Alright guys, here's the backstory. I haven't been on a vacation in over four years, and before that only to mild places like florida and stuff. I will be getting married in August and am trying like hell to figure out a honeymoon trip. I was thinking somewhere like Puerto Rico, as it is tropical like the future wife wants (plus there are some baddass cars down there). I was checking places like travelocity and whatnot, but I would like to hear some other opinions.... any suggestions? I'm looking for tips on places to book through, or maybe one of those all inclusive deals. Not a huge budget as I am paying for this myself.

 

If you're interested in all-inclusive places, check out Sandals. They're mainly in Jamaica but there are some in St. Lucia, Antigua, and the Bahamas. We went to Sandals St. Lucia for our honeymoon.

I stayed at the Beach Palace in Cancun for a seminar recently and I really enjoyed it. It's all-inclusive also.

You can book direct with most of these resorts or on a website like hotels.com or expedia.

Narrow down where you would like to go and then do some research on the internet.

Keep in mind that August is part of hurricaine season in the carribien. Places like Aruba are less likely to get hit than place like Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands.

 

My wife and I travel quite a bit and use sites like Travelocity and Orbitz a lot. I like to look at each site beacause they don't always have the same hotels so you could find a hotel on orbitz that you want to stay at that is not on travelocity or vice versa. Flight prices are pretty much the same wherever you look most of the time.

All inclusive deals at the more expensive places are generally better than the cheap all inclusive hotels. What I mean by that is a place like Club Med might have a deal and pretty good food. Some of the cheaper all inclusives have awful food.

I don't generally like all inclusives because you pay for the food in advance and I like to scout around and try different local places and not be bound to the hotel.

All inclusives are also good for the lay-around-the-pool booze hounds like some of my friends because drinks are included, but that is not my type of vacation either.

Depending on where you go, most places island getaways on the beach are walking distance from a town and finding little hole in the wall retaurants is part of the charm.

It is a honeymoon so only you know what you want to get out of it. My honeymoon was spent running all over Maui seeing and doing, not too much sitting around.

 

I do quite a bit of traveling and the main sites I use are

airfarewatchdog.com - Shows you great deals from your city to tons of locations throughout the world (great if you are not sure where you want to go)
hotwire.com/priceline.com - when I want to combine hotel and airfare into a package. If you aren't picky on hotels this is a great option bc you usually save quite a bit instead of booking separately.

 

i appreciate the advice guys. I was kind of leaning away from the all inclusive places because I too would like to get out and about seeing the local scenery.
righ85tpi, thanks for the hurricane advice, I wasn't even thinking about that.

another question; I don't have a valid passport anymore, so getting one to me is just not worth the hassle. This is why I was looking at Puerto Rico. Are there any other islands down in that area (aside from jamaica... don't really want to go there) where a passport isn't required?

 

US Virgin Islands.

 

Surprised no one mentioned kayak.com

 

DBX

 

DBX?

 

Try Living Social's Escapes.

Here is one that's pretty awesome, http://escapes.livingsocial.com/deals/2673...ghts-in-cozumel