A List of Unfortunate Events

Dear Jen and Tom,

My husband and I had just recently taken a tour of China and the surrounding areas for our honeymoon. Since I am the type of person who likes to do everything on my own I decided to plan the whole trip. I booked the plane tickets and all the hotels via the internet. Needless to say, I wish I just done it through a travel agency to coordinate all of our transfers to and from the airports, the land tours and to deal with all of our unfortunate events.

We first flew into Hong Kong which is an amazing city but our luggage had not made it to our destination. It was still stuck in the states and needed another day to get here since it took us 22 hours to arrive to Hong Kong. We check-in to our hotel and the hotel is decent but a little small. We reserved a room with 1 king-sized bed and got a bed smaller than a queen but not yet a full. We go to the front desk and try to explain to them what happened and they said they couldn’t do anything for us. We find out later that is what they call a king-sized bed. My husband is a large man and that first night of sleep was awful, uncomfortable and not so much fun for us as newly weds.

The next day comes and we’re off to the mainland without our suitcases. They promised to get our luggage to our next destination so we had to deal with what we had as carry-ons. (The people in China are small and don’t carry very large clothing). The transfer that we had arranged ended up being this petite truck with no seat belts. It had holes in the seats, cigarette burns all over and smelt like a dead skunk. The ride was 3 hours and I wanted to vomit from the condition the car was in and the way the driver was driving. Red apparently doesn’t mean stop, it’s just a suggestion. At least we got our luggage there.

We stayed in a city called Guang Zhou for 2 nights and witnessed the most indecent thing happening in our hotel. Witnessing this had definitely threw me off and made me want to switch hotels; if I had an extra night. I was so happy to leave the next day to Shanghai. That was probably the best part of my trip. After Shanghai we went to Beijing where people at the hotel were rude and unwelcoming. Hailing a taxi and having it take you to where you wanted was by far the hardest thing to do. Taxi drivers would pretend not to know where our destination was if they didn’t want to take you there. How could you not know where the most touristy destinations are? Not to mention traffic was absolutely ridiculous and the subways smelled like rotten bananas. We ended up walking a lot and this time of the year is beyond freezing. It was so cold I wore 2 pairs of pants and 3 shirts on top of all my outerwear. We took a tour to the Great Wall and the tour bus driver got lost for an extra 2 hours.

I was completely over our honeymoon and just wanted to return to the United States. We tried to switch our plane tickets for an earlier flight out but didn’t succeed because of the fare differences. They wanted us to pay an extra $1,000 each. We felt like we were being held captive on our own honeymoon.

Best Regards,

Sandy and Mike

Boston, Ma

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

Befriending Strangers in Customs.

Dear Jen & Tom,

We went to Costa Rica expecting a relaxing honeymoon on the beautiful beaches. What we didn’t expect was the crazy adventure that actually happened. On the first day of our trip, we were invited by the cousin of a guy we met in the line at customs to go into a beautiful area of Costa Rica to visit some of the friends of his friend. It must have been the jet lag, because wandering off into the jungle to meet the friends of a friend of a cousin of a guy we just met sounded like a great idea.

At 5 am, Estefan and Dominga (the cousin and his wife) picked us up at our hotel the next morning. They were armed with machetes. Being in the jungle of Costa Rica, we weren’t phased when strangers came to pick us up wielding giant weapons. We stopped for breakfast at a little café around the entrance to the Braulio Carillo National Park. The views were amazing, but hard to enjoy when our hosts announced that “every day is a holiday” and chugged down four shots of guaro each…at 6:30 in the morning! Estefan brushed off our concerns by saying he would drive slowly, but we managed to wrestle the keys away from him.

The next stop was Guacimo, where they suggested we walk around and take in the sights while they “talked to some guys.” We wanted to follow them because the sights were not very promising but they were strangely persistent. We returned to the car just in time to see them stuff a old duffel bag in the trunk…..immediately we knew we were in the middle of a drug deal!!

It just got more disconcerting when they turned off the highway after Guacimo onto a tiny track through what seemed to be an endless banana plantation. We finally came to a river where a big man with a hollowed out canoe was waiting for us.

While thoughts of escape were racing through our heads, we followed Estefan’s and Dominga’s drunken tropical singing into the canoe. The big man exchanged greetings with the drunken drug dealers along with the suggestion they should sober up. As fans of Weeds, we knew that one should maintain their wits while carrying large amounts of drugs.

