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Moon Palace Cancun 3/23/10


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Originally Posted by Betsy View Post
Congrats on your wedding and thanks for the review. I was married at Moon Palace almost 2 years ago and I would go back in a second!! I loved it! It isn't too hard to post pics on here and I'm sure other brides (including myself wink.gif ) would love to see them also. Do you have a photobucket account set up? If you do it is really easy - also it might help to look through the how to's of BDW threads!!
Betsy, your day is alomst here - CONGRATS!
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Originally Posted by luchdiamond View Post
Congrates on the wedding. I am also having a small wedding at MP and was wondering if you were able to pick your wedding spot or did they pick it for you?

You choose beach or gazebo. There are only 3 gazebos, one being the Catholic chapel. If you aren't having a Catholic wedding, they assign you to one of the other two based upon which is closer to your room. They are both the same, so we had no preference. I am sure if you did, they would accommodate you if possible!
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Originally Posted by hsmith1228 View Post
Hi, ladies!

I am new here...only discovered this site a few weeks before my wedding. Since I was able to get lots of good information, I thought I would return the favor and post my experiences. Hopefully it will help someone.

This was our 2nd marriage, so we wanted very simple. We booked through Palace Premier (PP) membership, so no dealings with a travel agent or Miami coordinators.

Our on-site coordinator was Lily Sanchez. She was very helpful both by email and once we were in Cancun. I left everything in her hands and was very pleased with the results.

I will try to breakdown everything here, but feel free to ask me about anything else you want to know. This was my first time at Moon Palace and was quite nervous having the wedding there, knowing very little about it. There was absolutely nothing to be nervous about...at least not for us!

Room--we stayed in the Sunrise section. Since it was booked through PP, we were guaranteed an oceanview. It was beautiful, but my one complaint was that it also overlooked the miniature golf course. No one paid any attention to us on the balcony, but it did get a little loud at times. We peeked into rooms at both Nizuc and the new Grand section. Nizuc rooms looked older and had a more colorful, tropical feel than our neutral room. If I had to do it over again, I would have stayed at Grand. It was gorgeous. The oceanview rooms are limited and it is a further distance from everything going on, but that can be a good thing. The pools are not as crowded (infinity pools!) and it was much quieter....totally different feel than the rest of the resort.

Restaurants--the buffet food was what you would expect...definitely hit or miss. We ate there for breakfast and a few lunches but skipped them for dinner. In Nizuc, there are 4 a la carte restaurants...Arrecifies is a brazilian restaurant for meat lovers. The servers bring you one meat after another, on huge skewers. They keep coming until you flip a card over indicating you were full. They also have a large salad bar, but it was buffet food quality. The restaurant is fun but service takes a long time. My WC suggested this as an option for the wedding night dinner, but I am glad we passed on it. The outside terrace overlooks the pool and all of the tables along the windows have a full view of it. Not as private as I thought, based on what I had read on here. The second a la carte is Los Caporales. This was a fun Mexican place, but nothing spectacular when it came to the food. We were hoping for more authentic, but this was Americanized mexican. The last two restaurants are the Palapas, located poolside. One serves sushi and the other seafood/steak. They are both outside.

There are 3 sit-downs at Sunrise. My absolute favorite was MO-MO-NO-HA-NA. I would've eaten there every night, if the rest of my party had been bigger sushi/japanese fans! Everything we had was great. I highly recommend this place. The other 2 are the Palapas, again pool side. They were both indoors though. One is a very limited menu with just 2 entrees...all seafood or surf & turf. The other palapa is mainly steak. It was a hit with the meat eaters, but my mom and I both ordered vegetable lasagna and were shocked...it was just vegetables with a layer of cheese on top. No pasta, sauce, etc. Thank goodness we didn't pay for it.

Grand has 2 sit downs. One is a caribbean place. The menu looked good but we never made it back to that side to try it. We all liked Los Tacos. It is hard to find, but well worth it. I am not sure if they serve dinner, but we went there for lunch and sat poolside. (That is a very secluded pool with nice cabanas..good place to hide out!)

The golf course also has 2 restaurants. We did not try Bambu (again, never made it back that way). La Trattoria is where we had our wedding dinner. It was much more upscale than any other restaurant. The clientele is also much different there..mainly older. Seemed to be the people who were staying at the golf villas. There was a long wait when we arrived (the only place we ever saw a wait). If you book your wedding dinner there, you have a reserved table so you obviously bypass everyone else.

