Honeymoons - Departing from Vegas

tcnoble

It is turning out to be a nightmare trying to plan a honeymoon and leaving out of Vegas. Many of the locations we are interested in are 12+ hour travel days. We have even played around with flights out of LAX, but are really finding the flights and travel days unappealing from either airport. We have looked at Bora Bora, Antigua, St. Lucia, and Grand Cayman. Any Vegas residents have honeymoon planning advice?? Or location suggestions that might surprise us?? Or are we just going to have to suck it up and deal with the long travel time? Hmph....

LaurenGarciaKrueger

Why don't you find a connecting flight and stay a couple days in the states? I live in Texas, so DFW is an international airport. The Gaylord Texan is an AMAZING place to stay for a day and night, and it is really close to the airport. They can have a Black Suburban pick you up and drop you off at the airport too.

ktbabe530

What about a cruise out of San Diego or LA?  There is also Mexico, Rocky Point, Cancun or Acapulco come to mind.

If you aren't stuck on tropical, Napa Valley in SF could be fun and romantic.  

rachel1837

We had the same problem. We live in San Diego & went to Hawaii for Honeymoon. There are direct flights to 3 of the major islands from San Diego, but from Vegas, all the flights were 12-18 HOURS because they all took us up to Seattle or something & then had a 10 hour layover. Strange. It was easier (& no more expensive) for us to just book a flight back home & then fly from San Diego to Hawaii.

vegasgroom

We had the exact same problem.  There was no easy way for us to get from anywhere to Antigua on the same day unless we blew thousands on American Airlines flights to get from Vegas to Miami and made it a really ugly flight plan, like leave 1am local, sit in Miami for a while, get to Antigua in the middle of the next day.  We ended up doing a few days in New Orleans instead, direct Southwest from Vegas, so nice and easy flight, and then spent a night in Ft Lauderdale, nice and easy direct flight on Southwest from New Orleans.  Drove to Miami the next morning and flew to Antigua.  Made the honeymoon a lot more enjoyable than wasting basically 24 hours with half of it spent sleeping in airports or too tired to enjoy it.

Oh, if I had the option to do it all over, I'd have spent the couple hundred extra to go to St Lucia instead of Antigua.  Only reason we didn't was the airfare was a bit more.  Hindsight is 20/20.

SD210

I realize that I am responding to this a little late, but we found the flights from Vegas to Hawaii to be pretty good - - Hawaiian Airlines has a couple direct flights per day from Vegas to Honolulu.  We took a Monday morning (9am) direct flight, and it was only like 6 or 7 hours.  Of course, this is only helpful if you are interested in going to Hawaii for your honeymoon!  But we did the Big Island and had a wonderful time...

reinainnyc

I will agree with those that suggested to stay somewhere local for a couple of days.  I postponed my honeymoon for this very reason to january (we'll be going to europe for 3 weeks) and opted to take a direct flight to SF and went to Napa for a couple of days and stayed in SF for 2 days after.  Got to relax and see the city after trip.

Also, SF airport is an international one, so shouldn't have trouble finding flights out of it for honeymoon type destinations.

annathy03

American airlines has nonstops to Miami, which many cruise lines leave out of for the Caribbean, and it's only a short hop from Miami to Jamaica which has loads of all inclusives.  And as PP said, Hawaiian offers nonstops to Honolulu.  Also, flying into Oakland is just a one hour flight Southwest offers several times a day, add an hour and a half in the car and you're in Napa or Sonoma tasting wine.

tcnoble

@vegasgroom where did you stay in Antigua?? Currently our #1 choice right now..

1SamanthaJones

We've booked connecting flights - Las Vegas - Miami - st lucia. It was the only way we got around it and yes adds to the journey but it's an adventure!

sarjhawk

Try puerto Vallarta. That is where we are going. We have to connect through LA but that's it!

vegasgroom

tcnoble said:

@vegasgroom where did you stay in Antigua?? Currently our #1 choice right now..

We stayed at Sandals in one of their plunge pool villas with butler service.  It was a pretty awesome experience, but in hindsight, we'd probably have enjoyed their St Lucia location more.  Antigua was about $400 less expensive overall once you factored in airfare, etc. and I think St Lucia would have been a better experience based on what I've seen and our Antigua experience, which started out horribly with a two hour wait in customs and quite rude staff both inbound and outbound.  We rented a car for a day and drove around most of the island though; it was a good time and the locals that aren't there to deal with tourists we found much nicer.

As far as resorts go, I don't think you can go wrong with Sandals on that island.  However, my opinion of Sandals in general was lowered after we stayed at Excellence in Playa Mujeres Mexico; for a lower price we got dramatically better food, a two story rooftop terrace suite where you have a private jacuzzi and sun deck on the roof and more activities that we were actually interested in, with a younger crowd.  I was quite impressed with Excellence.  Unfortunately they are only located in a few places, none of which are places I consider safe to explore the countryside on your own, so if we do Caribbean again, it would probably still be Sandals unless I hear of something else with similar service but nicer rooms and food.

Hopefully Excellence will open a location somewhere other than Mexico, Jamaica and DR because we really like to explore on our own when we travel.

tcnoble

@vegasgroom thank you for the info!! We looked at sandals antigua but many of the reviews steered us away. We are currently looking at Galley Bay in Antigua and Iberostar Grand in Punta Cana. My FI is mostly concerned about food, and from what I've read we would have more options for exploring the island and food establishments in Antigua vs leaving the resort in PC (I've been before and know it's not a safe area to be out exploring on our own), though the reviews for Iberostar PC rave about food on site so might not need to leave. We've had Sandals La Toc in St Lucia recommended but read reviews that said nothing too great of the food. Soooo many factors it's proving very hard to choose one.

vegasgroom

@tcnoble I would be hesitant to leave the resort in PC for sure; unless on an organized resort activity.  Someone that works for me grew up in DR but later moved here; he just had a cousin kidnapped for ransom and ended up murdered.  He said this type of thing happens all the time there if you find yourself in a bad area unexpectedly, corrupt police, etc.

In any case, if your FI is into food, Sandals will probably disappoint him.  The primary thing that lead us to book there was the butler service; we liked how that sounded and it lived up to our expectations.  They give you a cell phone when you check in and it auto dials the butler on call 24x7; you can have them bring you lunch on the beach, bring you drinks or food wherever you are in the resort, call and have them get a bubble bath ready before you head back to the room; or half the time they do it for you once they learn your schedule.  Food not so good, butler service awesome, price high.

tcnoble

@vegasgroom I know most all inclusives falter in the food department, but with our budget it's the best way it go. Many things to consider...