Honeymoons?

SarahMollie

Just wondering what people are spending on honeymoons typically?

Are people treating it as a once in a lifetime holiday or just another holiday?

Is anyone going to do anything unusual or are most opting for sun/luxury?

Is anyone thinking of just taking a short trip immediately after the wedding and then doing a proper honeymoon a few months later?

Thanks!

fret_wimp2

its up to you, your bank balance, where you would like to go & your plans in future. What others are spending is kind of irrelevant.

If you have 200 quid in the account once the wedding & crucial bills are paid, well then thats pretty much what you have to spend!

If you are saving for a deposit for a house then that will eat into your holiday fund.

If you want a holiday of a lifetime, world trip, that will dictate that it will be a relatively expensive holiday.


Decide where you would like to go, decide your budget if you can make it work. Dont worry what other people are spending as there is always someone spending thousands more than you on something you dont need.

Atomic Pineapple

Our plan is to head to here (http://www.monart.ie/) for a few days after the wedding as a "mini moon" as my fiance calls it and then seeing what we can afford to do 8 - 12 months afterwards.

Milly33

It is whatever you want it to be..

We went for the lots of trips option so been on three hooneymoons so far

The Weekend after the weddng we went for a break in cottages for couples - loverly just to relax
Next trip to Bologna as himself loves it there and we are always saying wed get their together
Next was a trip to Warsaw

All kinda of min breaks which was loverly still have lots more to go on. it is nice to go and not have to worry about the money etc

Milly33

It is whatever you want it to be..

We went for the lots of trips option so been on three hooneymoons so far

The Weekend after the weddng we went for a break in cottages for couples - loverly just to relax
Next trip to Bologna as himself loves it there and we are always saying wed get their together
Next was a trip to Warsaw

All kinda of min breaks which was loverly still have lots more to go on. it is nice to go and not have to worry about the money etc

fits

We booked all ourselves. One week in a super luxury resort in low season and ten days flashpacking in Malaysia. Flew out on tuesday after a friday wedding.
We were really happy with it all.

rainbow kirby

We did 12 days in the US - San Francisco, Oregon and Vegas. Flew out on the Tuesday after a Saturday wedding and booked everything ourselves. Had a fantastic time

Issac

We had ours last year and had a big trip. Spent far too much but loved it. I'd say it was once in a lifetime but we tend to live to travel. We'd rather live in a shack and be able to travel than have a mansion but not be able to head to far away hills!

We did a safari in Kenya followed by a serious hotel in Mauritius. Some advice if you're thinking of using a travel agent: play multiple agents off each other. It took me about 5/6 weeks of getting a quote, sending that to another agent, sending their quote to someone else and going around in circles until I finally ended up upgrading our safari, better flights, hotel upgrades etc. and shaving thousands off the bill.

SarahMollie

fret_wimp2 wrote: »

its up to you, your bank balance, where you would like to go & your plans in future. What others are spending is kind of irrelevant.

If you have 200 quid in the account once the wedding & crucial bills are paid, well then thats pretty much what you have to spend!

If you are saving for a deposit for a house then that will eat into your holiday fund.

If you want a holiday of a lifetime, world trip, that will dictate that it will be a relatively expensive holiday.


Decide where you would like to go, decide your budget if you can make it work. Dont worry what other people are spending as there is always someone spending thousands more than you on something you dont need.

I'm not at all worried about keeping up with others, just interested and looking for some inspiration.

My feeling now is that I'd like to just do a mini moon (either Ireland, somewhere totally luxurious, or maybe out to Connemara as we both love it there) or somewhere in Europe, as I think I might just be a bit too overwhelmed to do something so big straight away.

My only worry with this plan is that leaving a long break between the wedding and the main honeymoon might result in it feeling more like just a really good holiday as perhaps the wedding afterglow might have worn off a bit? I'd be interested to hear what others who took this route found.

SarahMollie

Issac wrote: »

We had ours last year and had a big trip. Spent far too much but loved it. I'd say it was once in a lifetime but we tend to live to travel. We'd rather live in a shack and be able to travel than have a mansion but not be able to head to far away hills!

We did a safari in Kenya followed by a serious hotel in Mauritius. Some advice if you're thinking of using a travel agent: play multiple agents off each other. It took me about 5/6 weeks of getting a quote, sending that to another agent, sending their quote to someone else and going around in circles until I finally ended up upgrading our safari, better flights, hotel upgrades etc. and shaving thousands off the bill.

This sounds amazing - I would love to go to Africa again (I've been to SA once and also Morocco) but its such a vast and varied place, I'd love to see more. My OH is less keen on Africa so this might not go in my favour!

