Honeymoon - travel agent vs book direct??

Lainey_b01

Hi, we looking at planning our honeymoon at the moment. We want to have the best experience within our budget and get best value for our hard saved cash. We not sure if booking ourselves would be worth it vs engaging a travel agent. Would be interested on hearing if anyone else has any experiences. The location we are thinking of is a very popular tourist location.

fits

Depends on the type of holiday, if you can get flight and hotel bundled, might be cheaper.

Lainey_b01

fits wrote: »

Depends on the type of holiday, if you can get flight and hotel bundled, might be cheaper.

Hi Fits, we are thinking Costa Rica. We have always booked direct for our holidays up to now but as this is a bit further a field added to fact it's our honeymoon we proceeding cautiously

bee06

Because you are talking multiple flights, long haul etc for Costa Rica I personally would go with a travel agent. That's what we did for our honeymoon in Mexico. I costed it separately as well and there wasn't much of a difference in the cost anyway so we went with Trailfinders for the extra peace of mind.

Birdie086

We just booked our honeymoon. Fours nights in hong kong plus a week in vietnam. I have never flown that far before but after doing a ton of research I booked it all myself. I used ebookers for the flights and booking.com for the hotels. The difference in price equalled our spending money

sinead81

TRAVEL AGENT - TRAVEL AGENT - TRAVEL AGENT! They often get access to great rates that the public don't get access to and also wouldn't you want to have someone local to call 'if' something goes wrong. Their knowledge of an area is priceless also!! Don't take a risk on the biggest holiday of your life

flikflak

Do the sums. Price up an agent and DIY then make your decision.

Even booking with an agent there is not always `someone to call ` if there are any problems on your holiday. Get a decent travel insurance policy.

Do your research. We went long haul to a tiny Central American country and did it all ourselves. Got delayed on the way back and the airline looked after us very well.

nearzero

I did the sums & it worked out better to use a Travel Counsellor- they are fantastic! Much more of a personal touch

Got a fantastic deal on Hotels & Flights & didnt have the hassle of having to book it all

Senna

For our honeymoon we knew what we wanted and priced it online and via a travel agent. The travel agent actually got us a better hotel that was coming up as "booked out" on all booking engines, in the end I think we paid about €100 extra (maybe less, cant remember now), but the travel agents advice, better hotel and someone else to sort our tickets etc, was probably worth more than the €100.
Never booked another holiday with a travel agent before or since, usual 7 days in Spain, I'll do it myself for handiness.

JP85

I would recommend a travel agents, we went with trailfinders, we went into them twice and spent hours with them going through different options. The best thing about it is that its booked and we only had to pay the deposit which gives us time to save up to pay for it because if you book it yourself you have to nearly pay everything up front

Liam McPoyle

We were out and about today and went to Trailfinders on Dawson St and Travelmood on Duke Street.

We priced both places for exactly the same in terms of dates and destinations and Travelmood came in approx €800 cheaper and had 2 hotels that would have cost a few hundred quid more if booked through TF so all in all, the difference between the two was at least €1000. Our idea is Vegas for 4 nights, San Francisco for 3 nights then an all inclusive resort in Cancun for 8 nights.

We came home and priced the same Hotels if we were to book them ourselves. The ones in Vegas and San Fran were pretty much exactly the same but the resort would be about €600 more expensive if we booked it ourselves for the same suite and dates.

Flights were virtually the same aswell price wise so we are definitely going to use Travelmood, its just a matter of making the final decision about the Hotels and when we fly.

Liam McPoyle

Just an update, we ended up booking today with Travel Mood.

Found they were the cheapest.

One thing I will say to everyone though is to haggle.

We had gotten a price for the above from Travel Counsellors so went back to Travel Mood and told them that TC had quoted us €300 cheaper (they hadn't, it was actually slightly more expensive and for one less night) but if TM could beat that price we would give them the business.

TM came back and gave us a price that was €270 cheaper than the makey uppy quote from TC and when talking to the agent over the phone today I asked for some more off and she reduced by a further €120 so by being a bit ballsy we saved circa €700 and got an extra night!

We also got airport transfers in Cancun, resort fees in Vegas and some extra honeymoon thing (champagne in the room, few other bits) in the resort in Cancun included.

Happy out indeed!

Slattsy

Find Toplflight/Tailormade to be good, though we've yet to officially book but they're leading the pack atm.

Will try Travel Mood on your advice BC.

byte

We had used Trailfinders for our honeymoon, which was just a few weeks ago, but feels a lifetime ago.

We had found them very good to deal with, and nearly the cheapest we could get from shopping around. We did tell them we got a cheaper price from some other crowd (can't remember which), and they lowered the price, so we stuck with them, as the woman who dealt with us was fantastic and goes to show that staff putting in a good effort can win business.

An aside, Secrets Maroma Beach in Cancun (well, kinda) is damn awesome!

Liam McPoyle

byte wrote: »

We had used Trailfinders for our honeymoon, which was just a few weeks ago, but feels a lifetime ago.

We had found them very good to deal with, and nearly the cheapest we could get from shopping around. We did tell them we got a cheaper price from some other crowd (can't remember which), and they lowered the price, so we stuck with them, as the woman who dealt with us was fantastic and goes to show that staff putting in a good effort can win business.

An aside, Secrets Maroma Beach in Cancun (well, kinda) is damn awesome!

Good to know, thats the one we went with.

byte

Business Cat wrote: »

Good to know, thats the one we went with.

Ah, you won't be disappointed! Would love to go back.

If you want sea views, I suggest requesting if you can get a higher level room on Building 26. We requested same and got top floor with a great view over the bay. Unless you're going full hog and getting the front facing building!

I do recommend the spa and dinner on the beach in one of the cabanas. I also liked the swim up bar in the pool Ah heck, there's loads to like about it. Staff are fantastic.

Liam McPoyle

Sweet.

Any recommendations for activities?

Sitting on a beach for 8 days wouldn't really suit me and I want to see a bit of the country too.

byte

Business Cat wrote: »

Sweet.

Any recommendations for activities?

Sitting on a beach for 8 days wouldn't really suit me and I want to see a bit of the country too.

Well, tbh, we didn't do a lot whilst there, bar being lazy, reading and chilling. I didn't spend a LOT of time on the beach, though it was helped by waiters coming around every so often to offer drinks, etc.

We did go to the Mayan temple in Tulum, past Playa del Carmen, which was OK, though the heat was near unbearable that day. If Mayan temples is your thing, the best one seems to be Chichen Itza, though further to travel.

There's also Xcaret, a kinda water/wildlife type place.

Then there's the seemingly popular Coco Bongo nightclub in Playa del Carmen, there are reps for that about the resort.
There are travel people like Best Day Travel in the lobby most afternoons who can talk to you about places to go and excursions. Try avoid to get bombarded by guys at the airport pushing timeshare "deals" to Xcaret, etc. One guy was pushing Xcaret on us for a while, 2 for price of one, etc. then vaguely mentioned the timeshare meeting beforehand at another hotel for some hours, so we kindly declined. Then he was letting us go for free, but again just walked away. Feck that.

There are bus trips to Playa del Carmen too, if you just want to nosy about the town.

There's parasailing available from the beach too, which was pretty cool.

I do suggest you have whatever US$ you need before you land at the complex, because whilst there is an ATM there, they charge handsomely for the usage. We paid about $28 for withdrawing $200.

We also had $100 of one dollar bills, which was handy for tipping. It's not compulsory to tip, though some staff did deserve the few bob for their efforts.