Wedding Blog
Mr. Ballet Flat and I will be honeymooning in Orlando. For the majority of the honeymoon, we decided to stay in a vacation home.
Since we are road tripping it to Orlando, which is a good 8-9 hours away from New Orleans, we definitely want to rest up the night of our wedding so we can hit the road well-rested the next morning. We were originally looking at hotels in Biloxi, Mississippi, because it’s not too far from New Orleans at all and would shave an hour or so off the travel time for us the next day. Plus, their casino hotels, for the most part, are pretty nice. The problem? These hotels wanted upwards of $400/night, and that’s a little over budget for us.
So, we decided to try Priceline to bid on a nice 4 star hotel. We have used Priceline for mini vacations that we have taken before and have been really satisfied with the hotels.
Priceline is really easy to use. You just name your city and date, then click on the type of hotel you want (1,2,3,4 star), choose the area of the city you want to stay in, name your price, and let Priceline do the work. The only risk is you are obligating yourself to whatever hotel takes your bid, so it can be a shot in the dark. However, if you choose a higher star hotel, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about, since those are known as nicer hotels.
For us, no 4-star hotels were available in Biloxi, so we decided on New Orleans to start our bidding war. Mr. Ballet Flat put in a bid of $50 on our wedding night, and we lucked out! Someone accepted our bid!
The Renaissance Arts Hotel in New Orleans
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Check out this hotel room!
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The only stinky thing is that we have to pay for parking, but that’s OK by us! We are still well under $100 for the night, which is a huge savings in our opinion!
Have you discovered any money saving websites for your honeymoon?
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Share this post: The Wedding Night’s Price Tag
Oh wow! That’s a CRAZY deal, and the room looks amazing!
I did know priceline worked like that! 
Exciting! That room looks beautiful!
I used priceline to rent a car once, and it saved me a bunch of money. Plus i’m a sucker for the “priceline negotiator” ads. I have no idea why i find them amusing. thanks for reminding me about it. I think i’m going to use them to book our rooms at a upcoming wedding that we are guests at. Congrats on getting such a great deal!!
That room looks awesome! We used luxurylink.com to book our honeymoon, although it’s an auction site and more similar to Ebay.
What a fantastic deal!!! Our wedding night is included in the package with the hotel- we both can’t wait!!
That’s so awesome! eee the FI is in charge of the honeymoon.. it’s not booked yet… ahhh
I had a bad experience with priceline in college when it booked me a room I didn’t want far from where I wanted to be using the “bid” option. But I love using priceline to book last minute vacation packages to cancun when I actually get to chose which hotel.
We’re staying in a hotel that’s close to the airport the night of the wedding because we have an early international flight the next morning. We’re saving by booking directly from their website and prepaying.
The big saver is that they have free shuttle to the airport and we can leave our car parked at the hotel free of charge throughout our honeymoon!
Wow that is awesome!! My Fiance and I are going to do the same thing when we go on our honeymoon. We are taking a cruise, but when we booked it we were told it is never a good idea to fly out the day your boat leaves so we’re going to try it out for the night before we leave to save money. I hope our room turns out to be as nice as yours looks!
Holy Moly $50! That is awesome!
We kinda already decided on our hotel for our wedding night, but I should try this on one of our stops on our honeymoon. Thanks for the idea
What?!? $50?!? That’s amazing!!! And I’m a big fan of Renaissance hotels…love the boutique-y feel of their decor!
Such a great deal! We just booked our honeymoon and were able to negotiate the price to a really great deal as well.
What a great deal! I didn’t know how priceline worked, but if its that easy, I don’t know why more people don’t use it.
Enjoy Ballet Flats!
I haven’t used them for our honeymoon yet (still don’t know where we’re going), but Travelzoo.com has helped me find some great deals in the past.
My FH and I are considering a mini-moon in Orlando (his parents live in Cocoa Beach, so it could be something of a familymoon!) so that we can go visit the new Harry Potter section of Universal Studios right after it opens. We’re SUCH nerds.
I use Hotwire.com Same concept of bidding without knowing who will take the bid. I’m nervous to do this for our hotel because I think location is everything!!
I use Priceline and Hotwire all the time! A great site to check out prior to “bidding” is betterbidding.com. They provide a comprehensive list of hotels you can potentially end up with categorized by city, number of stars, and list of amenities. So even if you don’t know what you may end up “winning” up front…you’re at least able to narrow it down to 2-3 hotels. Another great thing about BB is their winning bid forum which gives you an idea of how much to bid based on what others have won. What can I say, I like to “gamble” with care 
haven’t started looking at hotel rooms yet but i do like priceline. we also always ask for the aaa discount.
Here’s an even SNEAKIER way to work it! I used priceline a year and 8 mos ago for my son and I to go to Orlando. As a busy, overworked single mom (had not yet met T at that time) I wanted a swanky room but get most bang for my buck..I began surfing. And after research I found a site called “biddingfortravel.com”
On this site it teaches you proper bidding and shows you what hotels are in what areas and what hotels are with what star rating. Members write in (it’s also nice if you do well and get a great hotel and save $ to donate to the site to keep it going, a few bucks is all) and they say what they bid (amount), where, and what was the winning bid. So you KNOW a bit before you bid. Almost like cheating at blackjack in vegas by counting the cards if you ask me!
Anyhow, I wanted the Omni Orlando Championsgate with its mangifique water slides and beautiful lazy river, great rooms, kids club and was PET friendly! My havanese was a baby and I wanted to bring him with us..
Well I used their suggestions and WON that hotel for 1/3 of the suggested price. I ended up paying less than $120/night for a luxurious hotel!
By the way, I saved well over 100 bucks off the nightly rate..almost half off in fact! Some of the rooms there went for 300/night.
We’re thinking of honeymooning in Naples Florida…how did you choose Orlando?
We haven’t even booked our hotel for the minimoon yet! But you’ve just inspired me to use Priceline!
@ColorCoated: It’s way simpler than it sounds.
@bellenga: That’s so neat!! Great savings there
@D.Marie: Mainly because of Disney World and Universal. :)@cwrenity: Thanks for the pointers! I’ll definitely keep that in mind for next time we use it!
We pricelined our honeymoon stay - our first stop is in Vancouver and it is costing us $95/night for a stay in the Westin Bayshore with to-die-for views of Coal Harbour. I can’t believe the deal! The downside is of course that you dont know what exactly you are going in for (the hotel) but I use betterbidding.com for help!
um, SCORE, b.f.!! i tried priceline, but wimped out @ the last minute cuz i’ve always wanted to stay @ The Drake in Chicago, so I think we’re going to bite the bullet even though it’s not close to our reception & almost $300/night. (yowsa!) i’m saving all my market research $, ebay sales, etc. in anticipation.
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Mrs. Ballet Flat, New Orleans
Age and Occupation: 24, Geographic Information Systems Analyst
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, IT Analyst
Engagement Date: March 16, 2008
Wedding Date: May, 2009
Blogging Since: September 25, 2008
Venue: St. Charles Borromeo Church/Jefferson-Orleans North
About Me: I absolutely love wedding planning, spending time with Mr. Ballet Flat, various crafts, watching football, baking, pop music, bargain hunting and ice cream. My idea of a great date night is dinner and clearance shopping with Mr. Ballet Flat! I currently live below sea level in the suburbs near New Orleans, where I make maps all day, everyday for my job. I'm slowly becoming more and more obsessed with anything New Orleans related for our wedding, and I can't wait for the big day!
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