Island Bliss Weddings/Oasis of the Seas Royal Romance coordinator reviews

[Phillyredhead]

Our original plan was to be married on St. Thomas at the Limetree Beach lawn via Island Bliss Weddings.

 

Well, due to a combination of a medical emergency onboard and a tropical storm off the coast of St. Thomas, our cruise ship did not dock at St. Thomas as planned, so we did not have our wedding through Island Bliss Weddings. It was a bit of scramble to get a hold of Island Bliss, as the phone number given to us as "emergency contact" in our itinerary email was that of Janelle, who was on vacation for the month of August. Got an auto-reply text to call a DIFFERENT number for Brittany, the assistant who was coordinating while Janelle is on vacation.

 

Basically told Brittany that we would not be docking at St. Thomas. She couldn't really do anything other than cancel our vendors for us -- she couldn't say how much (if any) money would might be able to get back. All she could do was tell us to contact Janelle when she gets back from vacation.

 

Brittany DID try to contact Royal Caribbean on our behalf to negotiate some sort of upgrade or perk to make up for the fact that we weren't docking at St. Thomas, but because she wasn't us or our travel agent, they wouldn't speak with her. But we appreciated her efforts.

 

Royal Caribbean couldn't do our legal ceremony instead, because the paperwork would take 3 months to process. They offered us a symbolic ceremony instead, which I didn't want (why put on the show, when it would have no legal meaning?), but the rest of our group wanted us to do it.

 

We worked with the ship's coordinator, Angel. She provided us with the "Just Us" Royal Romance package, which includes a non-denominational ceremony, a private venue (we had the option of the Jazz Club on Deck 4, or Dazzles on Deck 8 -- we chose Dazzles), 1 hour of photography (images/prints not included), champagne and chocolate covered strawberries, breakfast-in-bed on a morning of your choice, and a keepsake certificate.

 

She included flowers for free (since they were included in our Island Bliss Weddings package), and said she'd talk to the chefs about getting us a cake. They provided an 8-inch chocolate cake covered in fondant with gumpaste flowers. It was pretty and VERY tasty. There was also a DJ playing music (I walked down the aisle to that song from the Twilight movie, "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri, and he played the "I Want to Grow Old With You" song from The Wedding Singer movie during the cake-cutting, that's all I remember).

 

She also said she'd talk to the ship executives about other perks to make up for the money we'd lost on the wedding and the loss of our legal ceremony. They ended up comping our couples massage in the spa. They also provided a nice spread of hot appetizers after our ceremony in Dazzles. Both were very much appreciated.

 

Because we had the appetizers and cake after the ceremony, they sent the champagne and strawberries to our room that evening, and we had "breakfast in bed" delivered on the last day (an at-sea day) and ate it on our balcony. You have the option of eggs, French toast or pancakes, as well as a fruit plate, a cheese plate, a plate of assorted pastries, a mimosa or Bloody Mary, and coffee.

 

The photographer arrived 15 minutes prior to the ceremony to my stateroom to take photos of me with my father. Then he escorted us to Dazzles, taking a few photos along the way, and took some photos in Central Park with me and my parents before the ceremony started.

 

He took photos during the ceremony, and of the whole family during the appetizers and cake eating. Then the family left, and the photographer spent about another hour with us, going all over the ship taking photos.

 

We met with him the next morning to view the images. We LOVED them, Greffin did a fantastic job. He was fun to work with, too. He must have been up all night editing them! We bought all the images on CD, and he threw in at least a dozen 8x10 prints for free.

 

So, not what we had planned, but we made the best of it, and enjoyed the ceremony that the coordinator put together for us.

[Phillyredhead]

Some of the photos that Greffin took:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Phillyredhead]

One more, since I can only include 6 pics per post.