To Travel Agent or not to Travel Agent?

MrsLiggett7

How did you plan your honeymoon?

We are planning on going to Hawaii after our May wedding. I have talked to a few close family friends who have been to Hawaii (neither of us have ever been) and we've decided to go to Maui in the Lahaina area. But aside from knowing WHERE we want to go I have no clue where to start. There are so many hotels! And how do you plan the activities? Do you pre plan them or schedule as you go?

This is why I'm wondering if I should go through a travel agent. Help!

doeie04

I will usually get on a site like Expedia.com and scope out what hotels are in our budget after plane tickets and then go from there. Tripadvisor.com has great reviews from people that have stayed. I like to read the negative reviews and see if there is a pattern. (Like you can never get a pool chair or they are horrible about replenishing soap in the room, bad customer service, etc.)

We went to a travel agent to see if they could help us find something in our small budget and she didn't listen to what we wanted or our price range, of course she was over budget on all of them! I have found the most help with research and asking around on here and on the June 2012 board.

What is your budget, how long are you wanting to go, and what are you looking for in a hotel/room? Work is really slow, maybe I could help you narrow it down.

StephBeanWed61502

Look at reviews on TripAdvisor - they will give you the best picture of which hotels are good, and which are specifically good for honeymooners (example: you probably want to stay away from any resort that has lots of reviews raving about how "there's so much for the kids to do here!").

MrsLiggett7

Our budget is TBD but I'm thinking around $5,000 for everything. That includes airfaire, hotel, food, and fun. It may be a little over that depending on what I get back for taxes this year (that's what we're using to pay for the HM).

We want to do some beach stuff like snorkling, laying around lol, maybe some surfing lessons. We also want to do a little hiking, maybe to some cool waterfalls that we can swim in. Of course we want to go to a luau as well.

We're both younger and this will be a long vacation without our son (God bless my mom for watching him) so we wouldn't mind some nightlife as well.

A family friend told us that Lahaina was probably the best area to get a lot of what we want, and she's been to Hawaii countless times. I've done some research and heard a lot of good things about the AREA but nothing specifically about hotels.

I think since it's our honeymoon we want something romantic. I wouldn't mind a little villa or something, or just a nice hotel room. I'd like somewhere with a spa or something so we could get a couples massage.

hollyhalliburton

My fiance and I are in the same situation as you it sounds like!  We are also interested in going to Hawaii, but we aren't sure if we should go to a Travel Agent or not, either.  I have done some research on my own with Expedia and a few other websites.  I have found one hotel that seems pretty nice.  It's in Maui and it's called Royal Lahaina!  http://www.royallahaina.com/

[Deleted User]

It depends. For small getaways I usually just book online, but for bigger trips, like my honeymoon I did use an agent. I always check out prices and reviews online first. Then I see what she can come up with. Whenever, I've decided to book through her, she's always gotten me a better price than the internet and always gets things like transfers and upgrades thrown in for free. Plus, she's been everywhere and a lot of knowledge about properties that aren't so heavily advertised. Plus, if anything ever goes wrong, I just call her up and she sorts out the B.S.

Beads921

It sounds like a fairly big trip you're trying to plan, so I'd probably go travel agent. I'd probably go in and have a general meeting with him/her, then take some of what you learn and research it further before going back to book. 

And like winnie said, the best part is that if something goes wrong you call the agent up and they can help sort it out.

GreenEire

We used a travel agent for our cruise through the Bahamas and I'm really glad we did.  We basically just told her what we wanted and she did all the work for us.  Wedding planning is stressful enough without having to deal with all the honeymoon details.

WENDYIAM

After working at different hotels for the past 4 years, i would never book through a travel agent, expedia or hotels.com or any of those places because so many of their reservations get booked incorrectly, and they give out incorrect information a lot of the time as well. I would prefer to take the few moments (and sometimes pay a little extra) to select a resort and call or email to confirm things myself to insure things are done correctly.

jebbica85

We are doing Hawaii after our April wedding, we were going to book ourselves but after trying to figure out airfare (we are doing three islands and a long weekend in San Fran on the way home) it got too complicated for us to handle. We have a friend who is a travel agent so we just emailed her the list of things we wanted and schedule (days on each island type/locations of hotels, and cars we also gave her time consraints for airfare) and in a few days she had everything set up within our budget.

we didnt do excursions though her tho she did give us a list of things to look through we are more of an adventurous type and plan on discovering the islands ourselves based on trip advisor, my past experience, and family's recs.

GL