Exotic Honeymoon

I have been a bad blogger. Beyond bad... chalk it up to tiredness, and plans every night when I wasn't tired. Anyway, here I am!

Long before Mr Slippers and I got engaged, I had this idea that I wanted to go to the Seychelles for my honeymoon one day. I don't know why I fixated on the Seychelles over any other islandy destination with white beaches and clear blue water, but I just did. My cousin moved there with his wife quite a few years ago, and while it's not like we're particularly close (he's quite a lot older than me) maybe I felt some kind of a link there, or that it would be a safe choice because I could trust them to tell me where to go and where not to stay. And LOOK at it!

Image from here.


Anyway, so I started my search by going into all the travel agents at my local mall and asking them if they had any package deals for the Seychelles in November this year. With no exception, they all blew me off. Every single one of them.


"Oh, we don't organise packages this early." (this was March, eight months in advance)
"I haven't got anything at the moment; give me your detai;ls and we'll get back to you."
"I'll have to wait for the owner/manager to come in and she'll contact you."
"We don't do that sort of thing."


So basically not one travel agent out of FIVE even wanted my business! I couldn't believe it. What do they do for commission if they don't want to deal with what I think is a pretty straight-forward request? (FYI, this is a common problem. My Dad had the same issue trying to get a flight to Namibia and a hotel there in Windhoek for two nights. Like that's hard).


Anyway, so the honeymoon issue got put on a worrying backburner. In the meantime I went to a bridal expo in early April, where vendors just throw info and pamphlets at you, and put my name down at every travel agent there, asking for Syechelles honeymoon info. Again, there were about eight or ten there. ONE got back to me, a lovely lady called Mandy from Flight Specials. She immediately e-mailed me two options, but ever the perfectionist, one was too expensive and one was too "casino & family-friendly" for our tastes. We wanted peace and quiet! No problem, she e-mailed two more. There was something about them that wasn't right either. Sensing I might have to give up on my Seychelles dream, I asked her to cast her net further afield, and she came up with THIS:

Image from here.

Oh.My.God. We just fell in love with it immediately. It's a resort called Flamingo Bay in Mozambique, and the best part? NO CHILDREN UNDER 12. Therefore, peace and quiet! We jumped on it immediately.

And guess what happened? The hotel is fully booked for the week we want! I could have cried. The first date they could offer us is two weeks after our wedding, which is too long, because while I could live with the wait, I'm damned if I'm going into work between my wedding and honeymoon, and I don't have leave to cover all that! Much as I wish I did.

So we were back to Square One. We asked for more options in various places, none of which seemed to match the beauty and interest and price of the Mozambique one. Until, finally, she sent us THIS, an option I hadn't even considered:





And where is this? PHUKET, Thailand! Yeah baby! Mr & Mrs Ruby Slippers are going to The Far East for seven nights! Actually....eight nights, because when we found out our flights went via Hong Kong, we asked the ever-patient Mandy to get us a one-night stopover there so we could look around. Because, seriously, when are we ever going to go to the far east again?

And the funny thing? This package to Thailand is cheaper than the one to Mozambique, which, in case you forgot, is our neighbouring country! We could drive there, for frick's sake! No accounting, huh?