Narrowing down honeymoon options

[ericande]

My fiance and I are going on our honeymoon next September and we're trying to narrow down our options. We're looking for a tropical place with great beaches and preferably a smaller, more romantic resort but things to do nearby would be nice. We'd also like to go diving at least 3 days. I'm looking for input on dive locations but advice on places to stay is great too! So far these are the places we have on our list:

1) Grand Cayman/ Jamaica. Thinking we could go to both, a week in each. Less expensive hotel in GC and then stay at the caves resort in Jamaica. I know there are plenty of dive operators in both countries but I'm not sure where the better diving is and how nice it is.

2) Tahiti/Bora Bora or Fiji. I've heard Fiji has the best diving in the South Pacific. Are some islands better for diving than others or is it easier to access the dive shops from certain islands?

3) Thailand. I really don't know much about Thailand or the diving but I've heard it's nice.

4) The Maldives. Whale sharks would be awesome to see but it's far away. I also don't know much about accommodation options.

5) Seychelles. A dream of mine to go there but very far away and I don't know if they have good diving or not.


We're from Seattle and do some diving up here but it's a bit cold for my girlfriend. We went diving in Cozumel last December and absolutely loved it. Any thoughts on the above locations or other ideas are very much appreciated.

 

[ericande]

I think now our top 3 are:

Cayman Islands/Jamaica
Venezuela or Curacao then Bonaire
Thailand

Thoughts on those?

 

[robint]

Caymans have good diving but can be a bit touristy. Best bets for more romantic plus good diving would be Brac Reef Resort and Little Cayman Resort. Grand Cayman tends to be crowded with lots of tourists, cruise ships, and more tourists. The bad thing is there isn't much to do on Cayman Brac or Little Cayman islands but dive. look here: Cayman Islands Resorts and Diving Packages for Divers.
and Cayman Islands Scuba Diving Vacations Cayman Scuba Travel Adventures

Jamaica is a place people go to party, lay in sun, and party. Diving there is not great. So it depends what your focus of your honeymoon really is.

Bonaire is a scuba diving mecca... but not much else to do but dive and talk about diving. No really fancy resorts either. It is more rustic. Diving there is A+ for the Caribbean.

Curacao is sister island to Bonaire, not so much focus on diving, and a few resorts. Venezuela isn't a dive destination from what I know of.

Thailand is 2 days travel each way. If you are okay with all that travel time and expense, I would go to Indonesia instead: Indonesia Resorts and Diving Packages for Divers.
Wakatobi Resort is known as one of the most romantic and top resorts in the world. We haven't been there but friends went there twice in the past couple of years and raved about it.

Other options in Caribbean:
Anthony's Key Resort, Roatan, honduras Roatan Diving, Roatan Resort - Anthony's Key Resort Honduras | Anthony's Key Resort
and
Ambergris Caye, Belize - Ramon's http://www.ramons.com/



Other options for romantic and diving in Pacific:
Look at Fiji, Beqa Lagoon Resort - Beqa Lagoon Resort - Caradonna Dive Adventures
that is another place I hear nothing but raves about from my friends who have been there. Luxury, beautiful, excellent diving, and easy to get to (you fly out of LAX direct overnight so not so much wasted time in airports and transfers).

My recommendations to you: Look at Cayman Brac or Little Cayman, Ramon's Village, Belize, Anthony's Key Resort in Roatan, Wakatobi in Indonesia, or Beqa Lagoon Resort,Fiji.

 

[Doc]

I think now our top 3 are:

Cayman Islands/Jamaica
Venezuela or Curacao then Bonaire
Thailand

Thoughts on those?

After reading your first post, I was looking for a question.

Now that you have narrowed the field to three wildly divergent places (eliminating three and adding one), how did you do that?

If you shared the method for evaluation, maybe others could be more helpful.

