Honeymoon Destination - Suggestions Pls

[Moose1978]

With our big day at the start of July just wondering if anyone has any pearls of wisdom with where to go on Honeymoon.

The Mrs (to be) fancies Rio De Janerio and I'm tempted by New Zealand, although my first choice of a drive up the west coast of America did not get received too well.

Any thoughts or suggestions from experience? Is Rio any good?

Will be a 7-8 day job, cost not too much of a factor (but nothing daft) and nothing which just involves lying on a beach for the entire week.

Cheers in advance.

[Tsippy]

South Africa and Mauritius have a good rep for newly weds

[Council Baby]

NZ too far for 7-8 days, just not worth the 2 days travel.

Maldives is amazing, Mauritius also comes highly recommended.

[harry010]

Not Rio in July really... Best times to go there are October or April ish when it's not too hot or cold...

But if you do decide on Rio I have an apartment there so might be able to help you out

[hairykrishna]

If you do go to Rio take a few days and an internal flight to go to the Iguazu falls. I went earlier this year and it's a pretty amazing place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iguazu_Falls

[slomax]

Canada looks amazing

as does india and cashmir

I'm a sucker for amazing scenery though. What about Tunisia?

[Council Baby]

Ah Maldives isn't great in July either, it's also winter in NZ I believe.

[vrooom]

Sri Lanka. brillant place. even in wintertime. it will be HOT. 35c in night, so are maldives.

[rah1888]

hairykrishna said:

If you do go to Rio take a few days and an internal flight to go to the Iguazu falls. I went earlier this year and it's a pretty amazing place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iguazu_Falls

+ 1

Went about 4/5 years ago, truly wonderful experience.

[Four Litre]

If you can stretch the timeframe a bit longer - cant recommend Hawaii enough...

Best place I've ever been to, so much to do, Weather is great, people are amazing and things to see that are truly inspiring -

1. Go see a live volcano - literally lava running across the road in front of you..
2. Pearl Harbour, see the Arizona memorial and have a walk around Missouri battleship
3. Surfing lessons...
4. Few more surfing lessons!
5. Amazing restaurants
6. See where Jurassic park was filmed.
7. Shops for her - really upmarket in Honolulu.
8. Island excursions - fairly close together, but very different.

[mike325112]

I was looking at the Virgin holidays web site a few days ago for out honeymoon - there are some great deals out there at the momment. I couldn't go on a lot of them as we are taking our little one with us. For my two peneth I would suggest Barbados, quite the most laid back and chilled place I have ever been to.

[eps]

We were married a month later (end of August) and in the end chose Brazil, but went up the coast to a small place and then over to Chile for some skiing, which I surprised my wife with (packed the second suitcase myself). Not sure if July is too early for skiing tho.. We went for 2 weeks.

Txai was the name of the resort where we went. It depends on what sort of Honeymoon you both want to have.

My other choice was going to be Hawaii - still want to go to the islands there!!

We went to Sri Lanka a number of years ago and can recommend that for a holiday. Not sure on the time of year - you would need to check.

The thing to remember is the time of year, I think there is/was a website which indicated which destinations were the best for the time of year you are going. Of course you can't totally count on the weather! Especially with some of the weather systems slipping and moving around a bit at the moment..

[havoc]

July/August is bad timing for most interesting destinations outside of Europe/Caribbean.

Thoughts:-
- Canada will be nice and toasty then. IMHO BC and Alberta are more interesting than Ontario and Quebec, but that's a 10hr flight. And it's not necessarily honeymoon territory.
- Check Caribbean weather. But also check what has direct flights - some of the most interesting-looking places (we've not been yet to confirm), such as Belize and Grenada, require changing flights in either Newark or Miami...which involves US Customs!
- Safari? We went to Tanzania last year and loved it, 7-day safari + 5 days in Zanzibar - TripAdvisor has some very good people on there who give great advice.
- Maldives/Mauritius - check weather, plus not a lot to do other than snorkel/dive.


Ideas outside of July/August
- NZ gets better from mid-Sept (when we went - N.Island warm, S.Island OK), but as above you really want 3 weeks - jet lag will kill.
- Japan would be great in Autumn (Oct) - climate and colours will be good. Again it's a very long flight for just a week or so and jet-lag hits again.
- Egypt? Not Sharm, but there are supposed to be some better resorts further up the coast. Red Sea is beautiful. Place will be too hot in July/Aug.

[Moose1978]

Thanks for all the info, much appreciated.

One of the major isses was grand parents looking after our little girl whilst we jetted off. To be honest, I think we have realised that if we choose Hawaii (or similar) then this would mean at least 10 days away, which is stretching it a bit.

We have decided that 7-8 days is the max and no more than 7-8 hours flight time to get there. Strangely, we have both never stepped foot inside Italy so is looking favourite at the moment if anyone has any suggestions or suggestions.

Cheers

[slomax]

Moose1978 said:

Strangely, we have both never stepped foot inside Italy so
is looking favourite at the moment if anyone has any suggestions or suggestions.

Cheers

Verona is lovely. It has lots to see and seems to be quite authentic, not too aimed at tourists, like some places and from there you can easily get to lake Garda and Venice using the trains.

[Council Baby]

a safari in Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia etc would be an experience to behold and perfectly possible timewise if it's your kind of thing... all of those places should be ok for weather and allow some exceptional memories.

[CO2000]

Tsippy said:

South Africa and Mauritius have a good rep for newly weds

We actually did both of them on ours ! (nearly 9 years ago, married on 02 02 02)

I think we had lucky escape in Sun City when we walked back to the Palace hotel from the Crocodile park just outside the gates.

We were walking at side of the road up a big hill and a Bin Lorry came past with about 6-8 local blacks hanging off it (sides/back etc) we looked as it came past as its not something you see here. It continued on until the bottom of the hill about 1/2 a mile away from us when it stopped and one jumped off. The lorry then drove off & this Guy started running up the hill, we looked round a couple of times but thought any more would show fear. No cars came past, it was deserted.
He kept coming but it was too far to run to the hotel so we just decided to turn round at the last second & see what would happen.
I kept a good look out for a suitable item of self defence at the road side but nothing looked suitable. He must have got to around 50 yds from us then we heard him stop, turn around and run all the way back down the hill. A sigh of relieve doesn't come close ! We will never know exactly what he was thinking or what he may have done, he never said or shouted anything.

It didn't spoil the Honeymoon & infact we always said how friendly the South Africans were (a lot more than those we met in Mauritius)

Given the choice again we would have gone to Cape Town instead of Mauritius for the 2nd week but with this latest Murder maybe SF, LA & Vegas would have been the better choice (& throw in San Diego if there was enough time)

With less than 2 weeks away I would think Oz, New Zealand etc would be too far to go.