aventura spa palace

[angelov321]

we only stopped at one other hotel on the way. My guests also said they only had one stop and some didnt even have to stop. When they do drop people off, the drivers are very fast. It really didnt take as long as I thought it would.
 

Originally Posted by Banksnelson 

Thanks ladies! Does the hotel shuttle stop at the other resorts too? Yesenia gave me the ok to arrive by 3:00 so I think I am ok now. Flight is scheduled to land at 10 something.

[angelov321]

 

 

Ok ladies. Im finally getting time to post my review. Im posting it on here, but I also posted it on the ASP review section. Hope its helpful...

 

Firstly, I have to say that this was the best hotel I have ever stood at. It was beautiful and the servers were the nicest and most accommodating people I have ever encountered.

 

We arrived 4 days before the actual wedding and Im glad we did. We were so busy handling wedding stuff that I probably only got a half day to rest and enjoy the resort during the day. Between meeting with our wedding coordinator, Wilma and the DJ and OOT bags, and welcoming guests and it was a little hectic, but definitely worth it.

 

We arrived on Monday and on Tuesday Wilma set up our meeting. During the meeting, she went over every little detail from the welcome dinner to reception. She showed us pictures of the different floral arrangements, bouquets, boutonnières, menus etc. If you haven’t chosen all the details before you get to Mexico, don’t worry about it. You can literally choose everything during your meeting. I had already purchased vases, tea light candle holders, and L.E.D tea lights. All I needed was cally lilies. She originally quoted me $90 for 20 flowers. Once I told her I could get each flower for $2 a piece back in the states, she called the florist and they came down on the price. We also negotiated the price on the boutonnières and bouquets for the 5 bm’s. In the end we paid $60 for 20 cally lilies, $25/ea boutonnière and $35/ea bouquet. The bouquets were very pricey for their size, but either way we still saved money. Wilma’s only concern was to make sure we were happy with everything. Every question we had and every request we made, she made sure we were happy. She definitely takes her job seriously. We were there for 2 weeks and every time we saw Wilma, she was running around. I know one of my concerns during the wedding planning was lack of quick responses from the coordinators, but now I understand why. They stay busy all day! There were times where Wilma was still working at 10pm.

 

Thursday, the day before the wedding, we had our welcome dinner. Wilma recommended us the Spa Terrace which is one of the huts on the lagoon not far from the Spa side pool. She even added pink lighting on the outside poles to help with decorations, which I absolutely loved! The Spa Terrace was great; however, it was extremely windy! Girl’s dresses were flying up everywhere and liquids were flying out of our cups. It was actually funny how we all handled the wind. Eventually it died down and we were able to enjoy the party a little more. We rented the Ipod docking station for music and the tech who was handling the music was ok. He really didn’t follow our directions on which songs to play, which was a little annoying. Nonetheless, we all had a blast. We ordered the Italian menu for our buffet and it was awesome! I wasn’t a huge fan of the Italian restaurant so I was skeptical, but I definitely was proved wrong. Everyone loved the food! Afterwards, we all went to the disco for some more fun. Before midnight, my fiancé and I split up and I went to the Spa side to stay with my sis and MOH and he went to our room on the Cove for the night.

 

I hired Fernando for a make-up and hair trial and he was awesome!! He was so nice and was funny. He listened to what I wanted and delivered. He did my make-up as well as my MOH. Everybody was complimenting us all night long!

 

Wedding Day

 

I had scheduled an appt for all the girls including moms, bm’s and hubbys 2 sisters at 9:30 for massages and 10:30 for mani and pedi’s. We all had the 50min holistic massage and mines was ok. It was relaxing, but I’ve had better massages. Some of the bm’s shared the same opinion as me and some enjoyed their massage, so I guess it just depends on who you get. At 10:30 we went to the salon to get our nails done and the ladies were very accommodating. They got us in and out very fast. I wasn’t extremely happy with my French manicure. The next day it had already started to chip L

 

By noon we were all in my sisters room waiting for the make-up artist and hair stylist come. As soon as they arrived they started on the girls. Fernando couldn’t come to do my make-up, but he sent his teacher and he did an awesome job as well.

