Hi Guys

As above, I need to organise my honeymoon for the 4th September. We can only go for either a week or 10 days because of childcare. The soon-to-be-missus thinks we should go to Turkey which we could do for 10 days, but I am trying to persuade her that we should go to somewhere near Punta Cana for a week instead. (all the chartered flights are for a week or 2 weeks, getting them for 10 days would be too expensive). Neither of us mind flying long haul for just a weeks break either.

Has anyone here been out there in September before? How likely is it to be stormy? If we end up going there and then get hit by really bad weather the marriage could be over all too quickly.

Or does anyone have any other ideas of where to go, All inclusive, hotel with a private beach, for a week or 10 days for a total budget of about 1500 pounds?

Cheers
Steve

I've not been (to the DR that is) but my brother in law did and my sister lives on Antigua.

June-Oct/Nov is hurricane season and you might be lucky, you might be unlucky. And if unlucky – you might be slightly unlucky or very unlucky.

eg: My B-i-L spent 12 hours inside his walk in wardrobe (no glass in there) when they had a serious hurricane over, and when they came out found clear blue skies but the pool was now unusable due to several palm trees having taken up residence therein, and the hotel had no running water or power for a couple of days thereafter. But he and his gf roughed it and enjoyed it.

My sister (touch wood) has had several minor tropical storms / hurricanes while she has been on the island but nothing too big coming too close. And it's a way of life, you board up your windows when you hear it's coming, stuff gets damaged, you go out and repair it once gone and life moves on.

IMHO – if you want a guarantee that you won't get a hurricane, don't go in September. If you can accept it might happen and be prepared to deal with it, your call.

http://stormcarib.com/climatology/MDSD_dec_isl.htm

[edit] link to storm activity website.

Cheers for the info, and thanks for that link. Exactly what I needed

what kind of thing you after just sun and sand and time together? somewehre like lanzerotte would be good in a private villa, should be easily in budget 🙂

To answer the question further:

What about deals on the Red Sea – Sharm el Sheikh / Hurghada for example?

The missus isn't keen on Egypt. Says she has heard some horror stories, primarily about people getting food poisoning.

I think we will end up in the Dominican Republic, and book it last minute so we can be fairly confident that there will be no massive hurricanes.

Just come back from 2 weeks in Tunisia – absolutely perfect. I've been to the Dom Rep and Tunisia beats it hands down IMO

The Dominican Republic has fantastic beaches, especially around Punta Cana. The catamaran trips are usually fantastic, especially when you have a mental Dominican chap talking fluently in English, Spanish, French AND German to everyone on the boat… then making everyone Coco Locos.

I've only ever been in Decemeber/January, weather was lovely the first time, a bit variable the second time.

Oh, and do try and smile when you have your photo taken at Punta Cana airport! 😉 Hopefully your airline will give you the migration forms on the plane, if not, remember to have your own pen handy.

We went to Dominican last July, staying with a friend who has an apartment in Cabarete.

There's absolutely no point at all going long haul if all you're going to do is sunbathe in one of those wretched all-inclusive holiday prisons, and get indoctrinated into thinking it's too dangerous to go out of the compound.

The Caribbean and Mexico will be susceptible to tropical storms at that time of year and Southern Europe/Africa will be lovely.

We went in september, had rain a couple of days but only for an hour. Brilliant sunshine afterwards. Its quite refreshing actually.

@ BigJohn.

I second that point but……

They're on honeymoon for 7 days. I doubt Mrs-g will make it to the beach.

I went to Cabarete in the DR on honeymoon last May, I really enjoyed it, we went on a few excursion (including a day mountain biking) and I had a go at kite surfing.

Stayed in the resort quite alot but also went into the town at night and had no problems at all, found the Dominicans to be pretty friendly on the whole.

Like others have said might be lucky / unlucky with the weather in Sept

I found Sharm fine on the food poisoning front, but we were careful with anti-bacterial alcohol spray stuff as even the money there is filthy. I'd not go again as the shopkeepers are absolutely infuriating. You can't walk along the street without being bothered, and you have to haggle for everything. And it seems to attract the kind of English tourists I hope to avoid – there was a huge woman in the queue to board the plane, carrying a plastic sandwich bag full of her own puke… And the food isn't much cop.

I understand Turkish shopkeepers are similar.

Surely Paris is an absolute no-brainer for a Honeymoon?

I think if I were wanting sun, sea and sand in September my first choice would be Fuerteventura, but the southern end of the island, not the north. The north, again, is full of English folk, plastic patio furniture, fried breakfasts and the X-factor. The south has a few naturist Germans (which most people seem to regard with the kind of horror I'd normally reserve for people in airport departure lounges with transparent plastic bags of vomit), but also far better restaurants and resorts. There aren't many private beaches, but equally there isn't any need for them – the beaches are enormous, and the place isn't crawling with street pedlars.

I would suspect that Cyprus & the Greek islands are going to be cheap at the moment, and whilst there may have been riots, they don't shoot tourists.

We did our honeymoon out there in September about 6 years ago. We went to Cabarete on a half board basis. I made the mistake of looking up the hotel on a review site the week before we went and it was a horror story so we went with very low expectations……however!! although the hotel and the town was not what you could call posh, it was a great crack and really lively, plus quite cheap. the weather was almost too hot and we had to dive out to get some factor 70 cream after the first day….the excursions were really good, they do a truck excursion into the mountains which is well worth the trip also the boat excurions are alot of fun so we came away with some really good memories. The all inclusive self contained resorts however looked quite sedate and lifeless which would be fine with the kids in tow but on your own i,m not so sure.