Barcelo Maya Palace Brides

[780chick]

Has anyone had Lillian as their wedding coordinator?  I have been working with Jacqueline up until now but just got an email saying that I will now be working with Lillian??  This makes me a little nervous since I have never heard anyone talk about Lillian...

I had Lillian last year and she handled our wedding of 80 almost flawlessly. There were only a couple of glitches - like having to wait for a second bus to transport people to the reception. You can read my very long review http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/products/barcelo-maya-palace-deluxe-all-inclusive/reviews/5916

[Fitzgerh]

Originally Posted by FireyNurse 

 

I searched all over BDW about tipping and found lots of great advice! There are a few brides/grooms on this Barcelo forum who have provided what they tipped. 

 

Our group was small-ish and I wasn't a high maintenance bride (I would say), we had about 22 guests and we tipped the wedding coordinator $75, photographer we paid his rate directly as he was already a private one we hired so since he makes his rates and works for himself we didn't tip further (that was advice given on here...if they work for a company tip them, if they work for themselves you are paying them directly). Officiant made $300 cash so we didn't tip further, the way we saw it was he got that as cash and we could have not paid that at all had we had our own person to officiate it. Servers/Bartender staff we paid $25 each. And I can't think of anyone else we tipped other than that.

 

Another question was this in usd or pesos? Did anyone have issues with currency conversion?

[gilmana]

Originally Posted by Fitzgerh 

 

 

Another question was this in usd or pesos? Did anyone have issues with currency conversion?

The prices are in Dollars.  I think the officiant has to be paid in cash... but the rest of our wedding we paid with debit & credit cards.  We got slammed with conversion fees.  If we had known then, what we know now, we would have tried to pay it all in cash or traveler's checks to avoid $100s in foreign transaction fees.  

[amcoletta88]

Perfect!! Thanks so much for your reply!
 

[Fitzgerh]

Originally Posted by gilmana 

 

The prices are in Dollars.  I think the officiant has to be paid in cash... but the rest of our wedding we paid with debit & credit cards.  We got slammed with conversion fees.  If we had known then, what we know now, we would have tried to pay it all in cash or traveler's checks to avoid $100s in foreign transaction fees.  

Oh this helps so much! Was it possible to have the wedding paid for before you arrived and pay the extras when you arrived? We are not trying to fly to mexico with all of that cash ahhh!

[Kristina610]

Originally Posted by 780chick 

 

 

I had Lillian last year and she handled our wedding of 80 almost flawlessly. There were only a couple of glitches - like having to wait for a second bus to transport people to the reception. You can read my very long review

 

http://www.bestdestinationwedding.com/products/barcelo-maya-palace-deluxe-all-inclusive/reviews/5916

 

Great, thank you! That makes me feel better.  Your wedding looked amazing, do you have a link to your TTD pictures.  I love looking at them to get inspiration for ours, I am very excited about doing them!

[sunbride2be]

This was very informative, thank you and an Amazing wedding!

[FireyNurse]

Another question was this in usd or pesos? Did anyone have issues with currency conversion?

USD for the cash. As for the other larger amount to pay the resort, we used our visa for it as it was a huge amount of cash to be taking down. Make sure you call the credit card prior to going, though, as a large transaction in Mexico will surely be declined if you don't. I told them we would be there, also said it would be a large transaction and to put a note on my account. This way we also got the travel points too the conversion that is used when your card is charged is fantastic, about 13 pesos to 1 usd when we were there!

[FireyNurse]

The prices are in Dollars.  I think the officiant has to be paid in cash... but the rest of our wedding we paid with debit & credit cards.  We got slammed with conversion fees.  If we had known then, what we know now, we would have tried to pay it all in cash or traveler's checks to avoid $100s in foreign transaction fees.  

Check with your bank/card provider about fees, we didn't have any issue with ours for the wedding, the exchange rate was great and no huge fees associated. when we previously went to Mexico and rented a place in town we were there for an extended amount of time and shopping like locals so we needed to use pesos. when we looked into our cards, my hubby's bank charged crazy fees for international card use on his debit card and mine did not. We now are both with my bank because of the ease for travel and cheap cost for international bank machine use.

[gilmana]

Originally Posted by Fitzgerh 

 

Oh this helps so much! Was it possible to have the wedding paid for before you arrived and pay the extras when you arrived? We are not trying to fly to mexico with all of that cash ahhh!

We were not able to pay anything before.  The good thing is, you can pay your vendors before you leave so the major cost when you there is just to the Barcelo.  We had our parents carry some of the cash and I would suggest you just spread it out among people.  Do NOT take $10,000 in cash - just you or you and your fiance.  You could get into trouble in Cancun with immigration.  But if you have the money spread out - shouldn't be an issue.