Oh dear god, no. [travel]

[mizarchivist]

I'm planning my honeymoon 10 years after the fact. I asked a friend of mine who travels often for the name of her agent. Friend in question is my mom's age, so maybe this gave the agent the impression I was a well off middle aged woman kicking back and living off my husband's wealth in Lexington. Ok, now I'm really laughing at that image.

I've never gone on a vacation like this ever. When I travel, it's in the fashion of dead-broke student backpacker begging a bed from a friend or relative. So, I just about passed out when the woman quoted an approximation of 5-6K for two people to go to the Caribbean. Every other person had my reaction. Today she comes back with something in the 7K range. Specifically, 7209.74. Lemme just go rob a bank now. My response was unless she could pretty much cut that in half, I was headed off to do something entirely different. buxom_bey has promised me the name of her agent.

Comments

[cutieperson]

i think we spent about $3k to do it, but we didn't have to rent a vehicle and didn't stay in a resort. my guess is you'll be hard-pressed to find inexpensive lodgings and affordable car rental/transport options, but it depends on where you want to go.

[mizarchivist]

But we can totally manage to reduce by a few thousand from this woman's notion. I have been talking to caulay about USVI in general- and yeah. I have regained some confidence already.

[cutieperson]

*nodnod* no doubt.

is it important to you to go through an agent, rather than find and book things yourself?

[mizarchivist]

once I actually get some parameters down, not necessarily, but I'm entirely unschooled on the finer points of how many days/best day to leave. I don't even know/care where I go at this point as long as it's pretty, has a usable beach, and gives me the chance to eat at my lodgings or more authentic. Umbrellas in the drinks-- sure.
With so many factors a question mark, I didn't want to drink from that fire hose.

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

If you're going to do USVI, feel free to run the agents' suggestions by me so you can have some idea of whether it's decent or not. If you want to do St John, we can talk next week about some of your options so maybe you'll just need to only book a flight through an agent. There are some little rental places that only a really savvy agent would know about that generally don't cost $300/night. Wex's idea of reverse engineering the process isn't bad either. We can talk too about what kind of island [experience] you are looking for--they're all very different!

[mizarchivist]

duh. but of course! Depending on my spazatude, I may need a joggle of the memory, but yes. :)

[emerlion.livejournal.com]

D and I are thinking about taking a cruise from San Diego to Cabo san Lucas along the coast, sometime this fall. They are relatively inexpensive. You interested in joining us?

[mizarchivist]

Thanks for the offer, but cruise was not the path I wanted.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

qwrrty and I took our honeymoon a year before the wedding, and except for my airplane tickets (which his parents bought), his employer paid for the whole thing. The "working in Scotland" thing was just an excuse :-)

[drwex]

One possibility would be to work the problem backward. Find an island (because it sounds to me like you're heading for that kind of thing) you want to stay on. Then pick some resorts on that island. My guess is that those resorts' web sites will have packages. This will give you some rough parameters for days to travel, length of stay, and ballpark price ranges.

If something really catches your eye then you can chase it. If not, then try a different island. I'd suggest Jamaica or the Bahamas as popular destinations with lots of options. There are lots of good smaller places in the Caribbean but the advantage of bigger places is more choices and more potential for cheap options.

If you do like the island but don't like the resorts you can find less-inclusive hotels or other beach-proximate properties and see what their package and pricing are like.

It is still a fair bit of info, but it narrows down the firehose somewhat.

[mizarchivist]

Thanks :)

Ouchies!

[kebbykate.livejournal.com]

Disney-freaking-land didn't cost me that much! Wow! I'm sure you'll be able to get something much more reasonable. I have friends who manage it pretty regularly.

[beah.livejournal.com]

You should talk to barodar. He just got back from Cancun, and booked the whole package on the intartubes for pretty darn cheap.

[moechus.livejournal.com]

If you're looking for an island with beaches, let me suggest the Canaries. I was on Gran Canaria in Feb. 1995 and really enjoyed it and it was quite cheap. I found 3-course prix fixe meals (w. wine) for $6-8 and rented a car for a day for $15. Of course, that was back in the days of the peseta. But I'm betting it's still significantly cheaper than most of Europe and probably competitive with the Caribbean (a quick and superficial check found rooms as low as 55 euros a night and I have no doubt that cheaper is out there).

[rhysara.livejournal.com]

Wait, there are still travel agents? Teh intarwebs haven't driven them all out of business? Who knew!

[missionista.livejournal.com]

Belize is supposed to be lovely and inexpensive. It has both beaches and jungle ruins.