Spa--We had a spa package included in our stay. This is standard when booking though PP. It included a massage, manicure, and pedicure. I definitely recommend doing this at the end of the trip. It was so relaxing. The prices are crazy, if not included.

On to the wedding...
We had our ceremony at the Bugambilia gazebo. We originally wanted to have it on the beach, but it seemed to be too windy and I didn't want to worry about that. The gazebos all have gorgeous views so I am glad we went that route. Since we were going simple, we took the complimentary package. I chose hot pink roses and was absolutely stunned at how gorgeous they were. Lily (the WC) put a matching ribbon on the altar and on the chairs, even though we didn't pay for anything extra. When I arrived at the gazebo, everything was done and all I had to do was walk down the aisle. She had 3 other people helping her with various things...pretty good considering there were only 4 of us at the wedding!

We went with the prepared ceremony, with the exception of writing our own vows. Honestly, I don't remember much of what the officiant said, but my parents said it was pretty :) After the ceremony, Lily and her staff brought us all champagne and the cake. (We elected to do the cake cutting right after since we didn't have a traditional reception, but wanted pictures of it.) The cake was the only disappointment of the entire experience. I asked for a square white cake with a hot pink ribbon, similar to what is in their package photo. The cake was leaning to one side and had horrible pink frosting flowers on top. I would have been really upset if I had a bigger wedding and/or paid for the cake. At least it tasted good!!!

Photographer...this was my BIGGEST concern. I had read so many postings on this site about using resort photographers. I expressed my concern to my WC and told her how important it was that we get good pics. We didn't have the budget to hire someone outside, considering you have to pay for them to stay overnight at the resort. We decided to take our chances with the resort photographer. I really wanted a TTD session and negotiated to have that done right after the wedding, which saved us close to $300. Definitely go that route if you don't have to wear the dress the rest of the day. If not, they will do the TTD session the next day for an additional cost.

Our photographer (I can't remember his name but will get it to add on here) was wonderful. He did everything we asked and was very creative. I was so pleased with the final result. The pictures look like they should be in a magazine! We ended up paying $505 for the session which included a nice leather book with 70 prints plus a CD with nearly 400 other pictures. I am too new to post them on here, but would be glad to share with anyone who is interested in seeing them.

Again, if there are any MP brides out there with questions about the resort or a simple ceremony, let me know. I would be more than happy to help!

Heather
Great Review!! I'm getting married at MP 10/8/11 and the resort photographer is a HUGE concern for me. I would love to see how your photos came out. Sounds like you were very pleased. It would help me tremendously if you can email me your photos to; Sheilao_1@yahoo.com (after the letter o at the end of sheila, there's an underscore. It doesn't show due to the underlining of the email. Just FYI)

It would be greatly appreciated!!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hsmith1228 View Post
Hi, ladies!

I am new here...only discovered this site a few weeks before my wedding. Since I was able to get lots of good information, I thought I would return the favor and post my experiences. Hopefully it will help someone.

This was our 2nd marriage, so we wanted very simple. We booked through Palace Premier (PP) membership, so no dealings with a travel agent or Miami coordinators.

Our on-site coordinator was Lily Sanchez. She was very helpful both by email and once we were in Cancun. I left everything in her hands and was very pleased with the results.

I will try to breakdown everything here, but feel free to ask me about anything else you want to know. This was my first time at Moon Palace and was quite nervous having the wedding there, knowing very little about it. There was absolutely nothing to be nervous about...at least not for us!

Room--we stayed in the Sunrise section. Since it was booked through PP, we were guaranteed an oceanview. It was beautiful, but my one complaint was that it also overlooked the miniature golf course. No one paid any attention to us on the balcony, but it did get a little loud at times. We peeked into rooms at both Nizuc and the new Grand section. Nizuc rooms looked older and had a more colorful, tropical feel than our neutral room. If I had to do it over again, I would have stayed at Grand. It was gorgeous. The oceanview rooms are limited and it is a further distance from everything going on, but that can be a good thing. The pools are not as crowded (infinity pools!) and it was much quieter....totally different feel than the rest of the resort.