Fill out your profile, RobinT already made the assumption you are starting your trip from North America. Travel times and costs are useful, but if you told us where you were starting from... or if that was an important factor to you... you may get much better answers.

 

[diversteve]

My thoughts on your top 3.

Diving is not great on Jamaica so do more of it in Cayman if you split your time between them.

Possibly Cobalt Coast resort on Grand Cayman - it's a little removed from town. I don't know if I'd go there for my honeymoon though - it's nice but in a nicer AI way than romantic resort way. The nicer resorts on Grand Cayman are the big ones, the Marriott, Hyatt etc. You'll find some nightlife along Seven Mile Beach also. As someone mentioned, being downtown is not a good idea when the cruise ships are in port.

Brac Reef Resort on Cayman Brac is being finished up to re-open later this fall so it would be fairly new next year. Not sure about the facilities as it was pretty much flattened last year.

Which brings up another point - Hurricane season lasts till at least October.

On Curacao, the nicest places are probably the Marriott in Piscadera Bay or Lodge Kura Hulanda out in West Punt. LKH is one of the leading small hotels of the world so it's really nice, secluded, but also a 45min.+ drive to town. I was in one of the suites for about an hour, they're everything you would expect. It's an AI with a few local restaurants walking distance in West Punt. Otherwise everything else is a drive. They have a treehouse suite also, not sure about the details.

Diving is excellent there, they're on one of the great shoredives - Playa Kalki and a short boat ride from what I've been told is the best dive there - Watamula. Not too far from the Mushroom Forest either - another famous dive.

The Marriott is also very nice but it's maybe bigger than you want. Nice beach, great restaurant right on the beach and a nice pool complex with bar. Up the hill is the main resort, the rooms and another bar. The casino is right off the lobby also. It seemed to be a newer Marriott 2 years ago. Caribbean Sea Sports is their on-site diveop and there's a shore dive but it's a slight swim out off that particular bay.

There's a new Renaissance (Marriot) downtown also and the Hotel Kura Hulanda which is supposed to be nice also. Either would be a short drive to diving though afaik.

On Bonaire the nicest resort (yes there is one) is Harbour Village. It's on a nice beach you can shoredive from but the best diving is at other sites nearby - starting 5 mins. north. It caters more to Europeans from what I've read.

Good thing about either Bonaire or Curacao is they're out of the Hurricane Belt. And there's numerous flights between them. Not sure if you can get there the same day though from your area - we can from Phx, but most folks in CA can't.

Another option might be Virgin Gorda in the BVI's - Little Dix Bay or Biras Creek. We stayed on VG for a week and saw the beach/bar at Little Dix, it's very nice. They have an amazing stretch of beach with a shallow lagoon. Saw turtles diving everytime we pulled in there with the boat to pick up divers. DiveBVI has a location there, we dove with them all week, one of the best diveops I've ever used. The Rhone is a signature wreck dive in that area and overall the diving is very good, they don't have a lot of diveops so it's less crowded and more natural. More on the shallow side also, the deepest we dove was about 90'.

I don't know anything about Biras Creek except that it was recommended as an alternative to Little Dix.

There's a lot of really pristine beaches on both sides of Virgin Gorda and it's very hilly. The Baths is a famous snorkeling site there. The whole area revolves around sailing and watersports with at least 1/2 dozen other islands a short boat ride away. Some are really tiny - a couple have one or two bars/resorts on them and others are more developed. You can do some inter-island travel on the ferries or charter a day boat.

The best way to get there is fly into St. Thomas and take the fast ferry over - the trip from port to port is under an hour. There's an airport on Tortola but it might be closed in the fall and you'd still have to ferry over to VG.

Some really good restaurants - Rock Cafe was one - and there's a Beach BBQ at Leverick Bay resort on Fridays that everyone attends. It's a quieter island with just a few bars, clubs etc..

