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Luxury packages perfect for post-wedding bliss
Weddings involve life-altering decisions, so when planning your post-knot-tying getaway, be sure that the most important decision you’ll have to make is “shade” or “sun.” That’s the beauty of the countless packages offered in all of the tried-and-true honeymoon spots like Paris, the Caribbean and Hawaii. Your dinner plans are made, excursions are planned and spa treatments are booked. All you have to do is say when.
Luxury hotels understand this too, and for them, romance is a serious business. With such staunch competition for honeymooning clientele, hoteliers are raising the stakes. Complimentary bottles of champagne? That’s for amateurs. Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas is offering a Honeymoon at the Cove Tower package, which includes private jet service and (of course) a dedicated butler and massage therapist. The price tag is $100,000, which may seem over the top to some, but the idea behind it is right: your honeymoon is the time to indulge. After all, planning a wedding these days is a huge investment of time and money, and harried couples appreciate being pampered.
“Most couples are looking for a place that is obviously romantic, but also a place to create memories,” said celebrity wedding planner and lifestyle expert Mindy Weiss, who picked the One & Only Palmilla in Mexico and Parrot Cay in the Turks and Caicos as two of her favories. “After all, for most couples this can be their first real trip together.”
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See our slideshow of 10 hot honeymoon packages.
One thing hotels are doing to help make the occasion more special is to add memory-making features to their packages. As part of Peter Island’s Ultimate Honeymooner Package, professional photographers arrage a photo shoot and frame the results for the couple to take home. The Banyan Tree Phuket#8217;s Heavenly Honeymoon includes a villa decoration and wedding gift.
Couples coming down from the wedding day high will appreciate the exciting excursions that some packages offer. “Once they have recovered from the stress of the wedding and once they start getting bored of relaxing, they want to experience the destination,” said Lisa Light, wedding designer and author of Destination Bride. That can involve hiking, biking, fishing, sailing, golf, and more. The Moments Package from One & Only Palmilla in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, for example, proposes a unique way to experience the destination: a tour around the Baja desert in a Hummer then a horseback ride to a lagoon, ending with a cooking class at a local farm. And on a honeymoon at the Jamaica Inn, newlyweds might be coaxed into leaving their Deluxe Veranda Suite with an opportunity to swim with dolphins and a romantic boat trip with a guided tour of Dunn’s River to and from the falls.
Many newlyweds count on their honeymoon to provide much-needed alone time in the form of intimate meals and spa treatments within the luxurious surroundings of a secluded villa or cabana. The famous overwater Polynesian bungalows of Hotel Bora Bora are best enjoyed with a candlelit champagne dinner, perhaps after a day of sailing on a catamaran, all of which are built into the Honeymoon Escape Package. And at Venice’s Hotel Cipriani, several dinners are included in the two romantic packages — a three-course candlelit meal arranged on the large terrace of your junior suite and another after a gondola ride.
Location, of course, played a big role in our determining the value of the honeymoon itineraries. Lisa Light suggests sensual escapes like Bali, the Grenadines and Jamaica. And Susan Moynihan, the Editor in Chief of Destination Weddings, said, “For many couples this is the only chance to get two or more weeks off from work, so use it to your advantage and travel to farther climes like Bali, New Zealand, India or the South Pacific.” More...
See our slideshow of 10 hot honeymoon packages.
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