Relaxing HM or "best vacation ever?"

PharmacyBride

I am hoping I can get insight from you girls (and guys)- especially from those who have been married and on HMs themselves.

My FI wants to plan the best vacation we will ever have.  He wants 2 weeks in Hawaii and he wants to see and do so much.  I want a nice beach vacation at an all-inclusive in Mexico (1 week).

It's not that I wouldn't love an expensive 2 week trip in Hawaii (who wouldn't)- but we are paying for the wedding ourselves and I think having a vacation where you don't have to pay for every drink/dinner would be a nice change of pace.  I think we(I) will be too exhausted after the wedding to want to do too much touring/hiking.  I am also new to my job and won't have any paid vacation (missing 2 weeks pay is a lot of $!)

I pointed out that we will be able to do a ski trip in the winter and Hawaii for a one year anniversary.  (3 vacations in one year before we have kids seems awesome to me!)  But he still thinks the HM is suppose to be the best vacation we will ever take.

We are usually good about compromising and seeing things from each other's perspective.  But when it comes to the HM- we have such different ideas of what we want - I hate fighting with him about this.  Please help!

So am I too practical?  Should I be more romantic about this?  Or is he being too romantic and needs a dose of reality?  Or is it a mixture?

LaFemmeRousse

I voted "best vacation ever," but I do think your point is an important one- you will both be tired and maybe a little stressed after all the wedding craziness.  Is there any reason you guys can't do as the PP suggested and stay somewhere in Hawaii, spend the first couple of days relaxing, then get going on some of the activities your FI wants to do?

I do think the honeymoon is a great "excuse" to do something far-flung and exotic and maybe different than just another trip you would take at any time, so in that way I sort of side with your FI, but that doesn't mean you need to kill yourselves with activities and plans

renee.himes.osu

Thanks girls for your advice already.

The down sides of doing one week in Hawaii (the one thing we can agree on): it is a long way to fly for just 1 week and there is so much to see and do that it is better to do it in 2 weeks.

We probably won't go back to Hawaii for several years- so if we do a trip there- we want to to it right.  His solution is to do it "right" for the HM- mine is to put it off for a year.

Also- he really doesn't think we will be running around that much the week before the wedding (although I know we will) so he doesn't consider that too much.  And my objection to Hawaii is that we couldn't afford an all-inclusive.  I don't want to think about how I am drinking an $7 cocktail - I just want to enjoy it.  I add up costs in my head and the worst time to do an expensive vacation like this is immediately after we pay for a wedding.

Hope that helps clarify why this issue has become so polarizing for us.

nda_roxybabe

Renee are you pharmacy bride?

shauni27

cost is a REALLY big deal--especially in HA.  Can you point out exactly how much it will cost?  Hotel = X, car rental = x, flight =X, food and drink = x, excursions/adventures = x.  for two weeks, that is a lot of dough!  it might make him realize that you cannot really afford it right now.

my fiance really likes to travel and do stuff on vacation and not just sit on the beach.  i am like you and would be in heaven spending 8 days lying by the ocean.  to compromise, we got an AI in Mexico for 8 days and we decided to do one day of relaxing on the beach, one day doing an adventure (mayan ruins, zip line, scubadiving, xcarat ecopark, etc), on day beach, one day adventure, and so on until the end of the trip.  that way we both get what we want, we aren't spending tons of money, and we both leave happy.  hope that helps!

LaFemmeRousse

Haha, why do the men never get how busy the week before the wedding will be? 

Would you guys be willing to do a relaxing "mini-moon" for a couple of days directly following the wedding, then taking the two-week Hawaii trip like five months later?  Or is this what you  mean when you say you want to go to Mexico and then push back the Hawaii trip?

Also, FWIW, I'm pretty sure there really aren't very many, if any, all-inclusive resorts in Hawaii.

renee.himes.osu

Just posted on another board and thought.. where did my ticker go.

Yes I am the pharmacybride.. not trying to hide.. just had to create a new name  that didn't reveal my email when I posted.  Signed on incorrectly at work..oops.

nda_roxybabe

Hahaha its ok I was just very confused. I didn't think you were trying to hide anything.

emilyinchile

I would try to find a compromise. To me the best option based on what you've said about Hawaii seems to be to go to Mexico for a week, stay at an AI, and make sure to do fun activities too. I think you're both "right". You want your HM to be a really special vacation, but the cost and energy worries that you have are real too. I would try to make your FI see that there's no point taking something that on paper is "the trip of a lifetime" if you'll be too stressed to enjoy it (he might not, but it sounds like you will be).

fallbride1109

Well I may be biased, but here is my $.02.

