Honeymooning on a Cruise Ship

Posted on May 15, 2011 by admin

Each year, thousands of couples make the decision to get married. If you are planning on becoming one of those individuals, then it is likely that you and your new spouse will plan a honeymoon. When it comes to selecting a honeymoon destination, you have a number of options to choose from.

Honeymoons are often thought of as vacations. In a way, the only difference between a family vacation and a honeymoon is romance and the lack of children. Honeymoons are supposed to a fun, exciting, memorable, but private time. Instead of vacationing with the whole family, a honeymoon often only involves the bride and groom.

As previously mentioned, you have a number of different options when it comes to planning your honeymoon. Many newlyweds schedule their honeymoons at popular beaches, ski resorts, or other secluded areas. Did you know that you can also have a honeymoon aboard a cruise ship? Cruise ships are increasing in popularity, but still many individuals do not consider them as a vacation option.

One of the reasons why cruise ships are rarely thought about when selecting a vacation destination, let alone a honeymoon, is because of their cost. It is no secret that cruise ship tickets are expensive, but this cost should notentertainment_image prevent you from having the perfect honeymoon to go along with the wedding of your dreams. If you are concerned with the cost, you may want to try obtaining discount cruise ship tickets.

Most discount cruise ship tickets can easily be found online or with the assistance of a travel agent. Discount cruise ship tickets are nice, but they are often hard to come by. Discount cruise tickets are sought after by many newlyweds and other vacationers. If by chance you do come across discounted tickets, you are urged to purchase them while you still have the chance.

One of my favorite cruise lines is Carnival Cruise. Carnival has an “Early Saver Program” which rewards consumers who book early with lowest rate guaranteed. In addition, the fares are backed by a unique price protection policy. With this unique protection policy, if you find a lower Carnival advertised fare, after booking, for the same sailing and accommodations Carnival will issue the difference in the form of a non-refundable, non-transferable onboard credit


Even if you must pay full price for the cruise of your dreams, it is likely that you will still receive a good deal. Despite the large cost of tickets, it is important to examine the activities available onboard and the length of the cruise. The longer the cruise and the more services available, the more expensive tickets are likely to be. If you take the time to figure out all the services that are included and the cost of overnight accommodations, you may see that cruises aren’t all that expensive after all.

Once you have made the decision to spend your honeymoon aboard a cruise ship, you will have to book reservations. As mentioned above, if you are looking to save money on your honeymoon, you are encouraged to search for discounted cruise ship tickets. If money is not an option, you may want to search for cruise ships that have romantic settings and romantic destinations.

When examining cruise ship destinations, you may want to take into consideration the possibility for romance at each destination. Since your honeymoon is supposed to be a romantic and relaxing time, you will want to select an environment that will keep those feelings alive. Cruise ship destinations are located all around the world. Popular destinations include Alaska, Hawaii, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, and Mexico. To find the perfect honeymoon cruise, you are encouraged to select a cruise that offers stops at destinations of your choice.

In addition to taking cruise ship destinations into consideration, you are also encouraged to examine the type of cruise that you wish to set sail on. Multiple cruise lines have ships that are targeted to specific groups of individuals. These cruises often include cruises for adventure lovers, the whole family, or couples. As a couple, you should be welcome on any cruise. If you are looking for a private, romantic, and intimate setting, you may want to avoided cruises that are targeted for family vacations.

Before booking your honeymoon trip on a particular cruise ship, you are urged to examine what you want and need out of your trip. Doing so will enable you to select the perfect cruise ship for you and your new spouse.

About the Author: Michael Chapman is a travel agent and beach wedding provider in St. Petersburg Floirda. Please vist www.beachweddingpros.com to learn more.


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How to have a Beach Wedding

Posted on April 22, 2011 by admin

So you’re thinking about having a beach wedding. It seems so simple. Just show up on a beach and get married, right? Well not exactly. It is much simpler than your traditional wedding, but there are some things you need to do and some plans you need to make. After all this is your wedding and you want it to be perfect and it can be with a little planning.

Choosing the right Place for your Beach Wedding

First is choosing the place. Now this isn’t that hard, it just needs to be a place you want to get married at. Most all beaches are beautiful and there are some top spots where people go to have beach weddings. Yet there are some important considerations in choosing the place.

