My wife turns 39 for the second time this year. For a milestone birthday she has hinted she wants to go on a vacation. She has been to Mexico, Cancun area multiple times and wants to go again.

I've never been (and if not for her, wouldn't) but I would like to make her happy.

Any ideas from the folks who travel for finding a good deal of a trip.

Nothing crazy, just 4-6 days, beaches and relaxing. Some activities, tours, and entertainment would be desirable.

I have been getting Promotional Emails from Apple Vacations and Vactions Express if you are flexiable on travel dates and can take advantage of the offered dates they area good Deal in my opinion

I can highly recommend the Hyatt Ziva in Cancun

https://www.hyatt.com/en-US/ho...tt-ziva-cancun/canif


We just got off of a Celebrity cruise that was amazing, puts Royal Caribbean and Carnival to shame

https://www.celebritycruises.com/

I just came back from Peru. It's wasn't a lay on the beach kind of trip, but it was a lot like Mexico minus the crime and squalor. I don't think I saw a single panhandler in 10 days there and I felt like could have left my wallet anywhere and no one would have taken it. Lima is a straight shot from Miami.

We just got back from 13 days in the Riviera Maya, Nov 16 - 29. 7 days in Akumal and 6 days in Playa del Carmen. We found deals on Expedia for hotels, but the flights are expensive. I bought the airline tickets back in June and waited until mid October to book the hotels.

It has been a long time, but I found the rustic charms of Cozumel much more appealing than the plastic gloss of Cancun.

Turks and Caicos is beautiful. The main island Provodencialis (or Provo) has everything you could want in activities.
If you’re interested in a more laid back and secluded experience I can highly recommend The Meridian Club on Pine Cay. It has the best pillow sand beach I have ever seen.

I would find out if anybody you know is a travel agent.
My wife and I Disney Vacation Members and we tend to do cruises.

As far as Disney Vacation Club we do everything our self.

When it come to cruises we will let our travel agent (who is an old friend) do the work for us.
We can book our own cruises however we let her do it because it does not cost us anything and she makes some money from the cruise line not us.

When cruises were not running we asked for some recommendations for all inclusive resorts in the Caribbean for the fall/winter 2022. She came up with several in the Islands in our price range.
We did the research on her recommendations and found one in Jamaica called the Moon Palace. We were about ready to book it when we started to see changes in the requirements to be able to cruise un vaccinated so we waited.
In the end we ended up booking a great rate on a seven day Disney Cruise when they dropped their vaccine mandate. We ended up going with friends who were celebrating her birthday.
Man the cruise went fast.

I did a Carnival cruise in November 2007 that made some nice stops, but unless you are in the "hot" set I wouldn't recommend Carnival--it's a "party" ship line. I've been getting e-mails about cruise deals and I'll post links to a couple.
https://www.cruisecritic.com/c...hkWwZrk0OJ2pv851ejFR.

https://www.cruises.com/promot...hkWwZrk0OJ2pv851ejFR.

https://www.princess.com/cruis...trade=C&voyages=G302.

You might find something you like among those.

flashguy

There is a vacation planner in one of my networking groups who has the ability to track fares for vacations you are interested in, and then lock in the lowest prices.

I will connect the two of you if that is something you would like.

Email in profile.

Don't forget to check Slickdeals:
https://slickdeals.net/travel-deals/
and the forum at Slickdeals:
https://slickdeals.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=53

Have had good luck with Travelzoo but you have to act quickly and be flexible so you can utilize the dates with the best deals.

We search all of the usual suspect sites for pricing, then put something together generally direct with the service provider. We just celebrated our 25th anniversary, a year late thanks to Covid, and had a fantastic week in Bora Bora. Booked it ourselves, but used Tripadvisor, expedia, kayak, etc as price estimators.

For Mexico, I would recommend the Playa del Carmen area, and Huatulco. Both are out of the big area noise, and Huatulco is in a fantastic setting. Very clean area.

I'm going to second Turks and Caico's. Look up Seven Stars Resort. Very nice and probably the best beaches ever. The island is close to the US so travel is not too bad. One caution, it is pricey but what isn't these days?

I go directly through the website of the hotel, vacation rental, airline and rental car because it's usually competitively priced or the cheapest rate and because if there's a problem it's easier to fix.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Lee:
I just came back from Peru. It's wasn't a lay on the beach kind of trip, but it was a lot like Mexico minus the crime and squalor. I don't think I saw a single panhandler in 10 days there and I felt like could have left my wallet anywhere and no one would have taken it. Lima is a straight shot from Miami.

Peru looks like it would be right behind Ukraine for a trip right now, unless riots/civil unrest are your passion.

I agree, but there was absolutely zero sign of that when I was there. I saw no military at all and the cops I saw were either unarmed or looked like they bought their own service weapons at a flea market. Same thing when I was in E. Germany in the summer of '89. Just weird how everything can go to hell so quickly.

BTW, I went to Ukraine too, but it was the week they were switching from Rubles to Kupons around June, 1992. That was an adventure. Gorbachev was overthrown the summer before and I was so close to booking a trip there that week, but went to Austria instead due to visa issues. I was living in Germany at the time. I keep missing these coups and revolutions.