedding at PPC. Here is a long review.

We arrived at PPC on Saturday afternoon. We were greeted immediately by a staff member after we got off the bus and asked us about our checkin information. I was with 4 other guests and we were on her list, so she took us to the main lobby and told us someone would be with us shortly. We stood around for about 5 minutes waiting for that someone, but no one ever came. There was no sense of order at check-in, i.e. no lines. Guests were just kind of scattered everywhere. There were 3 workers behind the checkin desk so we decided to just stand at the desk until someone helped us. After another 5 minutes, someone started helping us but at the same time they were helping someone else so it was a bit odd.

Check-in

We arrived at PPC on a Saturday, which I was later told was one of their busiest days at the main lobby.  Check-in was a bit disorganized. After wasting 30 minutes there, we were eventually told that we were upgraded to Royal Service since we were having a wedding there and that there is a different check-in location for that. We were brought to the royal service lounge which started out nice, but wasted another hour there until we were brought to our room.  They are on island time big time in DR, so don’t expect quick service here, it’s just part of their culture, very laid back. We finally arrived to our upgraded room which was in the Reserve section. The reserve is a newer section of the resort but quite far from the beach. It was about 15 minute walk to the beach. But trams do come by maybe every 10-15 minutes to pick up guests to bring to the beach area where majority of the fun stuff was located. The room was nice one bedroom suite. Compared t o the rooms in the non-reserve section, these were quite nice and spacious.  But if I had a choice, I would have opted for a room closer to the beach. We wasted a lot of time just waiting for the tram to go back and forth from the beach.

Tip: if you are bride/groom, in the front where you are dropped off there is a little sign to the left for royal service guests. Check there first if your name is there before heading to main lobby to save you time at check-in since it seems like most bride/groom will get this upgrade.

Welcome Cocktail/Rehearsal Dinner

We got a free welcome cocktail with our travel agent since we booked so many rooms, so that was a nice little extra to have with our group. Unfortunately, the times available were quite early i.e. 4 or 5 and we were normally at the beach until 6, so that cut into our beach time. Rehearsal dinner was at gabi beach. We had a set menu. I booked this ahead of time before arriving at PPC. If you have a party of more than 20, you will be charged an additional $15 per person for guests past 20 and that’s including kids and babies! This was unfortunate. I had 2 kids (4, 7 yr) and a baby who I was charged for and they didn’t even get the food that I initially pre-ordered for them.

Restaurants

La Palapa, which is only for Royal Service guests, was very good. Surf and Turf was delicious. Vento and Mole was also good. Unfortunately, you have to make reservations for the restaurants for dinner so it is hard to have group dinners together. Luckily we met the customer service manager and he helped us out with that and we were able to eat dinner together most of the nights. Not sure if it was the food, but about 6 of my guests including myself got diarrheaL, so be careful, sorry TMI. bring pepto bismol just in case!

Night life

Our group was late 20s into 30s so we like to drink and dance. Gabi beach at night was always fun and the bartenders are very entertaining. They also have a club in the lobby that we went to once, it was too loud and far. There is also a casino, but beware, they tend to change the rules on you especially if you are winning.

Yhi Spa

Got my hair done at Yhi spa since it came with my wedding package. The lady helping me out did not speak any English. I showed her a picture of what I wanted, but I did not get what I wanted L So I ended up having her just doing a basic do. They use soooo much hair spray!! I gave the free makeup to my mom, but that didn’t turn out well either. Luckily, I have family members that do makeup so they were able to fix that for her

Photographer

I used HDC. When I booked my wedding, I was originally told by Lauren from the Miami office about the outside vendor fee of $1000 for photographer and the workaround would be to book one night room for them, which I did. An hour before the ceremony started, the onsite wedding coordinator told my fiancé that there was issue with photographer and that they would not be able to come in to the property unless we pay the $1000 fee or book 3 nights! There was some kind of miscommunication going on here big time. The photographer called me from the front desk about issues getting in and since they had a room reservation they were finally let in. I was not stressed about this since I knew I had it in writing from the lauren what I was told, so we just discussed the photog issue after the wedding. HDC did a great job. Milian and Carlos was a pleasure to work with.

Tip: make sure you keep all emails from wedding coordinator and make sure to have it in clear writing if they promise you anything in particular.

Ceremony

We had our ceremony on the beach in front of building 19 at 4:30 pm. There were still a lot of people on the beach, but to be honest, I hardly noticed them. I originally wanted to have ceremony on the gazebo, but they charge you $500 just to use it. We did a symbolic ceremony and the lady that officiated did a great job and spoke EnglishJ. We brought our own music in ipod and they played the correct music and on queue!

Cocktail Reception 

Immediately followed the ceremony on the beach as well. We had the chill out chic package so it came with 3 cold appetizers. We also rented out the sound system for $100 which I’m not sure why they would have to charge since it’s the same system used for the ceremony.

Dinner Reception

We decided to have the dinner reception at the main pool. Unfortunately, our day was the hottest and most humid of the whole week and there is not much of a breeze in the pool area. We chose the grill option, which was quite good. But I think they were missing one of our menu items. We’ve been eating buffet all week so it didn’t bother me much. You should maybe ask to have the section closed off since we did notice some random people walking through our party.

We used the dj that booked through the hotel and they did a good job. They even gave us a free mini fireworks on our first dance. I did have a detailed outline of when I wanted certain things to occur i.e. toast, cake cutting, but the dj didn’t really follow the itinerary, but it was fine, it all worked out in the end.

Our wedding coordinator onsite was Beatris and she was a pleasure to work with.

If you have any issues during your stay contact Nathaniel (customer service manager) and he will be on top of it. We had issues during checkin and helped us out a lot. He also helped us get dinner reservations for our group and hung out with us on occasion. Very fun guy.

Let me know if you have any questions.