This forum has provided me with so much information, I’m happy to share my thoughts on Dreams Cabo, particularly for those brides that have not yet made a decision of where to have the wedding. For those of you that will have your wedding at Dreams Cabo in the near future, please trust the decision that you made. My experience was disappointing and I’ve decided to cancel my wedding there – thankfully, we had a site visit before we put any money down. Please, please, please, if for your own sanity, don’t make a decision on a place until you have seen it for your own eyes. Everyone has a different vision for this important day and I would not simply rely on reviews of others. My finance and I decided to get married in Maui (while staying at the Four Seasons), honeymooning there and Oahu, and then having a small party a few months after the wedding. I thought Dreams Cabo was too expensive for the sort of place it was and could not in good conscience ask my guests to pay so much for an average vacation.

Our site visit to Dreams Cabo was Mon, 8/25/08 to Th, 8/28/08. If you have specific questions, please don’t hesitate to email me at kgause1@yahoo.com.

First Impression of Hotel: B-

I’ve stayed at many resorts, some fair, some superb, and I have come to believe that you can tell much about the quality of the resort based on the lobby. I probably was expecting marble floors, plush furniture and lush gardens. Dreams doesn’t have much of a lobby. It’s mostly outdoors with cement flooring. The décor in the lobby and throughout the resort is average. The paint needs retouching (and this is a point that really bothered me as I considered the walls that would be in the background of pictures). When we arrived, we were greeted with cool towels. Now, these are not the fluffy, white, cool and fresh-smelling towels that you get at the Four Seasons. These towels were damp and thin – I used the towel to wipe my hands and certainly was not going to wipe my face with it. Also, noticeably (although this may be common in Cabo) was the fact that the grounds were very dry and the flowers and greenery looked like they were in desperate need of watering. Dreams probably relies on the little rain received in Cabo to water its gardens – I doubt that the caretakers water the grounds regularly.

Checkin: B

The receptionist could not find our reservation, so I had to pull out my correspondence with Mariana that had information on my stay. She still couldn’t find it, so I had her page Mariana. The receptionist was friendly and I could tell that she was really trying to find our confirmation. She invited us to get something to eat while she had everything sorted out, so we did. When I returned to the desk, I was informed that the room wouldn’t be ready until 3pm (we were there about 1pm). After strolling around the grounds, I went to the room to check if it was really being cleaned and noticed that it was completed (you can tell bc a card is placed in the key slot). I returned to the desk and politely, but firmly requested the key to my room. We were able to get inside the room about 2pm.

Food: B/B-

This rating is split bc our tasting was good. We had the following:
Appetizer:
1. Tropical Martini shrimp cocktail served with brunoise of Avocado
2. Snow crab cake served with avocado and tomato dressing
Soups/Salads:
1. Cream of mushroom with baby shrimp
2. Mix Lettuces Salad with cherry tomato, balsamic vinegar and olive oil
Main Course:
1. Beef Wellington served with mushroom duxell and demi armaniac sauce
2. Sea bass fillet served with fresh asparagus and Portobello mushroom with a beurre sauce
3. Red snapper filet over ratatouille and beurre blanc sauce
Dessert:
1. Chocolate mousse cake
2. Tres leches cake
If we were getting married at Dreams, we would definitely select the crab cake as an appetizer, the cream of mushroom soup. The soup was my fiance’s favorite. Both the sea bass and red snapper was good, so this would be a tough choice. We both don’t eat beef (we requested the lamb but there was a mix-up), so I’m not sure if we would go for the lamb Wellington or the chicken option. I didn’t particularly care for the desserts so I would probably try to have my cake made offsite and then negotiate money off the price per person (someone else did this successfully, posted on this site -- $2 off/pp).
Of the restaurants, Oceana was probably my favorite but only slightly so. Portofina and the Japanese restaurant were average. I really enjoy food and am probably more critical than others – typically, food at all-inclusives isn’t amazing bc it’s mass produced. Still, I expected better – I don’t even think the shrimp was deveined. We had lunch and breakfast at El Patio and Seaside. Again, the food was average. However, I thought room service was even better than it was at the restaurant. It always came w/in 20 or 30 minutes and was very fresh.
One of my favorite treats here is the lemonade – I had like 20 of them a day. So good – fresh lemon juice, simple syrup and sparkling water.

Room: A-

We stayed in a one bedroom suite. The room was very clean and I enjoyed the turn down service at night. The rooms are the redeeming quality of this resort – I definitely don’t think my guests would have complained about the rooms. We had a great four poster king bed and all the bedding was white (I won’t even stay places where there is patterned comforters – I know all too well that those are never cleaned). My favorite thing about the room is that we had two bathrooms! My fiancé and I could get ready at the same time – this is huge for us, lol. Also, the bathrooms included shavers, toothbrushes and toothpaste and regular (not sample) size amenities. The robes were really nice too. One night, we got some dvds from the concierge and watched movies. Did I mention that we also had two tvs? My finance and I had never stayed in a room as large as this room and this was definitely a plus.

