Many honeymooners don’t have much experience using the services of travel agents and some may not realize the value of a travel agent. Some also may not realize that all travel agents are not created equally and there are some better suited to plan a family vacation to Disney World than a dream honeymoon.
Most of My Vacation Lady‘s new honeymoon clients are either recommended to us from past honeymooners or have found us on wedding planning websites like Wedding Wire or the Knot, where we are the top rated honeymoon specialist located in New Jersey. We work with many honeymooners from all over the country to help plan their dream honeymoons by really getting to know what kind of experiences they are looking for.
While reading an on the Examiner.com written by Ruthanne Terrerro a few years ago, there was an article on how to make the most of working with a travel agent. Even a few years later, lots of what was said can apply to how to use a travel agent to help you plan a fabulous honeymoon.
Here are some of the main points that Ms. Terrerro mentioned and we adjusted the answers to relate to planning your honeymoon:
1. Communicate- Be prepared to share information about yourselves. We can’t just throw out a suggestion for the best honeymoon for you if we don’t know anything about you.
2. Answer all of their questions- My Vacation Lady asks a lot of questions both before your honeymoon consultation in a questionnaire and during your consultation. Some may seem a bit personal but trust me, even your occupation will make a difference in what destinations or resorts we might suggest for your dream honeymoon. If you are a teacher and you are marrying a chef in an upscale restaurant, this tells us that you can typically only travel during school breaks, that you might want an adult only resort and you are likely looking for a destination or resort with great dining options. The more we know about you, the better we can figure out what type of honeymoon experience you are looking for.
3. Be up front about budget- Budget is one of things we are going to ask you during your honeymoon consultation and we’ll be completely up front with you if we don’t think your budget is realistic or if we think you are over estimating what you’ll need. What you need to understand is that travel agents don’t set pricing. Prices are dictated to us by airlines, hotels and suppliers who will package all of the components into one seamless package. There are times that we can’t work magic and can’t make a 2 week honeymoon to Italy in June work with a $5000 budget when more than 1/2 of the budget is just the cost of airfare.
4. Don’t forget the details- Let us know if there is something that we need to be concerned about before we start researching options for your honeymoon. If you have severe food allergies, that might be something that can be handled in different resorts or destinations better than others. If you will only fly for less than 5 hours, that will certainly make a difference in destination. If you burn to a crisp on the sun or “find relaxing to be boring” (as one of my grooms said to me), we really need to know this in order to help plan the best honeymoon for you.
5. Value their knowledge- this is the one answer that was taken straight from the article.
A good travel agent is someone who has actually gone to the place you want to go to or has colleagues who have been there. They are also likely part of a good network that gives them the tools to know much more about hotels and destinations than you could ever find on the Internet. Be sure to ask your travel agent what their affiliation is and what it provides that’s special.
We won’t be the first to tell you that your honeymoon should be special but My Vacation Lady is the right honeymoon specialist to make your honeymoon special.