 

By 2:00. the photographers were in the room. I hired Adrian Herrera and let me just say, he was the best decision ever! Ill get to him a little later. When they arrived I hadn’t started my make-up or hair so he took pics of my dress, shoes and bm’s. He then went to the Cove for a few minutes and took pics of the guys getting ready. By the time he was back, I was getting make-up done so he got a few “getting ready†shots of me. We ordered room service for us and the photogs and stylists. We probably ordered almost everything on the menu along with 2 bottles of champagne.

 

At 3:00, my girls were fully dressed and helped me get my dress on. At 3:30 they all left to go to the Coba Gazebo. My dad came to the room and we waited for Wilma to come with his boutonnière, my bouquet and the horse and carriage. At 4pm she still wasn’t there. Around 4:05 or so she came and said some of my guests were late to the wedding and she delayed getting me because she wanted to wait until everyone was seated. I definitely wasn’t happy about that, but that was something I took up with those guests. I purchased the Diamond package, which comes with the photographer so he and the video guy came with Wilma and took pics and recorded me and my father. The horse and carriage was great! I loved it. My dad even starting crying and I’ve never seen him cry!

 

We pulled up to the end of the stairs and I can hear all my guests cheering for me as I stepped down from the carriage. There was a big group of people eating at the Mundaca restaurant and they were all cheering also as I walked the long path to the gazebo. We had the harpist play and as I entered the gazebo I didn’t recognize the song being played. Later my guests told me, she didn’t play any traditional wedding music. I was disappointed by that because I did ask for traditional wedding music. Anyways, the ceremony was beautiful! The decorations were so pretty. We did a symbolic wedding so the judge opened up the ceremony with a prayer. The ceremony was definitely religious and we both liked that a lot. We did the sand ceremony, which was nice. The whole ceremony probably lasted 20min. It seemed like it went too fast. The judge pronounced us as husband and wife and when we kissed, fireworks went off in the background. I highly recommend the fireworks.

 

As soon as we walked out the gazebo we had our first champagne toast and we thanked everyone for coming. We then went to take group and solo pics. Adrian was great with his directions. His vision is so creative! The resort photographer just followed along in Adrians footsteps. He didn’t do a very good job. As we were taking pics, our guests were at Pandero Terrace enjoying and international hor’dourvres and the Mexican trio. We totally missed our 90min cocktail hour because we were taking pics, but I know the pics were definitely worth it.

 

Reception at the Solarium began at 6pm so at 5:45 my girls and I went to my MOH room so they can help bustle my dress. That ended up taking 45min! I was so late to the wedding lol Once I was ready, we started the party! We were introduced, had all the first dances and then partied a little before food was served. We ordered the Caribbean menu and it was really good. Everybody went up for seconds and some went for thirds. After dinner, we partied more and had lots of Tequila shots. JWe took a few minutes with Adrian to take more pics. When we came back we got all the wedding traditions out the way like the cake cutting, garter removal/toss and bouquet toss. Let me also say, the cake was delicious!!! We got tres leche and strawberry and it was soooo good!

 

We rented the ipod docking station for the reception as well and again, the same guy was a disappointment. He didn’t play the songs that were in the “wedding file†instead he played all the songs from the welcome dinner. We had to keep redirecting him. It wasn’t an issue my guests noticed. They were all dancing all night and were really enjoying themselves. We also purchased some Cohibas and Wilma set up an area where the guys can smoke them. All the guys really enjoyed that. The servers were the best! They made sure no ones cup was empty and every time I went to the bar they asked me, “how many shots?â€

 

At 10pm the reception was over and I had my Moh go and collect my champagne glasses, cake topper and centerpieces no one wanted. While she was doing that, we all headed to the disco. We had a blast, until 2 of the bm’s got crazy drunk so we ended our night at about midnight. We had one of the bellmen take us to our room on the Spa side because my feet were killing me. I definitely recommend bringing flats!