I've also read that Anse Chastenet resort on St. Lucia is recommended for dive honeymoons - it's smaller, isolated and has diving. That's about all I know about it.

hth, I've been to all the places I mention in the last four years so PM/post further questions.

 

[vladimir]

Bonaire is a scuba diving mecca... but not much else to do but dive and talk about diving. No really fancy resorts either. It is more rustic. Diving there is A+ for the Caribbean.

I agree with Robin's synopsis of Bonaire, but I would add that the Harbour Village Beach Club, while not "really fancy," is a far cry from rustic. The beachfront suites are large, with many of the amenities you would expect at a Four Seasons or a Peninsula Hotel, for examples. Service is polite and adequate, but not up to the standards of a top hotel. The main restaurant, La Balandra, has good food and is set on a pier jutting out into the channel. The beach is the nicest that I have seen on the island--I think they truck the sand in. The reef in front is among the worst I have seen on the island. They schedule 3 boat dives a day, and since the place does not attract as many avid divers, the boat is often sparsely populated, particularly the 9:00am dive. Take a look:

Harbour Village Beach Club Bonaire

 

[Damselfish]

what do you have in mind for "things to do nearby"?

For small & romantic in the Caribbean check out Young Island Resort on St Vincent. It's a nice place for a honeymoon and the diving is quite good, and pretty convenient as they'll pick you up right at the dock. You can do some day trips (waterfalls, hiking, sightseeing) to different areas of Saint Vincent, or if you're into sailing you can spend a couple days on one of their sailboats. Or if you don't want to spend 2 weeks there take the ferry to Bequia to stay for a few days, it's a interesting little place to check out and also has good diving.

There are some other private island resorts in the Grenadines, but Young Island is slightly easier to get to and somewhat less expensive than most of the others, along with having the good diving right there.

 

[vladimir]

RobinT already made the assumption you are starting your trip from North America.

Okay, yes, but it wasn't exactly a wild assumption:

We're from Seattle

 

[ericande]

Wow, lots of great info

Caymans have good diving but can be a bit touristy. Best bets for more romantic plus good diving would be Brac Reef Resort and Little Cayman Resort. Grand Cayman tends to be crowded with lots of tourists, cruise ships, and more tourists. The bad thing is there isn't much to do on Cayman Brac or Little Cayman islands but dive. look here: Cayman Islands Resorts and Diving Packages for Divers.
and Cayman Islands Scuba Diving Vacations Cayman Scuba Travel Adventures

Jamaica is a place people go to party, lay in sun, and party. Diving there is not great. So it depends what your focus of your honeymoon really is.

Bonaire is a scuba diving mecca... but not much else to do but dive and talk about diving. No really fancy resorts either. It is more rustic. Diving there is A+ for the Caribbean.

Curacao is sister island to Bonaire, not so much focus on diving, and a few resorts. Venezuela isn't a dive destination from what I know of.

Thailand is 2 days travel each way. If you are okay with all that travel time and expense, I would go to Indonesia instead: ]Indonesia Resorts and Diving Packages for Divers.
Wakatobi Resort is known as one of the most romantic and top resorts in the world. We haven't been there but friends went there twice in the past couple of years and raved about it.

Other options in Caribbean:
Anthony's Key Resort, Roatan, honduras ]Roatan Diving, Roatan Resort - Anthony's Key Resort Honduras | Anthony's Key Resort
and
Ambergris Caye, Belize - Ramon's Ramon's Village, Belize Resort, Belize Resorts, Resorts in Belize, Ambergris Caye

Other options for romantic and diving in Pacific:
Look at Fiji, Beqa Lagoon Resort -
that is another place I hear nothing but raves about from my friends who have been there. Luxury, beautiful, excellent diving, and easy to get to (you fly out of LAX direct overnight so not so much wasted time in airports and transfers).

My recommendations to you: Look at Cayman Brac or Little Cayman, Ramon's Village, Belize, Anthony's Key Resort in Roatan, Wakatobi in Indonesia, or Beqa Lagoon Resort,Fiji.

