Tips for Planning the Best Honeymoon
***I'm back! After months of planning a wedding, getting married, going on a honeymoon, then resting for a little while and getting back into routines, I am finally back to blogging! Thank you so much to all of you who have been reading my blogs, and for your patience during this busy season. I am excited to get back into writing, and I hope you continue to find my blogs useful/insightful!***
When I got engaged earlier this year, I quickly shifted not into wedding-planning mode, but honeymoon-planning mode. Read on to learn more about why we chose to go to the Dominican Republic, what the planning process looked like, and a general overview of how the trip itself went. Find out why you should honeymoon in the Dominican, or even just take your next vacation to the DR!
More in-depth reviews and tips/tricks from our honeymoon will be revealed in upcoming blogs!
Why honeymoon in the Dominican Republic?
Cost
Location
Accommodations
Cost: I had many initial location ideas for our honeymoon. Hawaii, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic being the main ones. I have been to all of them, but my husband had only been to Mexico. We really began to narrow down our choices when we started our cost comparison of flights and hotels between the options. This quickly knocked out Hawaii and Costa Rica. The last time I went to the DR was over 10 years ago. I remembered it being a cost-effective option for a beautiful location. This remained to be true even now.
Location: Location was the next major factor for why we chose Punta Cana. It's a relatively close flight from the US, has an amazing rainforest feel, and has various beaches. Another important factor is that it's a safe place to visit, so we felt more comfortable with travelling to the DR compared to some of the other options.
Accommodations: In all my travel life, I really prioritize nice resorts/hotels wherever I go. For my honeymoon, this was even more true. I saw so many Instagram reels and Tik Toks showing amazing resorts with luxurious rooms, some with swim-up pools or private hot tubs. When I began to compare Puerto Rico and the DR, I found that the DR had more options of resorts that gave that extravagant and luxurious feel, but at a more reasonable price. This removed Puerto Rico from the list and left us with the finalist, the Dominican Republic.
Planning a Honeymoon: Top Tips
Choose a location
Pick your dates
Start with airfare
Research hotels/resorts & read reviews
Pre-book transportation & excursions
Location: Begin your honeymoon planning (or really any vacation planning) with making a decision on where you want to go. Create a top desired list of places you or you and your travel companion/s would like to go and then you can start to narrow it down using the criteria mentioned above (cost, location, accommodation). If you're list is too long or you struggle with even coming up with a list, you can start by looking up popular travel destinations for honeymooners, for families, or for solo travelers, depending on your trip. Use Instagram/TikTok/YouTube to get inspiration for destinations as they'll usually include images/videos of the locations, hotels, and even food. Narrow down your options by deciding what vibe you want for your trip. Are you looking for chill and relaxing, adventurous and activity-filled, mountains, beach, resort, house? Answering all these questions will really help you narrow down a location. Once you've got your location chosen, it's time to pick your dates.
Dates: Step two of planning your honeymoon, choose your dates and request your days off with work if needed. If you have some flexibility, research airfare first to compare pricing for different dates, then choose your days off based on when it's cheapest to travel to your desired location. Also, make sure you check the climate for the destination you'd like to go to so you can make sure you are going during your desired season for that location. You may not want to go somewhere during their heavy rain season, or you may be looking for snow, whatever weather you want, do some research to find the best times to have said weather where you're going.
Airfare: Book your airfare. ASAP. Some apps/websites can have random last-minute deals on flights that people, especially those with flexibility, love taking advantage of. While great savings can be found when doing this, in my experience, I've found that the best time to book airfare is sooner rather than later. Often, as you get closer to your travel dates, prices on airfare will increase. Start your airfare search soon, and book as quick as possible. If you're worried about booking early and having to cancel, look out for flights with flexible change/cancellation options. I find these options are usually more flexible and useful than travel insurance. Travel insurance will likely have very limited restrictions and a complicated process for actually getting your money back if you cancel.
*** When searching for airfare, stay in private browsing mode. Most travel sites track your searches and will raise the prices when you re-visit their sites because they know what you are looking to book. ***
Research Accommodations: You have your location chosen, got your days off, booked your flights, now it's time to book your accommodation. With so many travel booking sites out there, it can be overwhelming when you first start your hotel search. I personally prefer Priceline when I am looking for accommodations as I find they have good pricing when logged in as a VIP member (free when you create an account on their website). Depending on what type of accommodation you're looking for, you may find another site more useful. If you want to rent out a house/apartment, check out VRBO or AirBnB. Regardless of which site you actually decide to book with, look at photos and read reviews. Google your hotel/resort for even more photos from people who have actually stayed there and find even more reviews beyond what is found on booking sites. Take reviews with a grain of salt, as people are way more likely to leave a review when they have a bad experience than when they have a good one. For every bad review you read, there's like an unwritten good one out there. Be wise when reading them, but don't ignore them all together either.
Pre-book: For a more seamless travel experience, pre-book as much as you can. If you're accommodations don't have their own airport shuttle, consider pre-booking your airport transportation. You can call your resort/hotel to see if they have a recommended company, or you can use booking sites like Viator to book one-way or round-trip airport transportation. I used Viator to book a private round-trip van transportation for our trip in Punta Cana. I found the pricing to be better than what people mentioned for the cost of a taxi, and it was so nice to arrive in the DR and just find the man holding a sign with my name on it and be taken straight to our hotel with ease. Another thing to pre-book is any excursions or activities you plan to do on your trip. This can also easily be done on Viator. We chose not to pre-book our excursion but instead book straight through the hotel. We didn't know much about the Dominican or any of the activities companies, so we felt more comfortable going through the resort, which is definitely a viable option. However, if you're looking for some savings and possibly even some more variety in the options of excursions that the hotel/resort may not have, check out Viator or other trusted booking sites to have your trip fully planned and booked prior to arrival so you can just show up and enjoy.
Overall Experience Honeymooning in Punta Cana
Following the guide and tips laid out in this blog, we planned an overall amazing honeymoon in the DR. With pros and cons throughout, our trip was an unforgettable experience. We stayed at an all-inclusive resort with a large room hosting a king bed and a private outdoor jacuzzi. Our resort was beachfront, and we booked a room that came with a preferred VIP service with access to special features throughout the resort. While we mostly stayed at the resort, we booked a half-day excursion with a fun muddy dune buggy ride, a refreshing swim in a beautiful cave pool, and a short demonstration on Dominican culture with fun little tastings of cacao, coffee and Mamajuana. All in all, our trip was an amazing blend of both adventure and relaxing. The Dominican Republic is a beautiful country with amazing culture and constant kindness throughout from locals and fellow travelers. We would highly recommend visiting this amazing country, and we look forward to planning another trip there one day.
Want to learn even more about honeymooning/vacationing in the Dominican Republic? Keep an eye out for upcoming blogs including a full review of our resort, our excursion experience, tips and recommendations for maximizing your experience once you arrive to the DR, and much more! Subscribe below to receive email notifications regarding all future blog posts. Follow the page on Instagram and Facebook @mindonthepath to stay up to date on everything to come! As always, thank you for reading, and thank you for your patience as I took a writing hiatus during my wedding season. I am thrilled to be back to blogging and ready to share so many more travel and mental health tips! Happy reading!
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