WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN
GETTING MARRIED AT THE AVENTURA SPA PALACE IN TULUM MEXICO
I recently
shot a wedding at Aventura
Spa Palace in Tulum,
Mexico. Its funny, they say the resort is in Tulum, but it is
right next to Playacar, near Playa Del Carmen. For those of you
that don't know the Riviera Maya very well, first off get a map,
secondly Playa Del Carmen is about a 45 minute drive from the hotel
zone in Cancun, thirdly Playa is not that close to Tulum. Read on
for the pros and cons of having your wedding at the Aventura
Spa Palace.
I visited the hotel in early April, the high was 83 degrees, needless
to say it was amazing weather. Early November through early April
is the best time to get married in the Riviera Maya in regards to
weather.
I need to do a separate article about the differences of Cancun vs the
rest of the Riviera Maya, but I will throw out a few points here.
Down south there are not as many tourists, who are we kidding there are
tourists everywhere, there are just fewer in the Playa/Tulum
area. Playa is more like the Mexican city on the beach, Cancun is
more like a long line of all inclusive hotels geared toward Americans
that don’t feel safe in “Mexico”. Don't get me wrong, I love
Cancun, I think it has its place for a ton of tourists, Playa is a
little different, it has a more local flavor. Not everything in
Playa is local, there is "avenida quinta" or fifth avenue, which is a
big tourist spot, you will find the traditional mexican shops all along
the 10 or so blocks of avenida quinta. Playa has always felt more
like a European travelers destination to me. I could go on and on
about that area because we LOVE the Riviera Maya, but I will continue
on to the pros and cons of the Aventura Spa Palace for weddings.
PROS
1. BioSilk,
weird I
know... in other words they provided good amenities. Casi and I
really enjoyed the quality of the small amenities. The BioSilk is
just an example of the many things that were just a step nicer than the
other all-inclusives we have stayed at. I don't know for a
fact that all "Palace" resorts have these amenities, but the Moon
Palace was really similar to this resort and they had them. Here
is a quick list of some of the amenities
a. They have marble jacuzzi tubs
in every room!
b. Every room has a balcony
area with a hammock all ready to relax in!
c. High quality soaps, shampoos,
and lotions.
d. Free room service 24 hrs
e. Two robes & two slippers
f. Flat Screen TV
2. The nice
thing
about Palace Resorts is the fact that you can go to any of their
properties and be treated like a guest, which includes all the
"all-inclusive" privileges. One day we went and saw three other
Palace Resorts and really liked what we saw, they treat you like kings
at all of them!
3. The grounds are large and they take very good care
of them. All the landscaping of the resort was well
maintaned. The mix of buildings and landscape is flawless.
The layout is stellar, the placement of the room buildings, common
areas, and lobby was well thought out. The lobby is HUGE, you can
spend a few nights partying in that building alone.
CONS
1. The
beaches,
they are non-existant. The fact that there are no beaches,
natural ones anyway, doesn't take away from the fact that it is still a
beautiful landscape. If you are looking for a beach to relax on,
this Riviera Maya all-inclusive is not for you. They actually do
have a pseudo beach that was made about 100 feet from the edge of the
ocean, which is all rock. The rock at the edge of the water is
very sharp and dangerous so the resort doesn't even allow you to go
there. The man-made beaches are more like lagoons that beaches,
they are only a few feet deep at the deepest. They let the water
in to these lagoons from the ocean, so the water is a teal color.
When I was there the two palapa activity centers that jet out into the
lagoon were closed, but I could imagine it would be a pretty cool place
to hang out.
2. Cheezy activities. Anytime we wanted to go
to the pool we were guaranteed a loud DJ with a guy on a microphone
shouting non-sense in half english. It looked like a lot of
people were enjoying themselves pouring soda on themselves and running
obstacle courses, so you may be one of those people, if so, good for
you.
3. As with 90% of the all-inclusive resorts we have
stayed at the food wasn't good. If you read the pros above you
will see that they have free 24 hr room service, and the room service
food was mediocre as well, but it was free and it was room service, so
that added a few cool points. Bad food is the nature of an
all-inclusive, its because they are trying to appeal to everyone, which
in the case of food doesn't work very well. They do have a lot of
specialty restaurants, like sushi and a brazilian churrascaria which
was fun, but you probably don't want to eat every
night.
I give the Aventura Spa Palace a 6 out
of 10.
Now for my review of the
wedding. The first thing I noticed as the photographer was the
lack of a beach, which I sort of covered above. When people get
married in Cancun they typically want romantic pictures somewhere near
the beach, it is kind of hard to accomplish that when there is no
beach. They held the wedding under a large gazebo area which
created a nice soft light for the ceremony, the only problem was the
light difference between the background (the water) and inside the
gazebo, but we took care of that by putting up a few remote
flashes. The sun sets over the hotel and not the water. The
resort grounds were full of places to shoot, the only problem we ran
into was not getting to them all because of time. There was
another wedding taking place around the same time, which was a little
annoying. In fact, as we arrived at the gazebo there was another
wedding just finishing up, we had to wait for them to finish! I
think it is tacky to crank weddings out one after another like that, I
want to feel special on my wedding day, not like I just went through an
assembly line... get married in Vegas if you are looking for
that. This particular wedding that I shot didn't have a
reception, we just all went to one of the nice restaurants and had
dinner, the couple did the cake cutting there, it turned out
nice. A quick piece of advice if you are getting married at the
Aventura Spa Palace, make sure to let your guests which wedding is
yours and where you will be!