Mariana: A

Mariana is absolutely wonderful! I’ve never had any experiences with another coordinator at this hotel but I would recommend that if you are planning to get married here, that you email gyc@dreamsloscabos.com.mx with Attention: Mariana Martinez in the subject line so that you are assigned Mariana. I emailed Mariana with many questions planning my site visit and she answered timely and completely. Below is an example with some answers of costs you may have:

1) Cost to have a casino party following a welcome buffet dinner with six staffed tables. Cost is $800.00 USD for the casino and $29.00 USD per person for the buffet dinner.
2) Cost to have a karaoke event for guests following a welcome buffet dinner. Approximate cost of $300.00 USD per hour.
3) Cost to have 1-2 fire dancers. Approximate cost of $650.00 USD for a show of 15 minutes.
4) Cost to have short firework display. Fireworks are quite expensive here. Just for you to have an idea, a show of 1 minute can cost close to $1,200.00 USD
5) Cost to rent chair coverings, chair sashes, table linens and table runners (white or color) for wedding ceremony and wedding reception. Here are some prices:

2009
Basic Tableclothes 14 usd
Luxury Tableclothes 28 usd
Basic Bows 3 usd
Luxury Bows 4 usd
Napkins 2 usd

Mariana is very soft spoken and polite. She is well organized and when we met with her, she brought her notes of our correspondence and asked us additional questions while taking careful notes. Certainly if the resort had lived up to my expectations, I would have enjoyed to work with Mariana. In fact, I’m not sure that an outside coordinator is even necessary, Mariana is so good and efficient.

Vendors – I met with the following. I will not provide ratings but rather only my first impressions since I will not have the opportunity to work with any of them.

DJ Richie:

DJ Richie was polite. Ultimately, we decided (before I told my finance that I did not want to get married in Cabo) that we would not use him bc he was too expensive. I’ve been to weddings were the music was awful and the receptions weren’t much a party atmosphere so we decided that we would provide the complete play list. That stated, we thought it would be just as good to have a good friend act as an emcee and rent speakers to hook up to our ipod. I won’t list his prices here bc he may be willing to negotiate but if you want specifics on him (or any other vendor, please email me). Here is his contact info: info@djsystem.com.mx ; www.djsystem.com.mx.

Juan Carlos Tapia (photographer):

Juan is certainly confident, maybe even a bit cocky. He took three phone calls in the first five minutes of our consultation and didn’t even apologize! However, his work is amazing and very beautiful. I think his pictures are the most natural. My fiancé was very impressed and before we even talked prices, my fiancé wanted to book him. Here is his contact information: juan@juancarlostapia.com ; www.juancarlostapia.com.

Angel Zapien (videographer):

I watched every video on Angel’s website and fell in love with his work. For our meeting, he brought a friend Daniel who was a photographer. I had hoped Angel would work a bit more for our business. He pitched his services the least of anyone we saw. My fiancé did not like the work of his friend Daniel at all. Here is his contact information: video@angelzapien.com ; www.angelzapien.com.

Gilda Badillo (photographer):

Gilda was just the opposite of Angel and spent much of our consultation telling us about her accolades and associations. She chewed gum the entire time and I found that very distracting. She has good work but was not entirely focused – she didn’t even provide us with pricing information. My fiancé thought she could be a #2 to Juan (based on our budget) but only with specific instructions. Here is her contact information: gildaphoto@yahoo.com ; www.gildaphoto.com.

Jorge Ibarro (videographer):

Jorge was my favorite consultation! In our opinion, he was the most professional in the consultation bc he was the most prepared and really took time to explain his approach and his packages. Hands down, we would book Jorge! Here is his contact information: produccion1@gmail.com ; www.cslvideo.com.

Alberto Miscrachi (photographer/videographer):

This was the last meeting of the day and as my fiancé was tired of consultations, I met with Alberto alone and he is the one that introduced me to the wonderful lemonades! Alberto’s work was good and he is a part of a studio that can offer good deals if you book both photography and videography. Because we loved Jorge so much, we would probably not use this option but I think it’s worth considering for couples watching the budget. Here is his contact information: info@helixaudiovisual.com ; http://www.helixaudiovisual.com.

I truly enjoyed meeting with all the vendors and am glad, even though I no longer am getting married in Cabo, that my fiancé and I did this together so that even if I book everything for Hawaii on my own he now has an idea of what quality costs. I would have also set an appointment with Jennifer Hatton on making our wedding cake if she was available that week (here is her information: chefhatton@hotmail.com ; http://www.cabodessertdiva.com.

Pub Crawl: B+

My fiancé doesn’t drink at all and I only drink minimumly. Still, we thought it would be best to find out what the night life of Cabo is all about, particularly if we were going to plan a night out for guests. The hotel coordinates a pub crawl on Wed and Sat – the cost is $22 per person. Taxis take you to El Squid Row, Zoo and Cabo Wabo. You stay an hour at each place and then head to the next. I think it’s best to stay with the group, although you probably could meet up with the group at the next spot or the end of the night so long as you knew where you were going. At this outing, we realized that partying until 3am wasn’t really our thing anymore, lol but we hung in there. One side note – the hotel’s disco room isn’t really much of a party atmosphere, mostly couples with drinks just lounging. So if you really want to party, head into town.

Ocean/Pool: C

I didn’t think that not being able to swim in the ocean would bother me, but I didn’t realize that it isn’t even comfortable to walk along the sand. This part of Cabo doesn’t have powdery sand and my feet actually hurt walking on the rocky grounds. And the tide was so strong, that even when the water was only to my ankles, it almost knocked me down. With that stated, know that the main pool has limited chairs. Surely, if you don’t reserve a spot by 9am (and this wasn’t even high season), you won’t have a spot, at least not right by the pool. Now, there is a second pool but I didn’t like that one and here is why. A few ladies that I met and I nicknamed this second pool “the swamp” bc the water is gray! I didn’t realize that what made pool water blue was the fact that the walls and bottom were painted blue. Well, nothing is painted in this second pool, by Oceana. Imagine a big cement bowl filled with water – there were always seats by this pool but I didn’t really want to swim here.

This about does it. I will also point out that every couple we met, with the exception of one, was married. There weren’t any weddings going on while I was there and I was a bit bummed bc I wanted to sneak a peek, but no matter. I didn’t check out any other hotels while I was there, but it’s probably best. I am loving the idea of something really intimate and really fly!
Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best,
Kay