Thanks for the suggestions. I think if we did Cayman/Jamaica we'd skip diving all together in Jamaica since it doesn't sound worth it. The resort we'd stay there (The Caves) is pretty small so a touristy first half of the trip is fine.

I'm definitely going to have to check out Indonesia, forgot about that.

After reading your first post, I was looking for a question.

Now that you have narrowed the field to three wildly divergent places (eliminating three and adding one), how did you do that?

If you shared the method for evaluation, maybe others could be more helpful.

Fill out your profile, RobinT already made the assumption you are starting your trip from North America. Travel times and costs are useful, but if you told us where you were starting from... or if that was an important factor to you... you may get much better answers.

I just added a little more info if that helps. We live in Seattle, got certified here and have also gone diving in Hawaii and Cozumel. As for deciding where to go, you can see we're very open to anything. We know we want to go someplace tropical and dive and also someplace a bit more 'exotic,' somewhere we'd be less likely to go for a normal week long vacation. I loved Hawaii and Cozumel but they're pretty easy to get to and it's likely we'd go there again soon anyways. As for the specific three, the ABC islands and Thailand are places I've always wanted to go to especially to dive. As for Jamaica, we saw a show that had the Caves Resort on it and we both really wanted to go there. I added the Caymans to that plan for better diving, plus why not visit both if gone for about 2 weeks? I still haven't ruled out the Maldives or Seychelles but Seychelles seems tough to get to and honestly there are so many options in the Maldives I put researching it on the back burner.

My thoughts on your top 3.

Diving is not great on Jamaica so do more of it in Cayman if you split your time between them.

Possibly Cobalt Coast resort on Grand Cayman - it's a little removed from town. I don't know if I'd go there for my honeymoon though - it's nice but in a nicer AI way than romantic resort way. The nicer resorts on Grand Cayman are the big ones, the Marriott, Hyatt etc. You'll find some nightlife along Seven Mile Beach also. As someone mentioned, being downtown is not a good idea when the cruise ships are in port.

Brac Reef Resort on Cayman Brac is being finished up to re-open later this fall so it would be fairly new next year. Not sure about the facilities as it was pretty much flattened last year.

Which brings up another point - Hurricane season lasts till at least October.

On Curacao, the nicest places are probably the Marriott in Piscadera Bay or Lodge Kura Hulanda out in West Punt. LKH is one of the leading small hotels of the world so it's really nice, secluded, but also a 45min.+ drive to town. I was in one of the suites for about an hour, they're everything you would expect. It's an AI with a few local restaurants walking distance in West Punt. Otherwise everything else is a drive. They have a treehouse suite also, not sure about the details.

Diving is excellent there, they're on one of the great shoredives - Playa Kalki and a short boat ride from what I've been told is the best dive there - Watamula. Not too far from the Mushroom Forest either - another famous dive.

The Marriott is also very nice but it's maybe bigger than you want. Nice beach, great restaurant right on the beach and a nice pool complex with bar. Up the hill is the main resort, the rooms and another bar. The casino is right off the lobby also. It seemed to be a newer Marriott 2 years ago. Caribbean Sea Sports is their on-site diveop and there's a shore dive but it's a slight swim out off that particular bay.

There's a new Renaissance (Marriot) downtown also and the Hotel Kura Hulanda which is supposed to be nice also. Either would be a short drive to diving though afaik.

On Bonaire the nicest resort (yes there is one) is Harbour Village. It's on a nice beach you can shoredive from but the best diving is at other sites nearby - starting 5 mins. north. It caters more to Europeans from what I've read.

Good thing about either Bonaire or Curacao is they're out of the Hurricane Belt. And there's numerous flights between them. Not sure if you can get there the same day though from your area - we can from Phx, but most folks in CA can't.

