Honeymoon to south africa. booking help needed

F

flashover

Registered User
Messages
19
hi folks
need some advice. i am charged with booking the honeymoon next October/november. i am planning cape town 3/4 days..... 4/5 days touring winevally, hermanus. then fly to kruger for 3 nights safari and finally last week in Mauritius.
prices received from agents in ireland so far have been sky high. i am considering booking the trip myself.. although finding it a bit difficult.
has anyone any experience booking with agents in the UK,?
or tried booking themselves?

any help appreciated
thanks
 
Hi we did it ourselves last November. Booked flights, accomodation and Kruger and it worked out great because we did it to suit ourselves! We went to Kruger first then 3 nights Capetown, 2 nights Winelands, then 3 Plettenberg Bay then Arniston and back to Capetown for four nights. If you want more details feel free to pm me. We experienced no hitches at all and I honestly think to custom plan it for yourselves the best way to go! Best of luck too with all the plans! Especially with the accomodation the choice is immense and of very high quality even at the lowest end of the scale so you could work it out better to suit your pocket and still enjoy a great honeymoon!
 
book with kuoni holidays uk or a similar company..much cheaper with lower vat rate and exchange rate.we booked ours and saved at least 30 percent.alot easier than trying to book hotels and flights urself.
 
Definitely do it yourself, very easy to get around. Car hire is easy, major roads etc., all well sign posted; they drive on the left so no problems there.

Travelled for several weeks there with 2 children and had a ball. I would ring Kruger however, rather than relying on their on line system - it can sometimes give false information.

My only reservation is that I would have liked someone to share the driving with; but that's one of the draw backs of being a lone parent!
 
booked the lot myself, booked krugar
with these guys
[broken link removed]
they pick you up from Joeburg, its fully organised
with 10 in a group, all food etc included.
Fly into capetown and home via Joeburg,
get an internal flight from capetown to joeburg.
trailfinders
are good to organise your flights
i would give more time to capetown you can do a day trip to the winelands
from capetown, stellinbosh i think is the area, wouldnt bother with hermanus.
i would give a week in Capetown as a base as there are lots of nice beach areas around it
like haut bay camps bay, there is alot to do in capetown + you are on honeymoon + will be wrecked the first few days
after the wedding so might not want to be doing alot of driving.
Musts in capetown are, robin island , cape point, an orgaised tour of the shanty town langa, a day trip to the winelands, etc etc
you will have a great one
cable car up table mountain
a day trip to the winelands, visit some of the beach resorts mentioned above.
 
Did a similar Honeymoon last Summer. First, although we really did enjoy Mauritius, South Africa offered so much more. We booked everything ourselves and I doubt that an agent could do it cheaper.

As regards the safari we went to Pondoro (they have a superb website) game reserve which is just outside the Kruger. We flew to Hoedspruit arport from Jburg (about €70 return SA Airways) and was brought to Pondoro. There we were treated better than royalty, we stayed in a spectcaular private lodge and had the most amazing food you could imagine. You are on the banks of the Oliphants river and you can get really close to the wild. I would recommend that you should stay more that three days on the safari. We spent 5 and were extremely glad we did so.
 
Hi Myself and my partner just booked something similar last week. (Leaving Mid Nov 09)
We booked 5 nights in cape town
3 Nights Wine Lands
3 Nights Game Reserver (Shamwari - Fully Inclu)
3 Nights Victoria Falls
7 Nights Mauritius (Fully Inclu)
also included was car hire, one night hotel stop over at airport before mauritius. and flights direct from london to cape town and back again from mauritius back to london (flights with BA) . total was just over 3 weeks

After alot of web searches and phone calls, we booked through Irish travel agent (not sure if I can give name or details on forum, PM me if you need more details).
If we booked ourselfs we may have saved €100 or prob worked out about the same, one of the big reason's we booked through travel agent is for the agent insurance. It should protect us against any probs (current ecomonic situation)

hope this helps. Phil
 
Last edited:
flashover said:
hi folks
need some advice. i am charged with booking the honeymoon next October/november. i am planning cape town 3/4 days..... 4/5 days touring winevally, hermanus. then fly to kruger for 3 nights safari and finally last week in Mauritius.
prices received from agents in ireland so far have been sky high. i am considering booking the trip myself.. although finding it a bit difficult.
has anyone any experience booking with agents in the UK,?
or tried booking themselves?

