Hottest Honeymoon Destinations
Submitted by Carlson Wagonlit Travel
5386 Kemps River Drive, Suite 113 Virginia Beach, VA, 23464
(757)424-0400
1-800-424-0460

Tying the Knot? Check out one of the following hot spots for some post-wedding bliss.

By Arturo and Maureen Brigid Gonzalez
[Reprinted from Carlson Wagonlit Travel's POSTCARDS® Magazine, October 2001]

Each wedded couple's honeymoon should be a blissfully happy trip that warms their hearts, lifts their souls, and provides them with memories of romance and fun. While there's no surefire way to guarantee a perfect honeymoon, there are a few guidelines that can help the about-to-be Mr. and Mrs. create the travel memory of a lifetime-which is what a honeymoon should be. It involves a lot more than just chocolates on the pillows and satin sheets.
First tip: No surprises. Talk it all out in advance, before the wedding, and have a meeting of the minds. If you prefer a trip featuring afternoon tea at the Ritz, but your betrothed would rather spend days rafting rough rivers, you need to try to come up with destinations and schedules that can please both of you. Talk to your newlywed friends. What worked for them?
Next, set a budget. How much can you really afford? Then add a thousand dollars or so for the unexpected. Honeymoons sometimes flop because he is into buying champagne and caviar, and she would rather be spending the big bucks on their new home. Make sure you both agree, in advance, on the ballpark figure you're willing to spend.
Most importantly, take advantage of the best travel professionals in the business: Carlson Wagonlit Travel agents. They'll remember the smallest (but most important) details, such as romantic limousine transfers from the airport to your hotel suite, complete with gorgeous balcony views. Here are a few honeymoon possibilities they'll probably recommend to you:

Honeymoon Central: Hawaii
The Hawaiian islands have never been hotter as a honeymoon destination, and it's no wonder. This bigger-than-life paradise includes six main islands of a volcanic chain that stretches out over 3,700 miles of the central Pacific. From golden sunrise to crimson sunset, they bask in the warm sun while lapped by the azure Pacific. Hammocks for two hang invitingly between many of its green-leafed coconut palms.
Oahu is Hawaii's best-known island, home of Honolulu and Pearl Harbor, where most transoceanic jets first set down. Diamond Head looms over Waikiki Beach, where oiled bodies in bikinis and shorts glisten in the tropical sun. Surfing started on this island, and on the northern shore, the fabled Banzai Pipeline still foams, endlessly challenging the dudes and their boards. Snorkel in Hanauma Bay, feast on authentic Hawaiian delicacies, and end every evening with a quiet moonlit stroll down the beach.
The Big Island of Hawaii is hot, hot, hot-mainly because two crimson-tipped volcanoes puff steam and ash into the skies and send rivulets of fiery lava down their sides. Equally hot are the shopping, dining, and water sports activities that abound in the quaint village of Kona.
Maui may be Hawaii's greenest island, with all the lushness and fragrant blooms of a rainforest. Take your pick here: Relax on quiet beaches, dance the night away at funky clubs, search out bargains in local boutiques, give your hips a workout with hula lessons, or simply enjoy the natural blue waters and brilliant white sands that rim a great portion of the island.
Lanai is where Jim Dole laid down his famous first pineapple plantation. In its waters offshore you can sometimes hear the eerie whistles and clicks of humpback whales frolicking and mating in the nearby channel. On Molokai, couples make pilgrimages out to its Phallic Rock in a grove of ironwood trees where a touch of the stone guarantees children in the future.
One of the deepest valleys in the world cuts through Kauai, the Garden Isle, where sightseeing helicopters clatter over a spectacular volcanic crater and along tropical beaches dotted with sea turtles. The 347-room Radisson Kauai Beach Resort, fresh from a recent $10 million renovation, boasts a pristine three-mile beach and four pools. On Kalapaki Beach, a massive 26,000 square-foot pool, fed by foaming waterfalls, is a highlight of the Marriott's Kauai Beach Club. Two Jack Nicklaus-designed golf courses rim the resort in green, and five restaurants beckon once the last hole has been played.

