| We had originally booked our wedding for May 15th in the Mayan Riviera. 10 days before we were booked to leave with our group of 27 the swine flu hit. This changed everything, we were unable to go to Mexico due to flight cancellations so it was a mad scramble to make our wedding work out. Our travel agent at Marlin Travel was amazing. she managed to get us all booked in Cuba within 2 days no problem. We contacted the wedding coordinator in Cuba and managed to throw together a last minute wedding. I will admit i was heartbroken, i had been planning our wedding for over a year and it went down the tubes overnight. Our big day in Cuba wasn't what i originally planned but it was beyond my dreams and i wouldn't change it for the world. I think it was so wonderful because we were literally flying by the seat of our pants with zero plans and that may be why it turned out so wonderfully. We had Imilze (not sure of the spelling) she was the wedding coordinator. Her english is very rough but we managed with much gesturing and photos i brought with me to make our wedding vision come to life. All the staff went out of their way to accomodate us including a wedding rehearsal night at the outdoor Cuban BBQ buffet. they set a huge table up for us and let us in first. the music was wonderful, the food at the BBQ fantastic. Another thing to think about was our cost savings, we saved about $5000 going to Cuba. a big savings in the end so just a thought if you keep it simple. The beach was gorgeous so saving money and getting married on a gorgeous beach is a double bonus! |
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| Your Arrival |
| Easy. We arrived at the airport and we were wisked away by a Signature bus to our resort directly. No stopping at other hotels it was great! The hotel was well organized and used golf carts to transport us with our luggage to our areas of the resort. My husband i got a beautiful room with an ocean view but unfortunately we had to move as the air conditioning wasn't working and it was too warm to bear. |
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| Rooms |
| The rooms were nice. Not top notch but comfy. some rooms did smell a bit musty but it's Cuba...the air is moist. They are similar to any other vacation spot in a hot country. They were well kept with good housekeeping but not 5 star. |
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| Restaurants and Bars |
| The food was good. it was exactly what we expected. There were definite favorites amongst our group. We are not the fussy type and we realize that they do not have access to what we have at home. we felt that was kind of the point of a vacation! we didn't make our reservations early enough to get into all the a la carte restaurants so we were happy to say bye to the buffet when we left. |
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| Beach/Pools/Grounds |
| The beach staff were awesome! We got to know the lifeguards, bar tenders and the beach chair guy. They were so friendly and helpful and really helped make our trip as great as it was. They truly go out of their way to make sure you are comfortable and happy. we had one incident where i had saved some chairs very early in the morning on the beach and came back later to find someone had taken them. The gentlemen who helps you with your chairs remembered my spot and managed to get us back where we belonged. We tipped quite often which goes a long way especially in this case |
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| Activities on and off the Resort/Hotel |
| because we were such big group we booked a sail boat to Cayo Blanco just for our group. it was amazing!! the snorkeling wasn't fantastic but the boat ride and the island were remarkable and i highly suggest doing this activity. it was made even better because it was just family and friends. My husband i also went swimming with the Dolphins. I do suggest this if you can get past the murky water! it's a little scary but once you are in the water you are in another world and it blew me away. the Dolphins were so friendly it was worth it. We also danced at the Cuban buffet, the band was great! so fun and full of life and people in our party who you wouldn't think would get up and dance did! it brought tears to my eyes. We also had a great live band for our wedding day. We loved him but be forewarned that he likes to make up words to the songs. Lets put it this way, he played "sexbomb" as our first dance on the beach! Not quite what we requested but it brought out a lot of laughs and funny memories. they also played at our reception. |
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