An AI in Mexico is nothing special to me compared to Hawaii.  Maybe because I live in Texas, Mexico is just meh to me.  Also it's relatively cheap in comparision to the other trips you are talking about--you can go there anytime.

Hawaii is definitely a once in a lifetime vacation, which is how we treated our HM.  We left the Monday after the wedding and stayed 9 days.  It was, IMO, the perfect HM.  We were perfectly ready to leave that Monday, even after a busy wedding weekend which for me started on Thursday with my B-party and ended Sunday with brunch.  Sunday we were exhausted, yes, but by Monday we were fine.

Hawaii is expensive, there is no doubt about it.  There are no AI's in Hawaii--and it's more like $12 a cocktail.  But we went in knowing this and said we weren't going to worry about it.  But then again, we were treating it as a trip of a lifetime.

My suggestion would be to compromise and do a 8-10 day HM on 1 Hawaiian island.  I promise you, you will not regret it!  This is assuming you can put the budget worries aside, but only you can answer that.

Reilly626

I wrestled with this also, we were in between Bora Bora, Hawaii and the Greek Isles, but I know me, and I know I will be stressed before the wedding.  I wont want to tour around and feel guilty not at those places and it would take 2 days travel to get there! .. so we opted for an all-inclusive in Aruba and a European excursion next summer.  I didnt want to have to worry about money either on my HM... Good luck!

alithebride

I'm just wondering how he will know that it will be the 'best vacation ever'.

Aside of that=I say write up a budget for both-AI in Mex and non AI in Hawaii. Find one and then look at google and see which restaurants are aound, how much excursions are et...add them up and see if you can afford it. I can't make a determination (and don't think you or he can either) without doing that and then seeing how much you have left to pay for your wedding.

LaFemmeRousse

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_honeymoon_relaxing-hm-vacation-ever?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:11Discussion:0d6d84b7-6baf-4fad-a6f9-e3a3c55705f2Post:994b831b-1e70-4051-a5a3-67d6edb25bf6">Re: Relaxing HM or "best vacation ever?"</a>:
[QUOTE]Thanks everyone for your help!! I showed him the thread we he got home from work and he kept saying things like "I am not going to Mexico for my honeymoon "  "We are not going for less than 2 weeks- it's our honeymoon "  "We can put this on our credit card"   YIKES! He is normally not this foolish about money but he has been ridiculous about this topic. Thanks for your advice- but I'm not really sure how to move forward from here.. ::sigh::
Posted by PharmacyBride[/QUOTE]

Yikes, it sounds like your FI is having a bridezilla moment!  You don't want to go into debt over your honeymoon.  Before you guys start talking about destinations, the first thing you need to do is determine a budget that you can truly afford.  Discussion about activities and resorts and plane tickets has to follow from here.

emilyinchile

Oh no! It sounds like he needs to relax. I honestly was stressed about making our HM the BEST VACATION EVER for a while, and I kept second guessing our choice of destination (Aruba), hotel, dates, everything. Until I realized that wait, we actually travel a bunch, so a) I kind of hope that I don't use up my best vacation ever at age 24 and b) I know how to plan a trip, and even if it's not the most amazing trip in the history of the world, it will still be a great time. Of course in the end it was great, although like I said, I hope that we'll have future trips that are just as good or better.

Is there any other destination that might be a better fit for what both of you want? Going into credit card debt over any vacation, even your HM, just isn't smart.

PharmacyBride

"Yikes, it sounds like your FI is having a bridezilla moment!"

lol more like broomzilla

It is absolutely crazy- we just found out we have to move in 3 weeks.. deciding where to move- weighing the pros/cons.. dealing with the stress.. we are handling this fine.  The HM- not so much

Thanks everyone who took a moment to respond.. it really helps to see another perspective!

If anyone has any suggestions of a good alternative HM destination .. I am all ears (even though I still think Mexico is perfect.. lol)

spinner84

What about Bermuda? Hawaii involves a lot of jet lag and jet lag means time wasted instead of enjoying your time there.

I relate by the way. Hawaii is close to me so it's our "easier" choice. I'm trying to convince my FI that flying to a Pacific island with 50 inhabitants where you have to live in one of their houses is a bad idea.

kpasc

We are going the "best vacation ever" route.  

You can go to an all-inclusive anytime, and they are so dull and repetitive.  Getting married is so exciting, why wouldn't you go for a one-of-a-kind holiday and do things that you don't get the chance to do everyday??

We are going to Spain for 2 weeks.  Don't get me wrong, we don't have much money, but we set up a honeyfund, and we are willing to stay in hostels and eat at the cheap restaurants if we need to, because we just love to stroll around and soak it all in!