Honeymoon: Booked!

Unlike other couples, we never really planned to have a honeymoon in the first place. We were already spending so much for the wedding, so I felt too guilty to splurge on our honeymoon. Sayang rin kasi ang savings eh. This was actually the reason why I didn't include it in our initial wedding budget. Deep inside, I was hoping that someone would shoulder our honeymoon expenses as their wedding gift to us. Haha!

But then we decided to increase our budget to include a somewhat fancy honeymoon. After all, this is the perfect excuse to splurge for a trip! Haha! But because we are too kuripot, we chose a local destination for our honeymoon: Siargao. Siargao is known as the surfing capital of the Philippines, and because Mox is a surfing fanatic, I know he will definitely enjoy the big waves of Siargao. As for me, well, I'm pretty happy to be a beach bum there. Magrerelax na lang ako sa beach habang nagpapakahirap magsurf si Mox. Haha!

We plan to get the honeymoon package of one of the top resorts in Siargao, so all we needed were cheap flights going there. Cebu Pacific is the only airline with flights to Siargao (connecting through Cebu), so we were on the lookout for their seat sales. And lo and behold, a piso fare sale happened! But sadly, there were no piso fare flights to Siargao! Grrrr! I tried computing how much our flights would cost with their regular rates, and the total price was so expensive! In fact, getting an international flight would cost less than a flight to Siargao. Nakakaloka diba?

Then I thought, why not Bali, Indonesia? Bali is also a premiere surfing spot so I know Mox would go for it. And the roundtrip tickets for two would only cost around P11,000! Now that is quite cheap considering that it is a popular honeymoon destination. I was so tempted to get tickets already, but Mox wanted to think things over first, so I didn't book the flights yet.

Luckily, there was a travel expo happening at SMX Convention Center that weekend so Mox and I went there to see if we would find great travel deals to Bali. It was our first time to go to a travel expo, and I was so shocked to see the long lines of people so early in the morning! We tried searching for travel deals, but the Bali packages were only valid until  December 2013 only. There were a few 2014 packages, but these are only valid until March 2014. Di man lang namin naabutan. Bwiset.

So we decided to just book a flight to Bali then make our own land arrangements ourselves. We lined up at the Cebu Pacific booth in hopes of getting an affordable flight to Bali since the piso fare promo was still ongoing. We stood in line for almost FOUR HOURS! We were both so hungry, tired and irritated. At ang sakit ng paa ko ha!

After hours of standing (with some arguments in between with Mox who was very, very cranky that time), it was finally our turn! I immediately asked the reservations officer if there were available flights for Bali that were included in the piso fare promo, but to my dismay, there were no more flights! Waaaaah! I really wanted to cry as soon as I heard the news. Imagine, all that waiting for nothing! :(

I felt so down that I wanted to just leave the expo without booking anything, but Mox said that we should just book a flight to any destination so thaat our wait would not be in vain. The reservations officer gave some suggestions like Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore, but I really wanted to go to a beach destination, which was why my heart was set on going to Bali. I thought of going to Phuket instead, but the flight schedules were too close to each other that it would seem as if we would just spend one night in Phuket. Hindi sulit diba?

Then the reservations officer suggested Kota Kinabalu! It is said to be part of East Malaysia, but is far away from the mainland.  I have never been there, but I've heard lots of great things about the place. The best part of all, the airfare was really cheap! We got two roundtrip tickets for less than P3,500! That's even cheaper than some domestic flights! See, worth it rin pala ang pagpila namin ng apat na oras.

So now we have our honeymoon destination. Yey! Our honeymoon will take place two months after our wedding though because those were the only available dates within the piso fare promo. But it does not matter because at least we would still get to travel together! :) It would be Mox's first time to go out of the country EVER, so you can imagine his excitement about the trip. Haha! I still have to do some research on our itinerary and possible accommodations, but that wouldn't be too difficult.. Since we were able to save on our airfare, we could splurge on our hotel accommodation. I can't wait! :)

See you in June Kota Kinabalu!