 

All in all, the wedding was fabulous!!! I had the best time ever! Wilma did an excellent job in preparing everything for me and helped make my day perfect. Just to add also, Pandero, Coba and Solarium are all within a few feet of each other. This was perfect for my guests because they didn’t have to walk very far to get to all the wedding festivities.

 

Now to the hotel review…

 

I have to say that the servers were all great!!! They are there to treat you like royalty. Atleast that’s how I felt. We had no issues with any of the servers. However, some of the public relations people and the people that handle reservations were another story.

 

I made spa and salon reservations for my 5bm’s, 2 mothers and my 2 SIL’s. I had confirmation regarding the reservations before I got to Mexico. When the girls arrived, they all went to the spa desk to confirm their appts and some of the girls reservations were somehow lost. Supposedly there was no record. Then some girls had to pay a difference of $23 because the services equaled out to $173 and the max promotion credits each person can use for spa was $150. They would not budge on that. Lost reservations seemed to be something that just kept happening all weekend long for my guests.

 

Food

 

The food was great!!! Breakfast and lunch were buffet style and it was delicious everyday. The sit down restaurants were for the most part good too. The only negative to the restaurants is that service is very slow. We went to dinner at 7 every night and every night we were at dinner till atleast 9:30 or 10.  We did have atleast 6-9ppl at dinner with us each night, which may have slowed down the service, but regardless, it was extremely slow. We ate at every restaurant except the La Huerta, I want a big fan of their menu. Mundaca, in my opinion, was the best restaurant. The steak was perfect! We ate there about 3x.

 

Promotion credits

 

Well, all I can say is that they really hype you up with the $1500 credits and its really for nothing. Yes, you can go swimming with A dolphin, visit the ruins and go zip lining, but really its just a bunch of hype. They gave us so too issues with reservations, confirmations etc. We spent too much time fighting with them. Hardly any of my guests used all of the $1500. All the excursions were corny except for Chichen Itza (Mayan ruins). Swimming with the dolphins was nice, but you only get to swim with one dolphin and do one trick with them, while other groups are swimming with 2 dolphins and doing atleast 2 tricks. And, you can’t take pics while you’re with the dolphin. They have their own photographer and once you’re done, they offer you all the pics they took for $250! Zip lining was not really that fun. It was really slow. Some of my guests did the romantic lobster dinner for 2 and said they could have done without it. The dinner wasn’t private like the hotel makes it seem like it is. Some guests used their credits to buy wine at dinner or take professional pictures around the resort. But really, its hard to use up all the credits.

 

FYI about the credits: if you’re staying on one side of the hotel and then switch to the other side, you will lose all credits you had remaining. For example, we were staying on the Cove side from Monday night until Friday. We received $750 in credits and when we switched to the Spa side, we had $240 remaining because we had booked excursions. Once we checked in to the Spa side, we received an additional $1500 in credits because we were going to be staying there for 9 nights. We were told before we got to Mexico that we will receive $2250 in credits, which we did get, but we were never told that the $240 would be lost once we switched sides. We were planning to use credits for the wedding package so it took us by surprise when we didn’t have enough credits to cover the package. It took the hotel 4 days to refer us to the right person to help us resolve the issue. Finally, Bernadette from accounting helped us and let me just say, she was awesome!! So friendly and helpful. She gave us back the $240 and we were able to payoff the package. J

 

Please save all confirmation numbers, emails etc when dealing with the hotel. I had to learn the hard way.

 

Few issues:

 

Two of my guests complained that items were stolen from their room. $60 was taken out of a guests wallet and also a girlfriend claims her Prada glasses were stolen from her room. The hotel did nothing to help them out. All they said is they are not responsible for lost or stolen items. So basically, USE the safe. If something goes missing and you didn’t use the safe, the hotel wont help you.

