The "Prancing Weeks"

Well, we’ve been pretty busy lately, hence the lack of blog posts, but here’s a big one:

WE BOOKED OUR HONEYMOON!

That’s right. As I have pointed out so some friends, the German word for Honeymoon is “flitterwochen” which means, literally “the prancing weeks”. Well well, we knew we had to find just the right destination to fulfil this rather large charge!

Our biggest criteria were:

• beach

• warm

• relaxing

In addition, we were hoping for:

• some activities available (snorkling/nature/small town)

• easy flight (as direct as possible)

• within our Budget of 4000€

So we trotted off to the travel agency with this information and got basically a big sad face: “oh, we’re sorry, July is a bad time to go everywhere.”

Really, that’s what they told us! Professionals trained to sell vacations told us that we couldn’t go on one. WHAT? so we pressed. OK, they said, if we wanted a bit less than perfect weather, we could look into going to the Seychelles, Mauritius or the Maldives, or also possibly Bali. Ok, we said, we can do something with this. Islands, sun, little bungalows. FUN! So we took home an armload of catalogues.

And then… those catalogues sat on our coffee table. We told all our friends that we were thinking of going to the Seychelles, but that was basically based on this lovely photo of a giant tortoise. Who doesn’t love tortoises?

In reality, we were being really lazy. So finally I made Mr. Schniztel an ultimatum: let’s just walk into a different travel agency and play dumb. Ok, he was game, so they did it. And what did they say?! July is a BAD time to go to the Seychelles. The only place we could even consider was Bali. Ok, we said, show us what you’ve got! So we started looking at places in Bali… chuching. 7000€, and that was WITHOUT food or drinks. uhoh… sinking feeling.

We mentioned that that was about twice our budget and they looked at us strangely. Ok, they said… then would you consider staying in Europe? How about Greece? OK, we said, show us Greece! So they did… and the price was certainly right…. 3500€, but still before any food or drinks… And I mean.. I dunno, we were both thinking.. we can go to Greece ANYTIME. Of course this is not true, but… it felt that way. We wanted something really special.

And then the travel agent’s eyes lit up. Well, would we consider going to the Caribbean?! WHAT… we glanced at eachother… but we thought… well that other mean travel agent told us… that it was too late in the season!

No no, she said, I mean… rain could hit us, but then again, it could hit us anywhere. Just as likely in Bali, she said. Ok, show us! we said, both envisioning margaritas and turquoise waters. (you see: our ORIGINAL idea was the Caribbean… but we were talked out of it earlier in the game. We were both grinning)

First she looked at Mexico, but then suggested the Dominican Republic. Ah yes, that sounded GOOD to us. So she showed us an ALL INCLUSIVE resort for 14 days for only 3,500€!!! Including flight, transfer, drinks, food, activities… everything! SOLD.

Well, I was, anyways. Mr. Schnitzel, the notorious sceptic, had to go home and comb the internet for bad reviews. But we were pleasantly surprised to find almost only glowing reviews.

So we headed back and booked for 14 days in the Dominican Republic, two weeks FULL of prancing :) And now, the following sites await us:

And more...

Needless to say, we're just a LIIIIIIIIIITTTTLEEE excited. Check it all out here: http://www.dreamsresorts.com/drelr/