any help appreciated
thanks
Click to expand...
This thread would be more useful if people quoted figures. I've been quoted €7500 for a similar deal, 12 days in SA (All 4 or 5 star hotels) including 2 days/nights safari plus 5 days fully inclusive in mauritius.

Looking at direct prices:
Flights €2.5k
Mauritius €2.5k
Safari €800 all inclusive
Car rental €300
Hotels approx €120 per night

Figured there was no real saving in booking direct
 
My trip in 2007 (4 weeks incl 5 nights in Kruger) cost €6k for 3 (1 adult & 2 teenagers); but flights etc., were the same as for 3 adults.
 
hi figurse i have so far are between 8 and 9k.
9k if we go all inclusive in mauritius.

many thanks to all for great help and advice. much appreciated.
it seems i am not getting a good deal yet at these proces!
 
Mine is in May, It's low season and things are cheaper.

I knocked almost €1k off the quote by doing 5 days rather than 7 in Mauritius.

I really think you'd need to be making an absolute pig of yourself to get the full benefit of 7 days all inclusive!!
 
We decided a month ago to get married in South Africa. We managed to find a nice spot near a lodge at the Drackenburg Mountains to do our cermony. The lodge are throwing in cake and flowers for a little extra and we are staying in the Mountains for 3 days. We booked a luxury safari for 3 nights which we managed to get an SA resident prices which is a third of the price which they rip foreigners off for, we done this by keep asking lodges until someone said yes as they had a cancelation or something. The winter is the busy safari months however. We are then going to a beach resort in Mosambique for a week. We book this through an operator in Jo'burg, return flights to jo'burg included.
Flights from Ireland to Jo'burg is 1k for both return.
Oh, and we are getting rings made in Jo'burg.
The Whole thing was an absolute headwreck to organise and alot of work, but we've pulled it off for a third of the cost we were quoted by Irish/UK suppliers. The internet makes all this not only possible but more streamlined for your needs. Get on there and surf like hell, put some credit on skype and just get stuck in and haggle with them all. Good luck.
 
Hi we booked our honeymoon for last xmas and at 2 months notice so paid a bit extra for flights and accomm I presume as this is peak season over there.
Stayed 4 nights CapeT @The Commodore had car for 11 nights then staying 2 in Winelands @Summerwood Guest house, 2 Hermanus @Harbour Vue( Shark dive), 3 Knysna @St. James, 2 Storms River @At the Woods(Biggest bungy in world), 2 Safari in Kwandwe (luxury), drop off in Port E, fly back to Cape Town for 3 nights r&r in Camps bay @Primi Royal and home.This includes 2 airport pick ups when we arrived in CT.
18 nights in total and wouldnt change a thing except maybe stay a night in Plettenberg for the beaches if thats your thing.
Stayed in 4 and 5 star guesthouses my wife was blown away by every one of them thank God, treated like royalty all the way.
In total cost €6700 give or take a little.
Checked it out myself and was around the same price if I booked myself.
However found it really handy to have a company to ring while over there for any questions or problems, which we needed. Theres great peace of mind knowing you have a local on the phone whenever you need them.
I got quotes from 2 irish travel agents and one UK based with offices in Capetown.
The irish two quoted c. €2k more but both dropped these quotes by almost 2k when I played them against each other the UK based operator didnt drop theyre price and were still the same cost with a little better safari this alone made me decide to go with them.
Amazing that an email can save almost 2k but its true.
Anyway had fab honeymoon couldnt recommend Cape town enough best holiday we ever had.
It was like squeezing the whole of Australia into a 500km trip and then a safari as the cherry on the cake!
If youd like any info Pm me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top