 

Besides the reservation desk workers and the stolen items, we had an awesome time. The ceremony and reception were perfect and the hotel was gorgeous! I would recommend ASP to future brides for sure. We stood for 13 nights and we were never bored. The poolside entertainers were so funny and entertaining, the lagoons were beautiful and definitely made up for the lack of beach and the property is one of the most beautiful properties I have seen. They have monkeys, iguanas, crabs and small lizards roaming around. Everyday you find something new.

 

I hope this review was helpful.

 

Good luck to all the future brides. J

[sxcT]

Thanks for posting your review Erika.  Glad you had a great time and the weather was perfect for your special day.  I love reading reviews because it gets me so excited. 

 

Just a few questions if you don't mind...

- Did you upgrade your room using the promo dollars?  If so, was it worth it?

- Was the iPod docking station playing loud enough for everyone to hear?  How much did that run you?

- Do you have pictures to share yet?  Can't wait to see what everything looked like...especially you. 

[angelov321]

the docking station was about $325 per night. It came with 2 speakers and it was very loud. It sounded the same way it would sound if you hired the DJ.

 

We upgraded rooms while we were on the cove side from regular superior deluxe to superior deluxe with oceanview because we made our 75 room nights. We had already booked the conceirge level and wished we didnt. Regardless of what room you stay in, they all look exactly the same. All concierge has is a few added perks, but it definitely wasnt worth the $438/night. If I had known, I would have booked the superior and then upgraded to concierge for free.
 

One of my guests upgraded to the concierge level and they said they paid about $400 something for 3 nights using their vacation dollars. They were probably one of the only people that used the majority of their vacation dollars and it probably was because of the upgrade. lol

Originally Posted by sxcT 

Thanks for posting your review Erika.  Glad you had a great time and the weather was perfect for your special day.  I love reading reviews because it gets me so excited. 

 

Just a few questions if you don't mind...

- Did you upgrade your room using the promo dollars?  If so, was it worth it?

- Was the iPod docking station playing loud enough for everyone to hear?  How much did that run you?

- Do you have pictures to share yet?  Can't wait to see what everything looked like...especially you. 

[n4turally]

Erika:

This may be a dumb question   But I'm debating between hiring a DJ and using a dock with a specific playlist.  I read that you did all the 'traditional' wedding events such as first dance, garter, cake cutting etc...  how would you say that went being that you had someone administering the dock and not an actual emcee?  I guess what I'm asking is whether or not you were happy with your choice of going with the dock when it came to that part ( i know you said you were 100% content with how he administered/played the playlist...) but what about everything else?

I was debating whether or not we should just go with the docking station or hire a DJ.  My main question is how smooth that all goes if you don't go with the DJ when it comes to the announcements, etc.

 

 

 

 

Originally Posted by angelov321 

the docking station was about $325 per night. It came with 2 speakers and it was very loud. It sounded the same way it would sound if you hired the DJ.

 

We upgraded rooms while we were on the cove side from regular superior deluxe to superior deluxe with oceanview because we made our 75 room nights. We had already booked the conceirge level and wished we didnt. Regardless of what room you stay in, they all look exactly the same. All concierge has is a few added perks, but it definitely wasnt worth the $438/night. If I had known, I would have booked the superior and then upgraded to concierge for free.
 

One of my guests upgraded to the concierge level and they said they paid about $400 something for 3 nights using their vacation dollars. They were probably one of the only people that used the majority of their vacation dollars and it probably was because of the upgrade. lol

[angelov321]

Not a dumb question at all!!

 

If youre about saving money, I would definitely go with the docking station. Its cheap and if youre well prepared everything will go smoothly. We gave the tech our Ipod and laptop to use. On our laptop we had songs sorted out in different folders. For example, our first dance was in the "first dance" folder, cake cutting song was in the "cake cutting" folder and hip hop and all the different music genres were in their respective folder. We also had the MOH's boyfriend, who is an expert in wedding scheduling and events, make sure the tech knew when to do what and when to play what. The only problem we had with the tech was that he wasnt following directions from us very well. We had a meeting with him before the recpetion and told him what to play and from what folder. I guess he got a little confused. So if we had to do it again, we would make our own playlist from beginning to end instead of just telling him to pick and choose songs himself. If everything is layed out for him, everything will be just fine.