The other place we both have an interest in South America, specifically Argentina and Chile.

Last year we went to Cuba and mostly traveled around, and stayed in Casas but finished off in a few days in a luxury resort. Based on this I'm not sure we're resort people. It felt a bit like an adult luxury Mosni, and we got a bit restless and a bit of white guilt as the locals were so poor. For this reason I don't think we'll be doing too much resort stuff again, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone had an experience of a resort/trips that felt a bit more lively and perhaps had an ethical tourism ethos?

SarahMollie

Issac wrote: »

We had ours last year and had a big trip. Spent far too much but loved it. I'd say it was once in a lifetime but we tend to live to travel. We'd rather live in a shack and be able to travel than have a mansion but not be able to head to far away hills!

We did a safari in Kenya followed by a serious hotel in Mauritius. Some advice if you're thinking of using a travel agent: play multiple agents off each other. It took me about 5/6 weeks of getting a quote, sending that to another agent, sending their quote to someone else and going around in circles until I finally ended up upgrading our safari, better flights, hotel upgrades etc. and shaving thousands off the bill.

One last question Issac! Can you tell me what travel agents you considered and who you went with in the end? I've had good experiences with Trailfinders previously but that was just for booking flights to Australia etc, I've never done a whole tailor made trip through them.

Thanks!

Miss Merry Berry

We're having a baby in August and getting married in July 2017. There is no way I'm leaving a baby under a year old to go on a 2 week honeymoon so we've decided to go to Rome for maybe 3 nights and the Galgorm in Antrim on the way back for 2 nights. We're leaving our proper honeymoon for summer 2018 and we've also decided to go to on a safari to Kenya for 6 nights/7 days. That will in come in about 5 grand all inclusive, with flights. We've decided to save save save and pay for the wedding ourselves and whatever money we get as presents (if any), we will put it towards our honeymoon/s. I'm treating it as a once in a lifetime holiday.

HeidiHeidi

On the ethical end of things, it surely ain't luxury but will provide you with the experience of a lifetime - can I recommend TESFA Tours in Ethiopia? http://www.tesfatours.com/ I have no connection to the company, other than that I was on a trip last November and it was AMAZING. I can't begin to describe how beautiful the countryside is, and the people are just soooo lovely. And it's those people you'll meet who are benefiting directly from your dollars. A lot left of field for a honeymoon, I know, but might be worth investigating. Direct flights to Addis Ababa make it easy peasy and incredibly good value as well.

Also, relating to another of your posts (should've used quotes!) - I've used Trailfinders for a three-week megatrip a few years ago (I called, and still call it, the honeymoon I'll never have ) - they were absolutely fantastic. It involved two locations in Patagonia, cruise to Antarctica (there were two honeymooners on board!), and a few nights in BA. Everything, internal flights, tours, hikes, recommendations for stuff to do, was organised by them, and we had a fantastic time. Couldn't recommend them highly enough. I have no doubt if we'd had the knowledge and the will to organise everything ourselves we'd have shaved money off the overall price - but we didn't have the knowledge (first time to S. America) and the wealth of knowledge and experience the girl we dealt with had was brilliant.

fits

I really liked that we went straight after the wedding as it was all a bit magic. We did do the resort for first week so we could recover.

Not sure if resort we stayed in was 'ethical' but probably as much as any. Staff there worked a five day rather than the six day week which is standard in malaysia. And we were put up in small pavilions rather than a large building. It wssnt a large resort.

As for deciding where to go, its probably best to decide when to go first.

SarahMollie

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

On the ethical end of things, it surely ain't luxury but will provide you with the experience of a lifetime - can I recommend TESFA Tours in Ethiopia? http://www.tesfatours.com/ I have no connection to the company, other than that I was on a trip last November and it was AMAZING. I can't begin to describe how beautiful the countryside is, and the people are just soooo lovely. And it's those people you'll meet who are benefiting directly from your dollars. A lot left of field for a honeymoon, I know, but might be worth investigating. Direct flights to Addis Ababa make it easy peasy and incredibly good value as well.

Also, relating to another of your posts (should've used quotes!) - I've used Trailfinders for a three-week megatrip a few years ago (I called, and still call it, the honeymoon I'll never have ) - they were absolutely fantastic. It involved two locations in Patagonia, cruise to Antarctica (there were two honeymooners on board!), and a few nights in BA. Everything, internal flights, tours, hikes, recommendations for stuff to do, was organised by them, and we had a fantastic time. Couldn't recommend them highly enough. I have no doubt if we'd had the knowledge and the will to organise everything ourselves we'd have shaved money off the overall price - but we didn't have the knowledge (first time to S. America) and the wealth of knowledge and experience the girl we dealt with had was brilliant.

