May 2012 Weddings
mandi921vh
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
HM
H and I have not gone on our HM yet, and I am hoping we can go this spring when the weather is nice in the caribbean area. I feel like the clock is ticking because in a year we might TTC... might. I want to go on our HM before we have a child because I feel once we have a baby we will never go.
Anyways did any of you ladies book your HM through a specific agency that offers deals of any kind? What about going through a travel agent?
TIA!
Re: HM
We didn't use a travel agent. We researched hotels and resorts and picked the one that sounded the best to us. Once we were there we worked with the concierge at the hotel to book our excursions.
I've traveled quite a bit, and I've never went through an agent. I really don't think they're necessary, and it can be fun to research where your going and planning a trip how you and DH want!
we went on a caribbean cruise...I strongly recommend as it was fun to see more then one place but have all the amenities on the ship too.
As for as planning, we booked the cruise like a year out so that we could watch for cheaper flights...and then just found hotels (we spent 3 days in Miami before the cruise) ourselves. We booked excursions through the cruise and it was nice to have some tours/things to do for part of the day and then just relaxing for part of the day at most places. Typically we planned 1 excursion per port, and then that day if we felt like doing more we would look into what still had space.
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We used Liberty Travel and they were great!
I felt like the travel agent we worked with was such a time saver for us. We just told her dates, times we wanted to depart, and hotels we were thinking about (after researching on tripadvisor.com) and she put together the entire trip.
What was also nice is that we only had to give her a deposit for the flights, and the rest of the $ was due about 2 months before the HM.
I don't trust myself to plan a trip on my own (expedia.com or whatever) and if anything were to go wrong it would be my fault. So it was nice to have someone else to rely on (who does this type of thing every day) to make sure everything was done correctly.
We've worked with this same travel agent for two of our trips (one being the HM) and she is so quick to respond to my emails/phone calls and really knows her stuff and was able to work with our budget.
Let me know if you want her contact info since you're in MA too. We never sat and met with her in person, it was all done over the phone/email.
Missing Our July Sparkler
BFP#1-11/12/12, MMC 1/16/13-baby stopped growing @ 9wks, found out at 13wks, D&E 1/25/13
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We usually plan our own trips but for our honeymoon we went through a travel agent. I did all the research myself and basically told her what to book. We decided to use a travel agent for our honeymoon because we got a better rate on our trip insurance and if anything did go wrong she would have handled it. Right when we were planning our honeymoon my boss went away and it was a nightmare (bad weather, canceled flight, trip pushed back a day) and her travel agent, who we used, dealt with everything. That kind of scared me into using one.
She also booked our transportation to/from the airport which was nice. And she gave us a set of luggage as a wedding present, but that was an added bonus we weren't expecting!
that's why the honeymoon was such a big deal to me too, i've heard so many times people pushing back their honeymoon and it never happening bc babies showed up lol
DH and i travel A LOT, both together and with our families. we've never used a travel agent until the honeymoon because it was such a BIG trip. (we went to new zealand & fiji) DH planned everything with the travel agent, told her what our budget was, what our priorities were (more activities, less fancy hotels) and what types of things we were interested in seeing and doing. she suggested a bunch of things and DH ultimately made the decision on activities. she prepared our itinerary and had a whole package put together for us. we were met by an agent at the airport when we landed who gave us our package with all the details, itinerary, vouchers for all activities, and rental car and flight info for the rest of the trip. it was super organized and awesome! we had shuttles already booked to pick us up when we didn't have a rental car, everyone was expecting us when we showed up for shows/activities, it was great!
we had one hiccup and were able to contact our agent through the international contact number and everything was taken care of. we had a really great experience, and when we got back i think DH sent her some flowers or an edible arrangement or something like that as a thank you.
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We went to St. Lucia. I am normally a big fan of doing a lot of research and planning travel, but with all the wedding planning going on I didn't have a lot of extra time/energy to do it, so I decided to give a travel agency a try. I met someone from the agency at a wedding show.
http://www.myislandgetaways.com/
They specialize in weddings/honeymoons, and have won a lot of prizes for being an apparently great travel agency. To be honest, I wasn't super impressed. One, I could have booked our trip for the same price online. Two, she just wasn't nearly as meticulous as I was - I guess I assumed that by using a travel agency you didn't have to do anything. Disappointments include:
1.) We booked our resort before our airfare, as airfare wasn't available yet at that time. She never warned us that the flights to St. Lucia usually take 2 days from here, since all the direct flights from Miami to St. Lucia leave early mornings (we planned on leaving on Monday, so our first night was booked for Monday.) In order to get there by Monday night, we had to actually leave Sunday. I really regret not putting my foot down about her changing the dates on our resort stay, because leaving Sunday was really hard and I wish I could have spent more time with all our guests instead of packing & leaving for our honeymoon. Not to mention I was so tired I was miserable the entire travel time.
2.) She didn't let us know about the helicopters from the St. Lucia airport to the resort (to avoid a 2 hour drive through the mountains). I get car sick really easily, and a friend tipped me off about this. After reading a lot of things about the terrible airport drive, we booked a helicopter trip and I am SO glad we did - but again, not her doing.
3.) It's a good thing I confirmed our airport park & fly hotel stays, because she hadn't booked them like she said she was going to.
4.) I went to Sandals online and I actually made sure our honeymoon welcome (free bottle of champagne and flowers) were to be in our room upon arrival. I never received the "welcome package/letter" we were supposed to get for being her "guests".
The only thing that was helpful was that she'd been to all the resorts and was able to help recommend one to fit our tastes.
My attitude at this point is - I planned 2 separate trips to Europe, each 2 weeks long. One in which we took a road trip to 6 different cities in Germany (each requiring a hotel stay) and one in which we took a road trip to Paris, stayed there for a few days, and then flew to Barcelona for a few more days. And then of course get us back to Germany. I planned all the stuff we wanted to see/do. I was able to do this all with NO problems at all, all online and with one of Rick Steves' guides. So at this point, I figure if I can do all that by myself, I don't need a travel agent for anything.
So my advice - 1) You could probably find the same deal online, and 2) Just because you go through a travel agent doesn't mean you won't have to do any work. As always, if you want something done right, do it yourself
We did not use a travel agent for our HM. We went to Colorado and I did all the planning. I personally like having control over these things. We booked flights, car rental, and both hotels online. We have used AAA before to help book trips, but I find that what they did wasn't any different than what I could do by using the internet. I would start asking around of which islands people liked and where they stayed and what they thought of it. Then do your research.
I would go on your HM now (spring) before kids come along because then it won't be a honeymoon anymore. It'll be a vacation. Plus, it won't be as easy to pick up and go away for a week without them.