She says: Tour or Free & Easy?

This has been our question before we signed up with the tour package. Having too focused on the wedding planning, we decided to surrender ourselves in the hands of the expert (aka Tour Leader). We thought we wouldn’t have time to research much on the places to go. Furthermore the tour package looks really promising, covering 4 cities in Italy, 2 cities in Switzerland and the ultimate city, Paris in 12 days. We didn’t think twice to sign up the package.

However, a few weeks before the trip, I have the itch to research about the places to go, museums to visit, nice restaurants to try, bookshops to peek through, branded outlets to spend and flea markets to plunder. Which leads to certain disappointment when we couldn’t visit any of the places I’ve researched. I came to some conclusions, that to answer this question is to line up your priorities.

I managed to think through during our trip, about these priorities. Here are some of them:

1. Making Love/Baby. You got what I mean, right. If this aspect is deemed very important for your honeymoon, don’t take tour package! The typical tour will starts from 7 am – 7 pm. Leaving you and your partner extremely tired of walking and no/ less energy to do any night exercises. Not that we didn’t have any sessions, but it got a little tiring after a long walk, spectacular sights and long coach journey. Free & Easy allows you to pace yourself to do whatever you like. Strolling at Spanish Square in Rome, sitting and people-watching in the beautiful outdoor cafe in Rome, while the busker playing “Besame Mucho” with his accordion, will build up the romantic mood for the night. We also had our sweet time during the free time, but it was only for 1-2 hours. It’s not enough!!!
2. Convenience. Tour package will spoonfeed you with the easiest way of travel, sit down in the coach and enjoy the beautiful scenery while your tour leader furnished you with trivial information about the surrounding. We had the most super-knowledgeable-tour-leader-ever, Jason Ang from SA Tour. I have to kow-tow to his experiences in European history, culture and even roadway! I love history, especially European history. I considered myself well-equipped with it, but Jason amazed me with his knowledge on the event year, statistic, what happened, etc. Everything was so smooth, from time estimation travel to the food to the booking of the activities. We don’t have to queue for anything, except female toilet! Everything is pre-booked. It feels good when you can just passed all the long queue (e.g Eiffel Tower) and use the special pass for group. Very convenient! If this aspect is your no 1 consideration, start visiting NATAS fair soon.
3. Price. I have to say, most probably tour package is cheaper than Free&Easy. Simply because of economies of scale. Buying in bulk is always cheaper than buying one at a time. We calculated, if we were to visit the places we visited on our own, it will cost 30% more and take a longer time.
4. Experiencing the lifestyle or Selecting only the beatiful portion. When you go with the tour, they will only bring you to the nice, commercial, picturesque places. They will bring you to Rue-Saint Honore or Champs-Élysées in Paris and not the dirty underground train with suspicious looking people around. Some of my friends have bad impression of Paris after taking the run-down underground Metro or being ill-treated with the cafe attendant. My boss was a victim of a skillful-pickpocket gypsy in Rome while taking the public transport. While I had a fabulous time in Rome and Paris and didn’t experience any of those. But again, I didn’t visit the subway or dined at the French cafe. Our meals in Paris were Singapore-Chinese food. Yet, after 10 days of bread and ham, we didn’t mind at all.

Judging by the number of honeymooners in our tour group, I guess convenience and price are main priorities for Singaporeans. We had 7 honeymoon couples in our tour, make up a big postion of the group.

For us, this trip is a Sampling-Trip. We are only sampling Europe and check out which cities are worthed re-visiting. I personally love Rome, because of the magnificent archeology relics. My childhood dream is to become an archeologist. So being able to see and touch the relics from thousand of years ago were like a dream come true.

We didn’t regret taking the tour package (although I did have some slight regret for not going on our own when I saw the flea market by the road side of Paris from the coach). It gave us a headstart of our own journey next time. Hence this is our honeymoon part I!

She says: Post-Holiday Blues

We just came back from Singapore early this week and we are still not used to working life! I guess either we really enjoyed the trip so much or we haven’t really had a real holiday before this. I am still compiling my pictures before we blog about it. Can’t believe that we haven’t blogged for almost a month! We are not shortchanging you, but I am really busy nowadays with Diary & Design plus Pemberley Paperie, not to forget my full time job as broadcast designer. I must have been mad to choose this path. Oh well, still surviving.

A little sneak preview about our trip. Here’s Paris at night (Notre Dame taken from Seine River).

We had quite a dramatic start throughout our trip. Winston had a fever in the morning before we fly off. It worsened there and got better there also. I almost got it, but thanks to fervent prayer and a dose of medicine, it gets better right away. My camera dropped and spoiled on the first day in Rome, forcing us to use another camera which is lower quality. I ended up photo-shopping all of it when we got back.

More stories soon!

She says: Stiamo andando in Italia *

* We are going to Italy!

While I’m still waiting for my revised visa (they printed my name as “Hellen Kie”), we have confirmed our tour to Italy-Swiss-Paris next month!

We have come a long way since we first booked our tour during the February Natas Fair. We want to get it early for the promo price. The route of our initial package seemed too good to be true. 12D of Swiss-Paris-London and additional free hotel stay at Dubai for 2 days. It is too good to be true. The tour didn’t materialize, the tour company merged with another tour company, leaving our tour in limbo. When we called them, they told us the tour is canceled. So much for booking early, huh..

In no time, we have to look for a replacement to another tour agency. We are glad we did, because the next tour that we booked (SA Tours) is much better in service quality and procedure. The review says that this tour has a good slow pace. So more time for sightseeing and shopping on our own. The route is also much better and more romantic.

Apparently London is not a favorite destination anymore. The new tour agent told us that London is passe. Now Italy is the new favorite destination. This time, they have no problem to confirm the tour. My advice to the honeymooners : Don’t book too early to avoid the cancellation (Winston’s edit: I think booking early is ok, just make sure you check constantly with the tour agency on the confirmation of the tour and confirm asap), or choose a very popular destination like Japan or Korea. Even better if you could plan your own itinerary and route and go lost together in the foreign land.

Unfortunately, we are not that adventurous. Winston went to London twice and Stockholm once, but this is my virgin trip to Europe. We have no idea whatsoever about cities in Italy and even Paris. So tour is safe and convenient for us (at least for now). *I’m in defending my choice of going honeymoon on a tour* Apparently this tour idea is less romantic for a honeymoon.

I will blog about our route in the next post. For now, I am eyeing on these controversial sticker. It’s a super cheeky luggage sticker that could land me in hot soup. But it’s still fun! I’ll buy the toy sticker for this trip.. haha