Thanks Heidi, I'll definitely take a look! I'm not a 2 weeks in the Maldives type of person so I'm open to all options!

Regarding trailfinders, I also had a good experience with them when booking flights for Australia (I'm going in 10 days, whoop!) I found I was able to get a better price through them than when I tried to do it myself, and they were able to organise for me to fly into Sydney, have a few internal transfers and then fly home from Perth which would have meant buying all my flights separately on the various airline websites which would have been a pain and €2-300 more expensive.

We also used an agency that specializes in Cuba when we went there last year and it wasn't cheap, but worth every penny, as there's no way we would have gotten as much our of our time there if we'd been rambling around trying to do things ourselves.

I'm definitely bought into the whole travel agent idea!

SarahMollie

fits wrote: »

I really liked that we went straight after the wedding as it was all a bit magic. We did do the resort for first week so we could recover.

Yeah this also appeals to me so I'm a bit conflicted! Maybe some time at a resort closer to home might bridge the gap? I'm less troubled by the lap of luxury in Europe, I just can get a bit guilty about it in poorer countries, even though I know tourism is good for their economies.

You're right that the time of year is also going to be a big factor, so if we finally agree on where we want to go, that might be a deciding factor on when we actually go. (Still in early stage discussions!)

SarahMollie

OSI wrote: »

We did a bit of a blow out for ours as well.

Went to Thailand for 16 days but varied it up a bit while we were there. We stayed in Chiang Mai city first for a few days and got to spend time in an elephant reserve in the mountains looking after elephants that had been rescued from work camps, feeding them, washing them, learning about them etc, was amazing. The city itself is full of temples and a lot of stuff to keep you interested for a few days and the food was exceptional.
We then went to Koh Samui island for 8 nights where we had a villa with it's own pool in a resort so we got the best of both worlds, privacy of a villa and the luxury of a resort. Went mad on the couples massages, thai cookery classes, sea kayaking. Was within walking distance of a couple of villages if you wanted something different and ended it with a private dinner on the beach.
Last stop was a few days of enjoying the utter bedlam that is Bangkok. One of those places that has everything, almost too much of everything. Very easy to get around and literally anything you'd wanna do, you can. Temples, historical sites, shopping, aquariums, museums "massage parlours", night markets, food and drink galore. You can slum it with locals and eat street food out of a shack one minute and literally walk across the street into a shopping mall to buy yourself a Ferrari and Gucci if you wanted.

I have a slight fear of certain places in Asia (and beyond, but especiallly Asia) as I am an absolute magnet for Mosquitoes. If its possible to get bitten, I'll definitely get bitten.

When we were in Cuba last year, I got absolutely destroyed in the last place we stayed (the 5*resort) despite wearing bug spray etc. I got home and some of my bites (about 100 in 3 days) had gotten infected so I had to go straight to my GP and generally felt absolutely lousy for a few weeks after. I always get a few bites when away, but this is up there with my worst 2/3 mosquito fiasco's

Aside from that, your trip sounds great! I love the idea of mixing it up and seeing a variety of different places, with a bit of luxury thrown in, although I'd say 4/5 nights would be our max.

We're not really sun worshipers (himself is a strawberry blonde and I've very dark haired but with pale irish skin) so I know some people happily sit for 2 weeks by the pool but we just couldn't manage it, and himself would drive me mad once he got bored so I don't think that would be a good start to married life!

sillysocks

We got married in Spain and were there for 10 days -a few before and a few after the wedding. We decided to delay the honeymoon a bit then seeing as Spain was kind of a holiday anyway. We booked the honeymoon for 4 months later and it was so nice to have it to look forward to once all the excitement of the wedding had died down. It also meant we were still around the few days/weeks after the wedding when people were still talking about it etc so it was nice not to miss all that.

We did do a fairly blow out trip for the honeymoon then-south Africa and stayed in amazing places. So glad we did it because now the kids have arrived etc there's no chance of that happening again anytime soon. Definitely couldn't afford it now anyway!

jaja321

We got married early December and went on honeymoon after Christmas, so it was nice as just after the wedding we had Christmas to look forward to and then the honeymoon. Some shock to the system coming back to work though!

We didn't stay in any high end resorts (although kinda wish we had for maybe a week like Fits did), but we did stay in really nice accommodation throughout. 2 weeks in Guatemala and 1 week in Belize. We organized it all ourselves. Suppose it was more of a big holiday than a typical honeymoon. We really enjoyed it though. We really just wanted three weeks away, without alarm clocks, good weather, nice food, and interesting stuff to see. Guatemala has a really diverse landscape and Belize was just a total chill out at the end.

