Making your honeymoon memorable

After getting married in October, my wife and I decided some time before to go out of the country to celebrate the occasion. With that in mind, I have put together a list of a number of different things that you can do to help enhance your experience while traveling on your honeymoon. If I had to do this all over again, there is little doubt that I would use these steps to help me during that time.

*Book your own flight - Let me stress that this one needs to be the most important of them all. When booking our honeymoon, it was labeled a six day getaway. Technically, my wife and I were on our honeymoon for six days. But the timing that was used was something that needs to be talked about. First off, we arrived at the island on day one at 11 PM. That full hour of sitting in the lobbying and them trying to figure out where our room was at started things off. On the last day, which was day six, we had to get up at 3 AM, get on the bus by 4 AM, and those few hours were called the last day. Obviously that last day was all sleep and rushing to the bus. We also had to spend the rest of that day miserable in Miami waiting for our home flight.

If I had to do it all over again, here is what I would do. It would be to fly into Miami much earlier on the first day. There were multiple flights to Jamaica that day but we ended up on the last one. That cost us on day one. We were also not aware of the hour drive that it took to get from the airport to the resort so look into that because it does factor in. That made it even later. On the last day, you needed to leave the resort by 11 AM. With an hour drive, that made things very difficult with the hour that we ended up leaving at. So figure out things ahead of time so you will not be in this situation.

*Book your honeymoon early - One of the advantages that Sandals offered when you booked your honeymoon early was the fact that they gave you $250 in credit on the island while you were there. Yes, the credit was limited but it allowed us to move from a room that we were not so high on to one we enjoyed many more times. Most companies will offer discounts or credit at various times to help you in keeping things inexpensive on your travels.

*Wait until two days after your wedding - One tip that we heard after we had already booked our honeymoon was one that we had wished we could have used. If you get married on a Saturday, like we did, you obviously spend Saturday up late with the wedding and your spouse (The first time together right?). On Sunday, some open presents and you are still tired from driving all around. We had to leave on Monday morning at 8 AM so we had an hour drive and then to deal with checking into the airport. So during that first day, it was tough to recharge your battery without wanting to nap all day in a great country. If we had decided to wait until Tuesday to leave, I think it would have really helped with our sanity. Most people normally take the week off following their wedding anyways so there should be enough time built in there.

*Don’t look ahead to the last name change - An area that really bit me was that I signed up my wife with my last name on all of the boarding passes. While I obviously was not the first person to do this, the time it takes to get a driver’s license is not small. So instead of bringing the wedding certificate (Which we could have done) and trying to fight out way through, I decided to pay the charge. I guess I was just excited early about her taking my last name. That excitement cost me $100 in charges because I did not think ahead about how readily available she would have new IDs with the my last name.

*Keep things in budget - With wedding and honeymoons, everyone wants to have a time that they can always remember. But considering the fact that you don’t want to put yourself in debt, plan out a realistic budget ahead of time. Talk this through with your future spouse about where you want to go and the amount that you want to spend. The place that you may want to go may not be in your budget so you will have to play accordingly.

*Talk to other couples about the attractions at your resort - At a place like Sandals, it is important to realize that your big fee up front will not cover everything. If you want to go on excursions throughout the island, you will have to pay pretty big prices for these. For whatever reason, I thought they were free going in and wanted to do everything. Once I realized that there was a hefty price tag on everything, my decisions changed quickly. While we talked to many people, we decided to blaze our own trail and go on the water rafting tour. Yes, it was fun but I can’t say that it was worth $75 an hour. I thought it was going to last four hours and only went two hours. What a great time that was!

*If it is all inclusive, live it up - If there are free drinks and food to be had, enjoy yourself. Yes, I am not saying get sloppy drunk and wreck your diet as quickly as you can. But everyone hopes that they will be going on one honeymoon in their lifetime so it would be a nice time to live things up and have fun while you are there. You are paying what is likely thousands of dollars for this adventure so enjoy yourself. Also, try as many restaurants as you can while there.

*Tips are forced - We went to Jamaica and while the brochures say that there is no tipping on the resort, that did not turn out to be true. Make sure to bring a decent amount of cash or you will be caught in some struggles. People from Jamaica use tips as a way to earn a living.

*Hope for good weather - We unfortunately had some days with rainy and cloudy weather. While the temperatures were still in the 70s, it was still rainy and bleak. Those really were some days that we enjoyed overall but it still would have been better if the sun would have been blazing.