Restaurants--the buffet food was what you would expect...definitely hit or miss. We ate there for breakfast and a few lunches but skipped them for dinner. In Nizuc, there are 4 a la carte restaurants...Arrecifies is a brazilian restaurant for meat lovers. The servers bring you one meat after another, on huge skewers. They keep coming until you flip a card over indicating you were full. They also have a large salad bar, but it was buffet food quality. The restaurant is fun but service takes a long time. My WC suggested this as an option for the wedding night dinner, but I am glad we passed on it. The outside terrace overlooks the pool and all of the tables along the windows have a full view of it. Not as private as I thought, based on what I had read on here. The second a la carte is Los Caporales. This was a fun Mexican place, but nothing spectacular when it came to the food. We were hoping for more authentic, but this was Americanized mexican. The last two restaurants are the Palapas, located poolside. One serves sushi and the other seafood/steak. They are both outside.

There are 3 sit-downs at Sunrise. My absolute favorite was MO-MO-NO-HA-NA. I would've eaten there every night, if the rest of my party had been bigger sushi/japanese fans! Everything we had was great. I highly recommend this place. The other 2 are the Palapas, again pool side. They were both indoors though. One is a very limited menu with just 2 entrees...all seafood or surf & turf. The other palapa is mainly steak. It was a hit with the meat eaters, but my mom and I both ordered vegetable lasagna and were shocked...it was just vegetables with a layer of cheese on top. No pasta, sauce, etc. Thank goodness we didn't pay for it.

Grand has 2 sit downs. One is a caribbean place. The menu looked good but we never made it back to that side to try it. We all liked Los Tacos. It is hard to find, but well worth it. I am not sure if they serve dinner, but we went there for lunch and sat poolside. (That is a very secluded pool with nice cabanas..good place to hide out!)

The golf course also has 2 restaurants. We did not try Bambu (again, never made it back that way). La Trattoria is where we had our wedding dinner. It was much more upscale than any other restaurant. The clientele is also much different there..mainly older. Seemed to be the people who were staying at the golf villas. There was a long wait when we arrived (the only place we ever saw a wait). If you book your wedding dinner there, you have a reserved table so you obviously bypass everyone else.

Spa--We had a spa package included in our stay. This is standard when booking though PP. It included a massage, manicure, and pedicure. I definitely recommend doing this at the end of the trip. It was so relaxing. The prices are crazy, if not included.

On to the wedding...
We had our ceremony at the Bugambilia gazebo. We originally wanted to have it on the beach, but it seemed to be too windy and I didn't want to worry about that. The gazebos all have gorgeous views so I am glad we went that route. Since we were going simple, we took the complimentary package. I chose hot pink roses and was absolutely stunned at how gorgeous they were. Lily (the WC) put a matching ribbon on the altar and on the chairs, even though we didn't pay for anything extra. When I arrived at the gazebo, everything was done and all I had to do was walk down the aisle. She had 3 other people helping her with various things...pretty good considering there were only 4 of us at the wedding!

We went with the prepared ceremony, with the exception of writing our own vows. Honestly, I don't remember much of what the officiant said, but my parents said it was pretty :) After the ceremony, Lily and her staff brought us all champagne and the cake. (We elected to do the cake cutting right after since we didn't have a traditional reception, but wanted pictures of it.) The cake was the only disappointment of the entire experience. I asked for a square white cake with a hot pink ribbon, similar to what is in their package photo. The cake was leaning to one side and had horrible pink frosting flowers on top. I would have been really upset if I had a bigger wedding and/or paid for the cake. At least it tasted good!!!

Photographer...this was my BIGGEST concern. I had read so many postings on this site about using resort photographers. I expressed my concern to my WC and told her how important it was that we get good pics. We didn't have the budget to hire someone outside, considering you have to pay for them to stay overnight at the resort. We decided to take our chances with the resort photographer. I really wanted a TTD session and negotiated to have that done right after the wedding, which saved us close to $300. Definitely go that route if you don't have to wear the dress the rest of the day. If not, they will do the TTD session the next day for an additional cost.

Our photographer (I can't remember his name but will get it to add on here) was wonderful. He did everything we asked and was very creative. I was so pleased with the final result. The pictures look like they should be in a magazine! We ended up paying $505 for the session which included a nice leather book with 70 prints plus a CD with nearly 400 other pictures. I am too new to post them on here, but would be glad to share with anyone who is interested in seeing them.

Again, if there are any MP brides out there with questions about the resort or a simple ceremony, let me know. I would be more than happy to help!

Heather
Thank you so much for the review. This was very helpful to us!
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