My husband and I stayed at the resort 10/12 - 10/17. As soon as we arrived, we were taken to the Romance concierge and offered champange. 

Our room was upgraded to a Junior suite with swim up pool. We do not typically spend much time in our room on vacation (which was the case this time), but we were very happy with the layout! The bathroom is very nice. There is a toilet, shower, and sink in a room with a door. Then, a separate very large vanity and large closet. We stayed in room 630, which is immediately beside the construction. The construction is very loud and begins pretty early in the morning. My husband sleeps like a rock, and was not bothered. I wore earplugs, and could not hear anything. So, this really did not bother us. Some other guests were bothered by the construction. However, they understood that the Royal does not control this, and still had a great time. 

Room service was great! We would order late night snacks each night (chicken quesadillas and guacamole were our favorites!). 

Tradewinds bar and the Lobby Bar have the nicest bartenders! Try a Rum Runner or Jamacain Spice - you will be very pleased! The Lobby bar had Tecate Light in cans, which was my husband's favorite beer at the resort. 

The food at the resort is phenomenal! We mostly ate at Spice and The Mediterranean for breakfast. Both are buffets. Even if there is a line for the omelettes, it is well worth the wait. Chan at Spice was such a nice waiter! He was very attentive to our large (and sometimes loud) group. 

For lunch and dinner, our favorite spot was Pelicanos. We loved eating so close to the water and the seafood entrees are delicious! Our favorite for lunch was the red snapper. The scallops are also delicious. If you try an appetizer, the shrimp and cantaloupe dish is wonderful.

We also ate Dinner at Asiana and Il Pescatore. Asiana is very good. The egg role appetizer and strawberry sauce was a nice surprise. The first night we ate at Asiana, the sushi and teriyaki dishes tasted very fresh. The second time we ate there (two nights later) the food did not taste as fresh and our service was much slower. Overall, still good food, Il Pescatore has wonderful lasagna! The waiters are also very nice! I am sad I cannot remember our waiter's name. 

We also ate at Maria Marie. This was our least favorite restaurant because it was very hot and uncomfortable inside. The food was decent, but I would recommend Pelicanos over this restaurant. 

During the day, we split our time pretty evenly between the beach and the pool. We had guests that preferred both. Sometimes, it was difficult to find a chair at the pool because it seems as though other guests would toss towels on the chairs, and never come back. As long as a person or their beach bag was not on the chair, we would sit on it. Katie at the pool is so much fun! We played blackjack and she has a cool bracelet making stand in the early afternoons. Danny Boy also does a great job of keeping the atmosphere fun and lively! Out on the beach, we did not have trouble finding chairs. The servers at the beach are also very attentive.

One morning, I tool Regina's spin class. She kicked my butt and it was great! If you have the time, try one of her classes. Unfortunately, I did not get the chance to try the Pilates reformer class. There are classes throughout the day, and you must sign up for a class. We noticed that people would sign up, but not show up. So, if there is a class you want, and it is full, I recommend going anyway just in case there is a no-show. The rest of the gym and equipment was very nice. 

Now, for our wedding :)
It was a little challenging at first with our off-site wedding coordinator, Elsa. She was not as responsive as we would have liked, However, one thing to understand is that they are on "island time". It would take a couple weeks, but all of our requests were made and we were very happy.
Lorena was our on-site wedding coordinator and she was awesome! She was very organized. We met the day before the wedding to go over all of the details. Everything on the day of the wedding went according to plan. 

I had my hair and make up done by Nataly in the spa. She was very nice and I was very pleased with how I looked - like me with some very pretty eye makeup! My hair did fall flat in just a few hours because of the humidity and wind. I knew I should have worn my hair up, but I like it so much better down. It did not bother me - I was having too much fun to worry about my hair. 

All of the flowers were from the resort. I was very happy with how pretty they turned out. My bouquet and my husband's boutonniere were included in our package. I ordered 2 bridesmaid bouquets and 3 additional boutonnieres. Lorena brought the flowers to our suite shortly before the ceremony. 

Our wedding was held at 4 PM, Tuesday Oct 15 on the beach by Pelicanos and we had 29 guests. The location is very pretty. Remember you are on a public beach if you choose this option. I was told we had quite a few onlookers for the wedding. I did not mind. I was just so excited to get married! In some of the pictures, you can see people on the beach or in the water. I think it adds to the Playa del Carmen charm. The only decorations I brought for the ceremony were some raffia, tulle, and seashell decorations for the chairs along the aisle. My mom and I had so much fun making them together. Lorena had these placed just before the ceremony. The aisle had a dark brown runner (helps when walking on the sand) and some large seashells that the resort provided. 

My sister's boyfriend played the ukulele and there was a microphone for him, so everyone was able to hear him play even though the wind and the waves were a little loud. Our secular officiant spoke wonderful English and all of our guests were able to clearly hear and understand her. Immediately following our ceremony, we had a champagne toast. It was pretty hot, and the cool champagne was just what we needed!

We chose an outside photographer, Octavio Montes. He was phenomenal! Our pictures are beautiful! All through the planning, he was very responsive to my emails (sometimes within an hour). Check out his website: http://octaviomontes.com/. His prices are great and very reasonable. Even with paying the outside vendor fee, he was not much more expensive than the resort photographers. I chose the 3 hour package without prints. Octavio met me at the Cancun airport with my DVDs with all of the photos. It was torture waiting until I was home to look at all of the pics on a computer! In just about a week, I received my edited photos and they are beautiful! I was not sure what he could edit - all of our pictures were so good. But, he removed some on-lookers from the beach pics (one guy in a speedo!) and made the colors so much more beautiful. The main reason we decided to use an outside photographer was that I could not find any examples of the resort photographer's work to help make my choice. The pictures and our memories (and some beach sand!) are all we have left after the ceremony. I wanted to be sure we would love our pictures. Here are a couple of my favorites:

We had a semi-private reception at 7:30 at Pelicanos. There was a long table set up to fit all 31 of us. It was decorated with the flowers from our ceremony and a white table runner. Our dinner was delicious and the service was wonderful! When I originally chose the menu with Elsa (off - site coordinator) I was told to choose a salad, garnish,entree, and dessert. When I met with Lorena, she suggested trading the dessert for a soup. We selected the zucchini cream soup and it was fabulous! We also chose the mimosa salad, surf and turf (seafood stuffed scallops and filet), and mashed potatoes. All of our guests enjoyed the dinner. Many told us it was their favorite meal of the trip. It was very pretty. We chose the Tres Leches cake, which was delicious! We chose the standard size cake. It was plenty for dessert for all of our guests. We asked that the leftover cake come to our room with breakfast the following morning. Instead of the leftover cake, they brought a brand new cake! Too much for just us, but it was delicious!

All of our guests said we had a beautiful wedding and they all had a great time! One of the least stressful weddings they have ever attended! The only stress I encountered during the entire planning process came from our guests - ha! The resort was wonderful. The day of the wedding, I was paddle boarding in the ocean and had to be reminded to go get ready! It was such a wonderful experience. 

Overall, we had the most amazing vacation and a dream wedding. We would not change a thing and we cannot wait to return next year and celebrate our anniversary! Feel free to ask me any questions. This site was so very helpful!