 

We gave the tech our laptop a few days before the welcome dinner so they could sort through our songs so that things will go smoothly. He used our Ipod as a "DJ". The ipod had an app that allowed all the songs to mix together so there wasnt any gaps or pauses in between songs. Basically, no one at the wedding knew that all the music being played was from our laptop and Ipod. It was exactly like having a DJ.

 

FYI: whomever youre in communication with from the DJ company, make sure you ask them, and get a confirmation, that you want the tech to do announcements. There were many times I asked Michell about announcements and he never got back to me and when he finally did, he said there were no english speaking techs available. Luckily, my family speaks Spanish so it wasnt a big deal that the announcements were in Spanish, but thats not the case for everyone.

 

Hope this helps with your decision. Let me know if theres anything else you need.
 

Originally Posted by n4turally 

Erika:

This may be a dumb question   But I'm debating between hiring a DJ and using a dock with a specific playlist.  I read that you did all the 'traditional' wedding events such as first dance, garter, cake cutting etc...  how would you say that went being that you had someone administering the dock and not an actual emcee?  I guess what I'm asking is whether or not you were happy with your choice of going with the dock when it came to that part ( i know you said you were 100% content with how he administered/played the playlist...) but what about everything else?

I was debating whether or not we should just go with the docking station or hire a DJ.  My main question is how smooth that all goes if you don't go with the DJ when it comes to the announcements, etc.

 

 

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by angelov321 

the docking station was about $325 per night. It came with 2 speakers and it was very loud. It sounded the same way it would sound if you hired the DJ.

 

We upgraded rooms while we were on the cove side from regular superior deluxe to superior deluxe with oceanview because we made our 75 room nights. We had already booked the conceirge level and wished we didnt. Regardless of what room you stay in, they all look exactly the same. All concierge has is a few added perks, but it definitely wasnt worth the $438/night. If I had known, I would have booked the superior and then upgraded to concierge for free.
 

One of my guests upgraded to the concierge level and they said they paid about $400 something for 3 nights using their vacation dollars. They were probably one of the only people that used the majority of their vacation dollars and it probably was because of the upgrade. lol

 

[angelov321]

Here are a few. Im still waiting for my professional ones.

 

 

 

This was taken from the Coba Gazebo. Everyone was able to see me pull up.

 

 

 

Originally Posted by sxcT 

Thanks for posting your review Erika.  Glad you had a great time and the weather was perfect for your special day.  I love reading reviews because it gets me so excited. 

 

Just a few questions if you don't mind...

- Did you upgrade your room using the promo dollars?  If so, was it worth it?

- Was the iPod docking station playing loud enough for everyone to hear?  How much did that run you?

- Do you have pictures to share yet?  Can't wait to see what everything looked like...especially you. 

[sgray]

Beautiful pics Erika! Thanks for sharing. I leave in just a few days. The weather forecast doesn't look too hot for us but I am confident things will go smoothly either way. Can't wait to see the rest of your pics.

[angelov321]

Dont worry about the weather. Some of my guests said they checked the weather before getting to Mexico and the forecast said rain the whole week of the wedding, including the wedding day. It rained only one time that week and it was during dinner and lasted no more than 10minutes. The days leading up to the wedding were cloudy, but it still was hot out. You can never tell with Mexico, so dont let the forecast worry you. Your day is gonna be beautiful!!!

 

Sorry about replying to your pm. I responded last week and just now realized it didnt go through. I guess BDW doesnt work well with my phone

Originally Posted by sgray 

Beautiful pics Erika! Thanks for sharing. I leave in just a few days. The weather forecast doesn't look too hot for us but I am confident things will go smoothly either way. Can't wait to see the rest of your pics.

[angelov321]

just a few more pics