Already trying to plan something small for this year to help with the depression of coming back to reality!!

Issac

SarahMollie wrote: »

One last question Issac! Can you tell me what travel agents you considered and who you went with in the end? I've had good experiences with Trailfinders previously but that was just for booking flights to Australia etc, I've never done a whole tailor made trip through them.

Thanks!

Sound like you like to travel a lot too!

We initially went to Trail finders, then Go-hop, then Top Flight and Cassidy (Classic Resorts). Go-Hop were first to be ruled out as the agent there wasn't able to / wouldn't recommend the Kenya/Mauritius combo - he was trying to sell Zanzibar but it wasn't what we wanted.

Trailfinders then quoted us, we then brought that to Top Flight who beat their price by some way. Trailfinders said they couldn't understand how we were able to get that deal and ruled themselves out. We then sent TopFlight's quote to Classic Resorts who found better flights, bounced this back to Topflight who dropped their price, bounced that back to Classic Resorts who bumped up the Safari accoodation....this went on for a while. In the end the agents needed management buy off to offer us the deals we were getting (apparently). Finally went with Cassidy/Classic Resorts and had a great time.

fits

Trailfinders are excellent for booking flights and there is a safety net with them if plans change for some reason in that you can change flights for a fee.

We booked our hotels directly through their websites. Often thats where the best deals are these days. The resort we stayed at were offering an unusual half board deal due to ramadan and it being rainy season and i doubt any travel agent could have matched it.

Princess Peach

We are going to Cottages for Couples in Cork for 2 nights straight after the wedding, have booked a treehouse

My fiance can only get two weeks off work in a row so waiting until the following month for the long honeymoon, so we can have a week off for the wedding and a fortnight away also.

I'm not a fan of the beach or the heat so we are going to drive through the Canadian Rockies.

We booked with Trailfinders and I found them excellent, prices were great (exchange rate helped a lot) but it was really easy especially since we are changing hotels every few nights. And they sorted honeymoon upgrades wherever possible.

SarahMollie

Issac wrote: »

Sound like you like to travel a lot too!

We initially went to Trail finders, then Go-hop, then Top Flight and Cassidy (Classic Resorts). Go-Hop were first to be ruled out as the agent there wasn't able to / wouldn't recommend the Kenya/Mauritius combo - he was trying to sell Zanzibar but it wasn't what we wanted.

Trailfinders then quoted us, we then brought that to Top Flight who beat their price by some way. Trailfinders said they couldn't understand how we were able to get that deal and ruled themselves out. We then sent TopFlight's quote to Classic Resorts who found better flights, bounced this back to Topflight who dropped their price, bounced that back to Classic Resorts who bumped up the Safari accoodation....this went on for a while. In the end the agents needed management buy off to offer us the deals we were getting (apparently). Finally went with Cassidy/Classic Resorts and had a great time.

Yeah I've definitely got the travel bug at the moment, and what better excuse!

Sounds like it definitely pays to shop around, I'll contact all of the above and see what they can come up with, thanks!

SarahMollie

Princess Peach wrote: »

We are going to Cottages for Couples in Cork for 2 nights straight after the wedding, have booked a treehouse

My fiance can only get two weeks off work in a row so waiting until the following month for the long honeymoon, so we can have a week off for the wedding and a fortnight away also.

I'm not a fan of the beach or the heat so we are going to drive through the Canadian Rockies.

We booked with Trailfinders and I found them excellent, prices were great (exchange rate helped a lot) but it was really easy especially since we are changing hotels every few nights. And they sorted honeymoon upgrades wherever possible.

That sounds really nice! We were in Canada (not the Rockies, just Whistler, Vancouver and Victoria) in late 2014 and its an amazing country in my opinion. The scenery is breathtaking and the scale of everything is just amazing!

Faith

SarahMollie wrote: »

My only worry with this plan is that leaving a long break between the wedding and the main honeymoon might result in it feeling more like just a really good holiday as perhaps the wedding afterglow might have worn off a bit? I'd be interested to hear what others who took this route found.

We got married in August and we're going on our honeymoon on Saturday (woohoo!).

Our situation was complicated because we live in Canada. We needed 3 weeks off work to get home in time for the final wedding planning things and getting my dress fitted, then a few days to unwind afterwards. We got married on a Saturday, stayed in the hotel until Tuesday and flew out back to Canada first thing on Thursday morning. Back to work on Monday. That bit was hard!