Another option might be Virgin Gorda in the BVI's - Little Dix Bay or Biras Creek. We stayed on VG for a week and saw the beach/bar at Little Dix, it's very nice. They have an amazing stretch of beach with a shallow lagoon. Saw turtles diving everytime we pulled in there with the boat to pick up divers. DiveBVI has a location there, we dove with them all week, one of the best diveops I've ever used. The Rhone is a signature wreck dive in that area and overall the diving is very good, they don't have a lot of diveops so it's less crowded and more natural. More on the shallow side also, the deepest we dove was about 90'.

I don't know anything about Biras Creek except that it was recommended as an alternative to Little Dix.

There's a lot of really pristine beaches on both sides of Virgin Gorda and it's very hilly. The Baths is a famous snorkeling site there. The whole area revolves around sailing and watersports with at least 1/2 dozen other islands a short boat ride away. Some are really tiny - a couple have one or two bars/resorts on them and others are more developed. You can do some inter-island travel on the ferries or charter a day boat.

The best way to get there is fly into St. Thomas and take the fast ferry over - the trip from port to port is under an hour. There's an airport on Tortola but it might be closed in the fall and you'd still have to ferry over to VG.

Some really good restaurants - Rock Cafe was one - and there's a Beach BBQ at Leverick Bay resort on Fridays that everyone attends. It's a quieter island with just a few bars, clubs etc..

I've also read that Anse Chastenet resort on St. Lucia is recommended for dive honeymoons - it's smaller, isolated and has diving. That's about all I know about it.

hth, I've been to all the places I mention in the last four years so PM/post further questions.

Great info. The point about the hurricane brings up another question. I believe that the ABC islands, Thailand and even Indonesia should have good weather but what are the chances that a hurricane could significantly alter our plans for the trip? I know weather can come at any time (we live in Seattle and really don't mind rain as much as most do) but are we talking 50/50 chance a hurricane affects us or a 5% chance?

I'll have to look up those spots more.

I agree with Robin's synopsis of Bonaire, but I would add that the Harbour Village Beach Club, while not "really fancy," is a far cry from rustic. The beachfront suites are large, with many of the amenities you would expect at a Four Seasons or a Peninsula Hotel, for examples. Service is polite and adequate, but not up to the standards of a top hotel. The main restaurant, La Balandra, has good food and is set on a pier jutting out into the channel. The beach is the nicest that I have seen on the island--I think they truck the sand in. The reef in front is among the worst I have seen on the island. They schedule 3 boat dives a day, and since the place does not attract as many avid divers, the boat is often sparsely populated, particularly the 9:00am dive. Take a look:

Harbour Village Beach Club Bonaire

I ran across that place and it does look nice. Curacao also had some places that looked pretty neat.

It sounds like a lot of dives in Curacao are shore dives but more on Bonaire are boat dives?

Thanks again for all the help everyone.

 

[vladimir]

I'm definitely going to have to check out Indonesia, forgot about that.

The best diving in the world, in my opinion. Robin's suggestion of Wakatobi is a good one. Another is Bali. There are a lot of other possibilities in Indonesia, but those are probably the top two from a honeymoon-on-land perspective.

As for the specific three, the ABC islands and Thailand are places I've always wanted to go to especially to dive.

I think in September you will want to be on the South China Sea side, rather than the Andaman Sea. So look at Koh Tao and Koh Samui, rather than Phuket.

It sounds like a lot of dives in Curacao are shore dives but more on Bonaire are boat dives?

Definitely not. Bonaire is the mecca of shore diving. But the boat will get you over to Klein and up to Karpata and Rappel, some of the best dives, in my opinion, and not easily accessible from shore. (Unless you don't mind rappelling, as the name indicates.) The boat is just easier, too. I buy the unlimited diving package at Harbour Village and jump on the boat because I'm lazy. The pier is closer than the parking lot, my gear is in a locker at the pier, the rinse tanks are right there, etc. Everything is easier.