A Perfect Cruise for a Perfect Honeymoon

Dear Jen and Tom,


My husband and I just returned from our incredible honeymoon at a cruise across the Mediterranean. We booked the trip through a travel agent who did all of the research and made a great decision by picking this cruise line.


The ship was amazing, with more large, open space than I ever imagined was possible. In addition to the twelve restaurants, there was a library, reading room, two game/card rooms, conference facilities, a 300 person movie theater and the enormous Stardust Theater that hosts a variety of short musical and dance productions each night. It was gorgeous and must have seated 800 people!


One of the things we most enjoyed about being on the ship was that every single meal was prepared by their pleasant crew. Surrounded by rather chic restaurants offering cuisine ranging from sushi and teppanyaki to Tex-Mex and a steak hous,e we actually ate almost all of our meals at the Garden Cafe buffet. But the buffet was better than you may think: mornings included cooked-to-order omelets, fresh waffles, and a wide variety of traditional breakfast foods. I typically eat oatmeal and fruit, both available each and every morning.

The cruise staff was excellent, especially Darren and Jenny from the bar - excellent company if you fancy a laugh and a few stories about European life!


Our honeymoon cruise was perfect: Fine dining, all kinds of delightful entertainment...I couldn't have asked for anything more. It was truly romantic and memorable in so many ways that we're already trying to figure out when we can go back!


Warmest Regards,

Betty and Dave

Savannah, GA

Lost Luggage Nightmare

Dear Jen and Tom,

Just recently my husband and I went on a summer cruise through Europe for our honeymoon. We both even got second jobs and worked really hard to save enough money for this momentous trip! And since we consider ourselves pretty savvy experts on the internet, we arranged and booked our honeymoon by ourselves instead of with a travel agent.

Having never been out of state, we were thrilled! However, once we landed in Barcelona our feelings of excitement quickly switched to helplessness as our luggage had not arrived. I was wearing jeans and a "Just Married" tank and my husband John was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Mind you, John is 6' 8" with size 14 feet and we could not find anything that fit him! It was a nightmare!

I am not a shopper so finding clothes was needless to say not fun for me. Instead of day excursions, we spent our days off of the boat looking for and buying what we could. On top of our bad luck, shops in the port towns seemed to only cater to tourism and sold mainly bathing suits and wraps. At this point, I was losing hope and even had dreams of my luggage magically appearing before me.

The worst part was that every morning, we would have to wait in our bathrobes so that our clothes (or lack there of) could be laundered. Everyday, we were told that our luggage would be at the next port town so we would frequently check our email to track them (which ended up being another large bill). Not to our surprise, they were never there!

On top of everything, we had no camera to document our trip since it was in our suitcases. The food was lousy, and my husband was bitten by bed-bugs and ultimately got sick when we got home with something called herpangina.

(Herpangina comes from fecal to oral contact.) I'm sorry if that was too much information, but I guess the maintenance staff must have been sleeping on the job. We didn’t even discover the bed bug bites until after we left the resort. It makes me itchy just thinking about the nights we spent on that bad. Gross!

Overall, We did try to make the best out of a VERY bad situation, but nothing will ever bring back our honeymoon! Maybe we can do honeymoon #2 but this time maybe we'll consider using a travel agent that knows what they're booking.

Sincerely,

Rebecca and John

Portland, OR