We didn't book our honeymoon until we got back to Canada, and I think that helped prolong the excitement for us. We're going ultra-luxury, once-in-a-lifetime and we couldn't be more excited about it. I think going back to work largely kills a wedding "afterglow" no matter what, but we feel like we have extended it by 6 months because of this trip, and we're so excited to have our honeymoon now. If we went straight after the wedding, the "wedding" excitement and the "honeymoon" excitement would be one. But now we've had two separate super exciting times within 6 months. It's also helped us get through a dreary January!

Both ways are going to be great, no matter what you do .

fits

Ooh. Where you going Faith? I admit i was horribly down straight after we got back. (with good reason as it happened as things went to **** and we've had to rethink our careers/ living situations.)

Faith

We're going just outside of Cancun, to a luxury all-inclusive resort . Perfect time of year for it, as it's not too hot. Looks to be about 25-29 degrees while we're there, with sea temperatures of ~26 degrees. Sure what else would you be doing in February?

Atomic Pineapple

Looking into an all inclusive resort in Cancun myself, could you share where you are staying and why you chose it? Feel free to pm me if you need to.

ChewChew

We're getting married in March 2017 and as we'll have a near 2 year old at that stage we're planning on doing the typical sun holiday resort some time in April so she gets to have her holiday too. Would love to go all inclusive somewhere on the med

tread_softly

SarahMollie wrote: »

I have a slight fear of certain places in Asia (and beyond, but especiallly Asia) as I am an absolute magnet for Mosquitoes. If its possible to get bitten, I'll definitely get bitten.

I'm the same as you, get bitten wherever I go, it's horrific. When myself and himself travelled around a few years ago I got absolutely destroyed by mosquitoes in Fiji. It's horrible, I ended up in our hostel room in tears trying to put cream on all the bites which had turned into welts at that stage.

We were due to go to SE Asia shortly after that and I was so scared about a repeat but to my surprise, I wasn't touched at all in Asia, including Thailand!

I don't have a clue why, maybe it was to do with the time of year we travelled but we spent just over a month country hopping and I didn't get bitten once! So don't discount it entirely, maybe you'd be as lucky as me


I definitely agree that a honeymoon should be a once in a lifetime trip.
We ended up cutting back on the spending of the wedding itself to add money to the honeymoon fund and were delighted we did it.

We've always wanted to go to Japan, it was a dream destination for us.
We ended up splashing out on a 9 day tour with some extra days free at the end for us to do our own thing in Tokyo.

It was incredible, expensive but incredible!! If you have somewhere you've always wanted to go, honeymoon time is a great excuse to do it!

We're not really relax on the beach people so that travelling around type of holiday really suits us. We spent every day doing something different and going somewhere new and it was amazing.

I want to get married again so I have an excuse to go to South Korea this time

Oh and we went just over a month after our wedding. The wedding happened just before a major public holiday in Japan and they recommend not to travel during that time as it's so busy.

It was weird going back to work shortly after the wedding but with the honeymoon to look forward to, it brought back a lot of excitement.

SarahMollie

tread_softly wrote: »

I'm the same as you, get bitten wherever I go, it's horrific. When myself and himself travelled around a few years ago I got absolutely destroyed by mosquitoes in Fiji. It's horrible, I ended up in our hostel room in tears trying to put cream on all the bites which had turned into welts at that stage.

We were due to go to SE Asia shortly after that and I was so scared about a repeat but to my surprise, I wasn't touched at all in Asia, including Thailand!

I don't have a clue why, maybe it was to do with the time of year we travelled but we spent just over a month country hopping and I didn't get bitten once! So don't discount it entirely, maybe you'd be as lucky as me

Thanks, this gives me some hope then!

Getting badly bitten (and then infected) is just the most miserable experience. My OH doesn't really get bothered by them too badly so I feel like he thinks I'm exaggerating how much discomfort I'm in. I've can totally relate to sitting in the room crying. I think he finally understood when an infected bite started oozing puss and running down my leg for all to see as we were queuing to check in at the airport to come home. I felt like a monster.


I suppose if I'm careful to avoid rainy season (humidity) maybe it wouldn't be too risky. I guess I'm just terrified of spending a honeymoon covered in unsightly welts and feeling miserable.

tread_softly

I'm the same with my fella, he doesn't get bitten at all!!!

I did read somewhere that if you get bitten loads and most of the time it's when you're with someone who doesn't get bitten at all, it's their fault.

Apparently the other person smells irresistible to the mosquitoes but when they bite them they don't like the taste of their blood so they go to the nearest target which is you. You don't smell as great to them but you taste amazing according to the article!

I don't know if I believe it but I always like teasing himself and telling him it's all his fault I'm getting destroyed as he smells great but tastes awful

If it's any help, we were in SE Asia around April/May