In Love With Las Vegas
It used to be the case that a wedding and honeymoon in Las Vegas meant being married in an institution like the Little White Wedding Chapel, which, even today, offers the options of getting hitched with an Elvis look-alike performing the ceremony while "Love Me Tender" plays, or motoring through its Tunnel of Love to the 24-hour drive-up window where it's not even necessary to get out of the car.
But today, there are plenty of classy options. All the major mega-hotels/casinos regard dignified weddings as an important part of their business, and Vegas also has become a sought-after honeymoon destination.
Don't want to take the eight-hour plane ride to the real Venice or Paris? New Vegas hotels offer gondola rides and French cuisine, a mini-St. Mark's Piazza, and views of a look-alike Eiffel Tower. Aching to see the artwork of the Old Masters? Walk through the fine art galleries of the Bellagio to view the invaluable Picassos and van Goghs on display. If your budget isn't big enough to fly you to Egypt, Vegas offers you a pyramid called The Luxor. Rome too big? Substitute the Roman Colosseum for Caesar's Palace. Want to surf? Tackle the six-foot waves in the pool of the Mandalay Bay. There's even a Vegas resort that looks like New York City and so many megawatt showbiz stars performing in town you'll think you're on Broadway.
Tough work, all this gambling, drinking, dancing, eating, showgoing, and sight-seeing-therefore, many of Vegas's better resorts have created top-level spas to primp and pamper, soothe and sauna their guests.
One of the best Vegas spas to be found is 1,000 feet above the hot desert floor in the foothills of the Spring Mountains. It's the Aquae Sulis Spa in the Regent Las Vegas, offering not only the traditional European massages but therapies originated in the medicine of India, and a host of New Age body-care treatments. Classes in yoga, tai chi, and even kickboxing keep guests both relaxed and fit, and there's a gorgeous pool and a large workout area filled with the latest cardiovascular and weight-training technology.

Love In The Caribbean Sun
Beaches, beaches, beaches-that's what the Caribbean is all about. Sure, there's history, as in the pirate forts on St. Thomas, and potent drinks featuring the rum distilled everywhere, and more limbo dances and steel bands than you can shake a stick at. But for this scattering of mostly former English, Dutch, French, and Spanish islands scattered in a long crescent from the tip of Florida to the northern coast of Venezuela, it's sea, sand, and lots of sun that bring the tourists south by the thousands each year.
Still so very, very British decades after they won their independence from the Crown, the Bahamas are the closest Caribbean islands to the United States. Few beaches are more romantic and relaxing than Cable Beach in Nassau, attracting many honeymooners to spend their first few days of married life under the welcoming roof of hotels like the Radisson Cable Beach Resort.
For fans of the all-inclusive honeymoon, there's good news from the beaches of St. Thomas. The elegant, three-floor, 300-room hilltop Wyndham Sugar Bay Beach Resort has emerged from its recent renovation as an all-inclusive-its three-pool water park splashier than ever, its Mangrove Café and Turtle Rock lively with cocktail chatter day and night. In December, a new 6,000 square foot spa will be unveiled.
For honeymooners eager to see several islands in a week and who appreciate the luxury of not having to pack and unpack almost every day to do so, the cruise industry offers a lot. A fleet of elegant white megaliners, literally sailing resorts, churn out of Florida ports every weekend, virtually all of them destined to call on three, four, or five different Caribbean islands in the week ahead. Competition is fierce and cabin prices can dip quite low. Often there are bargains such as "second person in the cabin for free," or vouchers worth more than $100 for shipboard purchases. Your Carlson Wagonlit Travel agent can track down the best trip for you and your sweetheart.
Among the cruise lines with the most active Caribbean fleets are Carnival Cruise Lines, Celebrity Cruises, Disney Cruise Line, Holland America Line, Norwegian Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, and Royal Caribbean International.

