Priorities in Life

[ddbowdoin]

Hey all... my fiance and I got engaged this past March down at the world. We love it down there. Well, right now we are trying to plan our honeymoon and where else would we want to be but at Disney?

We reviewed "traditional" honeymoon options... some hot Island in the Caribbean, all inclusive stuff. It isn't for us.

So I have been working KK and I knew it would be a pricey trip and at this point I am struggling with my decision making. At first, I went with kind of an all out 11 night Poly / Beach Club stay that after flights and stuff we're looking at 5K or whatever. It's EXPENSIVE!

I guess my question here to people is kind of a generic question, where do your priorities lie and what would you do?

1.) My honeymoon is pretty important, I'm a traditional guy and I love my fiance. I'm only PLANNING on doing this ONCE, so I don't want to cheap out or not even go. Looking back, it's lame... once you put something off for "later" you rarely often return to accomplish or complete that goal.

2.) We're relatively debt free... worth just sinking some debt in for a great experience as a newlywed couple?

 

[ddbowdoin]

Got married 36 years ago and put a down payment on a house instead of going to Hawaii, etc; that's when down payments were not that much! Went for a long weekend at a vacation spot 90 miles from home which is Chicago. I'm glad we got the house. But barring some huge barrier like buying a house or not, you should go for the honeymoon. You will have your whole life to sacrifice, especially if you have children and you need to deal with braces, hockey equipment, doctor bills, etc. Since you obviously already feel the "magic", my advice is to have a nice honeymoon. It doesn't need to be GF but maybe WL or AKL or a nice mod. Best wishes.

I know what you mean... we're at about our 80% mark for our downpayment on a home. Been in the process the last two months, looking at homes, pre approvement letters, attorneys... all that jazz.

 

[eroyee]

As someone else said, you should get money for your wedding that you could put toward your honeymoon. I agree with you on the disney magic staying onsite. How about looking at some place like Coronado Springs for the honeymoon instead?

 

[whitney37354]

We went on our honeymoon 2 hours from home, 4 nights/3 days. I had just graduated college two days before the wedding & DH was still in college. Neither of us had a job & we were going to be living in my parent's basement.

DH's parent's gave him around $500 to go toward the honeymoon. My mother sent $40 for us to eat a nice dinner one night. We ate sandwiches for lunch in our hotel room, which was a honeymoon suite. We ate a simple breakfast out or a bowl of cereal in room & a nicer dinner most nights. We came home with $12 dollars...we were the happiest poor people in the world! Ignorant of how hard life was going to be financially, but happy!

If you are both working & able to pay all of your bills, I'd go for the big honeymoon. We spent more than the $5,000 your talking when we stayed CL at CR last year with DlxDP & Park Hoppers for 6 nights/7 days!

 

[love disney]

Wow, thanks for all the responses.

I've always stayed off property until my last trip, we stayed at the Beach Club. We went down with her parents, which helped us significantly in the financial department since we split it all. Staying on property changed me forever... increased the feel of the magic, the fact that I didn't have to drive for a week was unreal. In terms of moderate vs deluxe, I am open to anything but the luxury of walking to Epcot/ DHS and a short and relatively "exclusive" bus to the other gates sold me.

Luckily we're not responsible for the wedding costs... very, very, very lucky and grateful to her parents for that.

I agree with the "one time in your life" sentiment... I'm just awful at decision making when it comes to cash, I am frugal and seperating with the funds is tough. But, we love the World and it just makes myself and my fiance smile whenever we see a commercial, see an email, or just think / talk about our past trips.

First off, congratulations! I actually just got back from my honeymoon. We are Florida residents (and bought annual passes for each other as wedding presents) so we were lucky enough to get some good discounts for our honeymoon at the World, plus a 4-night Disney cruise to the Bahamas.

Here's my advice, take it for what it's worth. We stayed the first night at Wilderness Lodge, which we love. We got there early, and spent the entire day at WL, no parks, just relaxing by the pool, exploring the surroundings, and spending time together. The next day we started the parks, and transferred to Pop Century. We figured why pay the money for the deluxe resort for the days when most of our time would be spent at the parks. We are so happy we took a day to relax and unwind at WL (trust me, you will need some relaxation after crazy wedding stuff!), and were very glad we saved the money by moving on to Pop (which we also love) for the rest of our stay.

Enjoy your honeymoon and do what you can to make it as nice as you want, but also make sure you don't come back from it wondering how you are going to pay off the bills.