This became ever so present as Estefan accidentally fell on the duffle bag crushing…..our lunch? So it looks like we weren’t in the middle of a drug deal anyways. We had a fantastic lunch at the base of this amazing waterfall and made some great new friends. We won’t be forgetting Costa Rica anytime soon.

Love,
Jason & Bette

Dear Jason & Bette,

Somebody has been watching a little too much television. But have you seen 20/20? Bad things often befall people who get in cars with strangers. Props to you both for taking a chance and having a great adventure!

Love,
Jen & Tom

Beware of Wild Fruits

Dear Jen & Tom,
My wife and I just got back from an amazing honeymoon in Costa Rica. It was great but I can’t show off any of the pictures of me from the trip because I had a huge blister on my upper lip that looked like a herpes cold sore!!! I don’t have the virus, so I was a bit perplexed as to why it developed.

When Sue (my wife) and I were visiting the research station in Santa Rosa National Park, a biologist helped shed light on the matter. We were discussing rainforest fruits and I remembered eating a wild cashew.

The first day, Sue and I decided to bike from Naranjo to Santa Teresa. On the way, I spotted a cashew fruit. I had seen pictures of it before and I was taken by its unusual shap: egg sized smooth skinned orange lobe with what looks like a cashew nut sewn up in a dirty wrinkled leather pouch at the end. I picked one and wanted to break the leathery pouch to get to the nut….but it wouldn’t open! So, I decided to tear through the skin with my teeth, only to feel a searing pain on my lips and gums.

The biologist laughed at my story and told me I had bitten the wrong end. I should have eaten the warm orange fruit. The plant’s survival depends on the dispersal of the seed (in the leathery part). Therefore it is designed so animals to eat the fruit, then discard the seed. To make sure the animals don’t eat the seed, the leathery portion is coated in a cyanide solution!!! I was lucky just to get away with my blister!!

--Richard M.
Londonderry, NH

Dear Richard,
It sounds like someone never got past the oral stage of development. Do you always put everything in your mouth? But even a 2 year old would have realized the fleshy orange fruit was more appetizing than the seed!!! Actually, it doesn’t require human intelligence….a monkey knows the difference!! Next time, refrain from eating wild fruits in nature.

I’m glad you and your wife had an enjoyable stay in Costa Rica.

Love, Jen and Tom

Drunk in Ireland

Dear Jen and Tom,
Before our honeymoon my fiancé surprised me with a long weekend in Ireland. I am about a third Irish, but have never been. We were actually considering going for our honeymoon, but decided somewhere warm and on a beach would be a bit more romantic. I was so excited to go to a real Irish Pub! As soon as we got settled in at the Inn we headed over to a local Pub the girl at the desk suggested. It was only about a block away so we headed out. When we arrived, it was a very interesting crowd. Everyone was very nice, and VERY DRUNK! I couldn’t believe it. One drunk guy was hitting on me, but to my fiancé. He kept telling him how lucky he was, etc, etc. What I thought was going to be a romantic night out turned into a comedy skit of local Irish men. It was actually pretty funny and no one was offensive, but we were naive Americans in a roaring Irish Pub. We spent the remainder of the weekend in our suite and in the Inn’s garden. I'm not complaining though! Next time we’ll have to stick with the touristier route!

Best Wishes,
Fallon, Boston, MA

Teen-age Debungle in Italy

Dear Jen and Tom,
I decided to have a destination wedding in Italy. It is my second wedding, and John and I have 3 kids between the two of us. We only invited our close friends and family since we both are older and come from small families. His oldest child is 16 so we decided to allow her best friend, who is very close with our family to come along. The two of the girls went on a shopping excursion, only a few blocks from us, so they could feel like adults. Well there is a reason 16 year-olds are not adults yet. They were “just talking” to two, gorgeous Italian boys, and somehow misplaced their wallets and passports. I was furious, and terrified. I was scared that they were going to be kept in captivity or something barbaric of the sort until we could prove who they were. Luckily it was only a very big headache later before my hubby got everything settled and the girls were allowed to come home with us, all on the same plane. We did have to push the flights back, but that is nothing compared to what I had going on in my head!

Lots of Love,
Cynthia from Nevada