Weddingbee Blog

When we left off, I told you what Mr. Mary Jane and I are looking for in a [belated] honeymoon.

With lots of searching, here’s what we found out.

First, let’s talk cruises. Sites like CruiseCritic.com are really valuable for personal opinions regarding specific cruise destinations and ships. See, every ship has different amenities. This is actually something I didn’t know prior to looking into this type of vacation. Also, some cruise lines are aimed at families and children; others aren’t. There are such things as ’adult-only’ cruises also. For example, while I’d heard of Carnival, Princess, and many of the other ’big name’ cruises, I had not heard of Regent, Silver Sea, Seabourn cruise lines. These were very luxurious cruises, but most were too long in time frame to fit our needs.

After a lot of searching and review-reading, we decided that we should steer away from cruises to the Caribbean or Hawaii. Reviews of various cruise lines and routes were full of complaints regarding overcrowded restaurants and decks, little kids screaming everywhere, and overall poor service. We just didn’t want to take the chance.

We started to look at Europe. A few dozen options later, Mr. Mary Jane came upon the Cunard cruise line’s transatlantic cruises. Cunard has a lot of great reviews, and its transatlantic cruises seem to be especially hailed by travelers. While kids are welcome on board the ships, they don’t have a lot of kids’ activities. We were also pretty sure that parents considering a family cruise would be more likely to take them on one of the Carnival or Disney cruises — the ones with on-board water parks and such, that also stop at various beaches and fun spots.

Our favorite Cunard cruise looked like this:

[Source]

13 Days. New York to London and back again. On one day, we’d be checking out another part of the world. And for 11 days we’d just be chilling, experiencing the open ocean and enjoying the ship’s many amenities. This ship has a spa, various sports, pools, galleries, a wine bar, a planetarium(!), and more. Reviews insisted we should get a balcony room, so this is what we decided to do.

But looking at the travel dates, I determined that I really could not take that much time off of work. So, I came up with another option:

We could do HALF the cruise. The cruise line offers an option of traveling just one way. We could fly to London, spend a few days there, and then depart back to NY for a 7-day cruise. That will actually work!

So that means our finalist #1 is:

2 Days in London, then a 7-day cruise back to the United States on Cunard Cruise Lines Queen Mary 2. We’d have to fly to London, find a nice accommodation there, and would also have to arrange for a way to get from London to the port in Southampton. Then on the ship, we’d have a room with a balcony. Sweet. Back in NYC, we’d catch a flight back to Fargo.

[Source for all 3 above]

We had some reservations about cruising, however. A big one was my tendency to get motion-sick on anything that moves or appears to be moving. And what about the weather? I was a little worried about it being cold on the ocean. Another concern was the ’bang for our buck’. Sure, you don’t take a transatlantic cruise every day, but we just weren’t 100% sure. We decided to keep our options open.

So how about some all-inclusives? Antigua, maybe. The Cupcakes had a wonderful honeymoon at the Galley Bay resort. We checked a few other options in that area too, and were convinced it was the place for us. Then we found out that you can’t get there from North Dakota or Minnesota in one day’s time. You have to stay overnight in Miami before making the Antigua connection. One of our requirements was that our travel not be drawn out, difficult and crappy, and this was both. We canned Antigua.

St. Martin and Bermuda were also on the list. Bermuda looked inviting and peaceful, especially this cute little 9 Beaches resort. But it was quite expensive, and several reviews complained of the sub-par climate control in the cabanas. I am OK with roughing it sometimes, but we want to be pampered on this trip. 9 Beaches didn’t seem like it was quite right for us, at least not for our honeymoon. I really liked St. Martin, although I kept seeing the same description in various reviews and resort websites: Clothing Optional. I’m not a prude or anything, but I prefer not to see naked strangers on my vacation, I guess. Still, we really liked the idea of a St. Martin vacation. It was a strong contender for a while. At Mr. MJ’s suggestion, I also checked out Brazil. Now let me just say… If I was a rich girl, nanana nanana nananananananana naaaaa. *Whistle*, that’s niiiiiiiiiice. Sigh. Maybe someday…

With the price of Brazilian paradise just a wee bit too high, two options did finally emerge: Excellence Playa Mujeres in Mexico is one. Mrs. Penguin gave it major kudos, and so did over 90% of Trip Advisor reviewers. Lots of amenities, tons of stuff included in the “all-inclusive” rate. And we planned to book the Excellence Club-level room too. Those are ocean-front and include a few more perks. We were pretty much sold on this as our #1 resort pick…

A traveler’s photo from E.P.M. | source

… and then I found out that AMResorts is building two new Secrets resorts side-by-side in Montego Bay. Although Antigua would have been a 2-day trip for us, Jamaica can be reached in one. These resorts look pretty swanky too. Brand new (as in, they haven’t opened yet at the time of this writing). The amenities rival (or surpass) EPM. The price is nice too, over $1000 cheaper for the package deal at EPM, with a better-appointed room [in the Preferred Club’] to boot. For the price, the amenities, and the location (Jamaica is slightly more ’honeymoony’-sounding than Mexico, is it not?), the Secrets Wild Orchid resort is pretty tempting.

[The resort isn’t done yet, so all of the photos of it are actually 3D computer renderings. See the funny-looking ’people’? | Source]

Finalist #2: Either Excellence Playa Mujeres (Cancun, Mexico) or Secrets Wild Orchid (Montego Bay, Jamaica). Similar weather, similar amenities. Hmmm. Both adults-only, both all-inclusive. Hmmm indeed.

Take a chance on an unfinished resort that carries a good brand-name (but has yet to actually host a guest)? Or go with a well-reviewed and still fairly new Mexican favorite? Or instead, hop aboard a floating paradise after spending a few days in a beautiful (and unknown, to us) foreign city? Which will we choose? Which would YOU choose?