Cruising Toward Romance
There are several very practical reasons for climbing aboard a luxury cruise ship to enjoy a honeymoon. Cruise ships make it possible to visit a number of different ports, in several different countries, in a week or less-and you only have to unpack and re-pack your suitcases once.
Cruises are economical; many cost less than $100 per person per day, a price that includes all transportation, lodging, entertainment, and up to five multi-coarse meals daily. The few extras are limited to drinks, shore excursions, and tips. And your stateroom steward and dining room waiter are more like personal servants than shipping company employees. It's a very seductive situation. If you've ever strolled the deck of a ship at night, warm tradewinds blowing, the reflection of the moon in the ink-black sea, you know how romantic cruising can be.
For traditional, transatlantic cruising, there's no better ship than Cunard's venerable Queen Elizabeth 2. At just over 70,000 tons, she has been taking 1,500 passengers at a time from New York City to Southampton, England, and back again in the grand
old manner since 1969. And there's even a branch of London's fabled Harrod's depart- ment store on board.
Traveling under sail is an even more traditional way for honeymooners to go to sea. Several sleek new, 440-foot, 74-couple, yacht-like sailing ships named the Wind Star, Wind Song, and Wind Spirit now cruise the Caribbean and Aegean under full heads of towering canvas.
The Love Boat TV series forever branded cruise ships as places for romance. The ships used in the series were owned by Princess Cruises, and the company continues to run its liners to many romantic destinations in a very romantic manner. Its Dawn Princess, for instance, boasts a 24-hour restaurant, where intimate dinners for two can be arranged. The perfect place for a honeymoon toast is its champagne and caviar bar, and the Promenade Deck is just right for a midnight, moonlit kiss. Oh yes, and all cruise ships today can marry couples in port or at sea-as long as their marriage license is in order.

Jamaica's All Inclusive Amour
This former British colony produces some of the world's best coffee, rum, and without a doubt, reggae music. The man who introduced reggae to the world is a Jamaican native son, dreadlocked Bob Marley. Although he died too early, at age 36, his rasta followers have turned bits of Jamaica into a shrine to his greatness. There's a statue to him in Kingston, and in Montego Bay, visitors soak up his music and memorabilia at an attraction called the Bob Marley Experience.
Jamaica also has pioneered another remarkable creation, the all-inclusive resort. Few tourist destinations have as many all-inclusives as Jamaica, where the SuperClubs organization now runs nine separate and distinct resorts, each designed to give every vacation at a simple, single price-no tips, no extras. SuperClubs resorts will stage your wedding as well, at no extra cost. The resorts sport a number of different names: Breezes Montego Bay, which is on picturesque Doctor's Cave Beach, and Breezes Negril, on the island's westernmost shore. There's also Breezes Golf and Beach Resort on the north coast.
Trelawny is a traditional beach resort hotel run on an all-inclusive basis. The Grand Lido Braco is an all-inclusive village complete with a town square. There also is the Grand Lido in Negril, where guests can take sunset sails on Princess Grace of Monaco's honeymoon yacht, and the Grand Lido Sans Souci, a hotel created in the traditional colonial style of the island.

Agent Q&A
Carslon Wagonlit Travel planner Deb Thiesen, in Shorewood, Minn., knows more than a little about honeymoons, having gone on her own a year ago.

Q: What's new and different about honeymooners today?Many of them want to do something unique instead of just lying in the sun. I sent one couple to watch wild game from a hot air balloon recently, and another to climb Kilimanjaro.
Q: Are couples marrying in a different way, too? Absolutely. Lots of wedding invitations these days invite the guests to come to an island or aboard a ship to participate in a wedding held where the honeymoon is going to take place.
Q: What are most honeymooners willing to spend on their trip? It's not unusual for couples to spend $5,000 on their honeymoons, and we often see $10,000 trips. Honeymooners want something special, even unforgettable, to fulfill their dreams.