North Carolina Nesties
Dear Community,
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.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
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.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Where should I go on my honeymoon?
Okay, FI and I are getting married on June 26th and are trying to figure out the best place to go without breaking the bank too much. We are looking at all inclusive but can't decide between Jamaica, Aruba or St. Lucia. Anybody want to give rants or raves about these places and where we should look at staying? Also is there somewhere else we should consider going?
Re: Where should I go on my honeymoon?
That's where we went too! It was amazing and I definitely want to go back
This is where our TA suggested and we were so close to booking, but in the end I was too cheap! I did a ton of research and that place sounded amazing.
dbertagni- Would you use your trsvel agent again? Would you mind giving me her/his information?
i haven't been a whole lot of places, but here's the two places i've been that are tropical spots ...
Aruba - went for our HM in 2006. we loved it. its not really a place you go for a lot of adventure or culture, but more for the beaches and especially the great restaurants. we did a few excursions (sunset happy hour sailing & an RTV/snorkeling thing). we stayed at a really nice Marriott there (not an all inclusive). i wouldn't suggest AI's because there's really a lot of great places to eat and i'd encourage you to leave the resort.
Riviera Maya, Mexico - last October we stayed at Secrets Capri and were very pleased. this was our first AI experience. some of the restaurants were hit or miss, but the overall experience was wonderful. Mexico had a lot more activities to offer than Aruba did. but the beach here was not nearly as good. and i'd only do an AI there.
I have always heard Aruba is not the place to do AI- they have too many good places to eat that are easily acessible.
We went to An Excellence Resort in the Riveria Mayan. It was an AI. We loved it!
www.excellenceresorts.com
we went here for a friends wedding in 2005. it was awesome! definitely would recommend it to anyone
I don't have the info for the Travel Agent, she was very helpful and gave a huge list of places, I am pretty sure DH may have it in his email because he never deletes anything, she was able to find us some great deals. If I can find it I will try to page you tonight!
ETA: I just googled Cary, NC travel agents, and it was Alpha World Travel. I also contacted Magic Happens since they did a lot with my old job and they were rude and wouldn't work within a budget.
I am going to vote for Jamaica! We loved, loved, loved Couples Swept Away in Negril - it was absolutely amazing. Great beach, drinks, activities, food - totally blown away! We were really tempted to go back there for our trip this summer, but decided to try some place new, so we are headed to Sandals Whitehouse (also in Jamaica).
We went to Valentin Riviera Maya in Mexico last year, and it was a great resort, but you could never swim at the beach. It was super windy & the red flag was up all day. I'm a beach girl, so I was bummed I couldn't do that part of it. Otherwise, the resort was amazing.
I have a great travel agent, if you are interested. She is SUPER knowledgeable about the Caribbean - just let me know!
We went to Aruba on our honeymoon and we did actually go the AI route. We stayed at the Tamarijn--one of the MEGA resort properties--they have a sister hotel right down the beach (the Divi)--they are both in the low-rise section of Aruba. We LOVED our experience there--the hotel itself isn't luxurious, but it's the only one (from what I've seen) that is literally ocean front. As in we were just steps--maybe 25 feet at most--not 100+ yards away like most of the other hotels we saw, which was really nice. We really liked the activities and amenities offered by these resorts. We're pretty active so we enjoyed a guided bike tour that had a snorkel stop over by the popular snorkeling area. We took the bikes out a few other times to ride into town or go to the Aruba Aloe factory. We took advantage of all the free activities the resort offered and enjoyed it. We also paid for some of the excursions like the sunset sailing cruise, the jeep tour of the island, and the catamaran snorkle cruise.
Having said all that, we don't have any regrets about going AI--I'm a snacker and a picky eater so having a lot of different options at weird times is usually my friend. I'm sure the restaurants on the Island are wonderful but for us, it was less stressful to NOT have any of those kinds of decisions (the worst feeling for me is going somewhere for dinner and hating my food choices). If you are looking for a more luxurious or romantic HM though, I probably would recommend doing something else--I know there was one other low-rise hotel that was all inclusive and was more honeymoon-friendly than ours. Oh, and comparatively, I did think the low-rise was much more "secluded" feeling and intimate--many fewer guests, no wait for lounges--we always felt like we had the beach to ourselves. And "our" beach was right next to the public Aruba beach.