Honeymoon Advice from Leeandra Dittman, Guest Blogger

I told you in one of my latest posts about the frustrations of starting to plan my honeymoon and how magically, one of my best friends (and bridesmaids) was writing a guest blog for Tried and True on that very subject. She sent it to me from Spain just today and I think it's full of great advice for anyone beginning to book their honeymoon. If you have any specific questions for Leeandra, just email them to me and I'll send them to her in Spain and she'll respond back within a day or so and I'll get the answers up on the blog. Also check out her blog (link provided at the bottom of the post) for stories and advice from her many worldly travels. I miss you Lee and can't wait til you get back for my wedding!

THIS IS WHAT SHE WRITES...

So my friend Amber has a blog about wedding planning and advice, and she asked me to write a blog entry about how I planned my honeymoon in hopes to help out other brides in this fun (albeit stressful) endeavor. So here goes!

When booking your honeymoon, you can approach it in the same way you would any vacation. You can always go through a travel agency if you don't feel confident in yourself (but you will pay extra for their help). Or you can take my advice and book your trip on your own.

I know each person has his or her own method of planning so I'm not saying my way is the best, but I ended up having a perfect honeymoon and so I'd love to share with you how I made it happen.

The first thing I would do is start off by figuring out what kind of honeymoon you'd like- is it a week in Paris sightseeing and enjoying delicious pastries while admiring the Eiffel Tower light up each night? Or is it relaxing on a white sandy beach with a pina colada in one hand and your sweetie's hand in the other? For me, I chose the latter, and by narrowing it down to the type of

vacation I wanted, I was able to play around with different possible locations that also fit within my budget.

And then there's the budget. Realistically plan out how much you are able and willing to spend on your honeymoon. Take into consideration plane tickets (which can vary between a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars each), the hotel (which can make or break the budget depending on how picky you want to be), food (every meal, drinks, snacks etc.), excursions you

may want to take, and souvenirs you'll likely buy.

Knowing I wanted to go someplace tropical on the ocean, I played around with searching for different plane fares to different tropical destinations. My honeymoon was in the middle of August of 2008, and at that time, the South Pacific (Bora Bora, Tahiti, French Polynesia, Fiji) was much more expensive than a flight to the Caribbean. It didn't take long for me to realize that it was twice as expensive to go to the South Pacific as it would be to go to the Caribbean (and even more so to go to the South Indian ocean). Although I originally wanted to go someplace very exotic, my husband and I realized all we really wanted was to relax on a beautiful, warm beach, and so the Caribbean it would be.

From there, I searched for flights through different airlines and companies. Although any will work, I have to say my favorite is with Expedia. They allow you to search for flights and hotels together, and the cool thing is they show you exactly how much you would spend on tons of different hotels, ranging from the cheapest to the most expensive.

The way I found out if a hotel (or hostel) was decent enough for us or not, was throughtripadvisor.com. In a separate window, search for the hotel in google. Click on the result with "tripadvisor" in the link, and it will take you to a site with photos and comments from previous vistors at that hotel. It's simple and it is very quick to tell you if that hotel has everything you want AND is a good deal, or if all the comments about it are negative. (Note: I have found that there will ALWAYS be a negative comment or two from somebody about every hotel you search for... but just use your best judgement!).

My husband and I decided on Aruba as our Honeymoon destination. It turned out that during our honeymoon dates, Aruba had the best deal on flights and hotels combined. We literally looked at a map of the Caribbean and played around with flights to different islands. We also did a little research online about the country before choosing it (Aruba is a pretty safe, Dutch island). After many visits to tripadvisor, we decided on the Manchebo Beach Resort and Spa as our hotel of choice. It seemed to give us all the things we really wanted out of a hotel and for a good price. The comments on tripadvisor were positive, and after spending nine days in Aruba we realized we had been spot on accurate. We were 150% satisfied with our honeymoon!!

Here is a list of the top ten honeymoon spots according to About.com:

1. Hawaii
2. Italy
3. Tahiti
4. Anguilla
5. Fiji
6. St. Lucia
7. Mexico
8. St. Bart's
9. Jamaica
10. France

I will go ahead and plan a fake trip to Hawaii since it's the most popular destination. We'll go to Maui- after doing some research on Hawaii we've decided that Maui would fit us best.

I searched Expedia first for only flights. I reorganized the list by price, lowest to highest first.

It looks like the cheapest flight through Expedia is with Alaska Airlines and is about $1260 for two people, round trip.

I then went to the Alaska Airlines website to check out the price for the exact same flight. It's the exact same price- at about $1260 for two people, round trip. I would recommend checking flights directly through the airline, but if you're like me, you may want to plan your flight with your hotel, and you can usually get a better deal booking them together rather than separate.

So I searched through Expedia again with flight AND hotel combined. I organized the list by price, cheapest deal to the most expensive. After only a little bit of research (through trip advisor, I have decided on the Aston Maui Lu. It has pretty good reviews and is pretty cheap. It sounds a little outdated but it is right on the beach. It sounds like they're doing renovations so by next summer there may be some nice improvements. I would suggest asking for an updated room upon arrival, as some previous guests have recommended.

This hotel and flight combo would cost you about $1450, for two people, flights and hotel included, from June 20th, 2010 through June 27th, 2010.

To book the same hotel separate with the most basic room, it would cost a total of $1200 for the week. Add this to the cost of the flight, at $1260, the total for the trip booked SEPARATELY would be $2460. Therefore, in this situation, it's a MUCH better deal to book both the hotel and flight together through Expedia.

Of course, this all depends on which hotel you go with (you may want something nicer than the one I chose above), which dates you choose, and which city you depart from. It all just requires a little (well, a lot) of research.

There are so many things to take into account when planning any vacation. Perhaps you have frequent flyer miles through a particular airline that can give you a discount? The time you fly can be half as cheap if your dates are open (although most honeymooners of course have only a set period of time to work with.)

I would also recommend a few more things. Look for all-inclusives if you'd rather not worry about food on top of the other costs you'll have. My husband and I opted out on the all-inclusives because we knew we'd want to try out the local cuisine.

Also, I'd suggest waiting until you arrive at your destination before booking any excursions or car rentals, etc. You are more likely to get a good deal through your hotel than online.

And one more thing! When you book your hotel, tell them it's your honeymoon! And tell them again when you arrive! We told ours, and when we showed up we received a free upgrade on our hotel room, free T-shirts (as seen in the photos above), a free dinner, AND a free photo shoot on the beach. You never know what you might get because it's your honeymoon!

Good luck planning! Please let me know if you have any questions at all (breathetheworld.blogspot.com). Happy Honeymooning!

-Leeandra