  1. You need to know what are the state laws are on marriage in that state especially if you are from another state or either you or your spouse are from another country. My wife was German so it was important that where we planned to have our beach wedding that there were no residency requirements. Equally important was that the marriage would be honored in Germany. A Vegas wedding is not considered valid in Germany. In Florida there is no residency requirement to get married, and the marriage is honored in most places in the world. We chose to have our wedding in Key West and now we run own wedding service in St. Pete Beach Florida.
  2. You need to be aware of the weather. We all picture the beach as warm and sunny all the time and we imagine it never rains, or get’s cold. The reality is it does rain on the beach too; there are cloudyhurricanewedding days, and sometimes hurricanes that result in evacuations. So it’s good to know a little about the weather where you’re going, and have a backup plan if your big day gets rained out. The good news is that many of the best beach weddings places seldom get rained out for an entire day, so often you wedding may just get postponed for few hours. In Key West, St Pete Beach, and most of Florida’s beaches you can normally count on having enough sunny hours to get married on most days. However it could end up overcast so you pictures may not turn out as great. AT worst you may have to post pone your wedding a day or two, or have a plan to move inside. The bottom line is you have to have a backup plan. It’s also important to know what your wedding providers rules are on bad weather. Most of us will work with you so you can have your beach wedding on the best possible day.

 

Choosing the Day for your Beach Wedding

This is important for many reasons weather is also one as there are raining seasons, and hurricane seasons, however here in Florida even those seasons are easy to work around. In the rainy season we pretty much know that it will rain for a few hours and then be clear again.
The day is also important as the days fill up for wedding providers. Friday, Saturday, and Sundays being the most used, and Saturdays by far is a premium. Most beach wedding providers charge extra for weekend weddings. At Florida White Beach Weddings and Travel we have chosen not to charge extra as it doesn’t really cost us any more to do a wedding on the weekend as it does during the week, so why should we make you pay more, but that’s just us.
So when considering the date that is important to you pick a day that will work well for you and your wedding provider and give you the most for your money. It’s your day so get the most out of it.

 

Choose the Time of Day For Your Beach Wedding

The Time of day is just as important. Many couples want to have their beach wedding at sunset, as it is so beautiful. The difficulty here is with the pictures. It will get dark quickly once the sun begins to set and then the pictures are much harder to take. This is what happened when we got married in Key West at sunset. We found we had to hurry to get our shots in. It was okay and we loved our pictures, though we did have hurry. It’s just a good thing to remember when you are getting married at sunset, it may limit your photos so be sure to talk with your wedding provider or photographer.

 

Take care of the legal issues for your wedding

Be sure to find out what you need to do to get your marriage license and where you need to go to get it. Don’t put this off; it’s not something you want to be rushing around at the last minute for.
Destination Weddings For Dummies· Does the state require a waiting time from when you apply to when you get married? Do you have to take any premarital courses?
· Do you need to have a medical Exam?
· In Florida if you are from out of state or out of the country there is no waiting period, and no pre-requirements. However, if one of the couple is a Florida resident then they have to wait 3 days to get married after applying for the license or take a 4 hour pre-marital course.
Contact the local county Clerk of the Court to obtain this information. The laws are typically made on the state level but governed on the county leave. Just remember your marriage won’t be legal if you don’t have the legal paper work done.

 

Decide on Beach Décor

Beach decorations can range from fully elaborate arbor, chairs, runners, and music, to just the couple and the wedding officiant. Of course the prices tend to rise with more elaborate the décor. What you need to keep in mind is beaches are very windy, and sounds muffled and hard to hear. So that wedding music won’t sound very good, and the pretty white runner may fly away. Less is truly more when having a beach wedding.
The best décor is already provided by nature herself. That said a few extras are often nice. A nice wedding arbor looks beautiful in the pictures. In your planning with your wedding provider be sure you know exactly what you are going to have.

 

Decide What To Wear To Your Beach Wedding

There so many beautiful white wedding dresses for the bride and anything from the casual to the most formal are completely appropriate. It’s often more difficult to decide what the groom will wear and what you will wear on your feet.
· The groom may wear anything from a suit to shorts and Bermuda shirt; it all depends on your taste.
· Many couples choose to wear flip flops with “Just Married” engraved in them so that their foot prints leave the legacy that they were indeed just married.

 Show up early

This is not a day to be late. Your wedding provider probably has other weddings planned that day and won’t be able to wait. This is even more important if you have a sunset wedding, because the sun waits for no one, not even brides.

 

Have Fun

bridehavingfun So start planning. Get out your sheet of paper and start making a list. The most important thing to remember is to have fun. Weddings, especially having a beach wedding, should be fun! Get rid of the stress, forbid ideas of “perfect”, and enjoy yourself.
What I like most about having a beach wedding, as opposed to the traditional wedding with all the pomp and circumstance, is that people actually enjoy their wedding day. They’re not all stressed out, not worried about the caterer, not uptight about what Aunt Marge is wearing, they just enjoy the day. There is no greater way to enjoy your wedding then with a beach wedding so start planning your beach wedding today!

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