Hey all,

As I said before James and I are dreaming of a wedding holiday on a tropical Island. Of course this requires quite the amount of money, so it’s good to surf the web for possibilities. And that’s exactly what I’ve done  I’ve been looking with Google and I found a very nice site called Hotel Reservations. I won’t book immediately without haven a good look around, so I started my search there.

Looking for a nice trip
I have a couple of ideas on where I’d like to go. Right now I’m looking for a holiday somewhere in July, because James would like to get married then. To be honest I doubt if this can still be arranged at the moment, but we’ll just see 
Anyway, one of the places I’d like to go is Hawaii. This island seems to very nice, so I decided to see what Hotel Reservations has to offer. I’ve seen something on television about Maui, so that’s the first place I started to look. On the site it’s pretty easy to look for a good offer. You can easily start with the map they have. You just pick the country where you want to go, then the state, and as a final step you pick the city where you’d like to travel. In this case it was Maui. Once you’ve done that you have to pick a traveling date. Then you’re presented with the Hotel reservations they can offer. You’ll get, depending on the destination, a great variety of hotels. You can choose from quality and price and more! This is one of the easiest selection methods I’ve come across!

The Price
The price I was offered, is €312,90 per night. They state you can save up to 70%, so this I wanted to check out. I googled on one of the hotels I was offered (it was actually a resort) and saw the website from the Resort. That’s always worth a shot, right? Guess what, I couldn’t even book the hotel at the wanted dates anymore from them. I still could book it with Hotel Reservations though. But of course this doesn’t give me the opportunity to check the prices, so I decided to look further.

I searched a bit more through Google and found prices varying from € 550,- per night to € 700,- per night. So they are indeed competitive. But not up to the 70% in this case. I think that’s something which depends on your destination. But the difference is a pretty amount!

More possibilities
The price I gave you above is of course the price for a basic room (for which I, btw, made all the comparisons!). They have more possibilities too. For the Resort I was looking into, they could offer me 14 different kind of rooms / studios / apartments. You’ll have a great selection! And mind you, I’m talking about a four class hotel with features like landscaped grounds with ponds, streams and waterfalls, complimentary buffet-style continental breakfasts and an expansive water park with a free form aquatic playground, a 120-foot water slide and an adults-only pool deck. On top of that they have a lot more! Have a look at the aquatic playground!

Other booking possibilities
Besides having multiple hotel / resort booking opportunities with a very good quality, you can also book packages with Hotel Reservations. I wanted to see what I would be offered there, so here’s what I chose:
* Flight
* Hotel
* Car
* Leaving from Amsterdam (Netherlands), going to Maui
* 1 room, with two adults
I was given a lot of opportunities for a reasonable price! Tot op it, I could also include activities, ranging from tour sightings and water activities to even Weddings! Hmmmmmmm, now that’s interesting!!!!

Concluding
I totally forgot to check for other locations, but I am very enthusiastic about this site. Of course I can’t "just" arrange everything on my own, but this is very interesting. I’ll definitely keep an eye on it and perhaps discuss it James.
I can really say this is one of the better sites I’ve seen for booking vacations and hotels! Go check them out!

Babbled by Ilse at 11:03 AM in Category: Holidays , marriage
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Hey all,

It's Saturday, so naturally we're gonna do grocery shopping. Right now I'm thinking about menus for this week. I can't really think of anything, so I think I'm gonna search the internet for some ideas. I just don't know at the moment......

We've also decided to go look for our wedding rings. We don't have any idea yet, so it's really a day of looking. Next to wedding rings, James needs new shoes, so we're going to look for those too. And we need a tuner for our radio. So, all in all, it's gonna be a busy day today. A real shopping day!

I've also checked on Fish Tycoon. Apparently too many fish were pregnant when I went to sleep yesterday, cause this morning none of them were pregnant anymore, but I didn't have any new fish either. Right now my main goal is to breed as much fish as possible and sell them all. That way I can make a lot of money and maybe buy some extra supplies like the option of Research Fish Environment. Maybe that will tell me why many of the baby fishes die.......

I've been doing a bit surfing today, again for Scrapbook related blogs. I came accross the site of Dutch Dares. I think it's a wonderful idea of having a Scrapbook Challenge every two weeks that's really into a Dutch subject. Wednesday a week ago they posted a challenge with the subject "Say Cheese". Here in the Netherlands Cheese is a very common thing, so why not make a layout about it..... Or based upon the phrase Say Cheese. Maybe I'll use this challenge this time.......

Talk to you later!

Babbled by Ilse at 9:36 AM in Category: Dutch Dares , Fish Tycoon , scrapbooking
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Hey all,

Now that we've decided we're getting married, I'm gathering as much information as possible to make sure we make all the neccessary preperations. I do want to take the time for our preperations so that we can really enjoy this time. I'd rather marry in about two years and have had fun with the preperations as well, then marry in about a half year and have problems.

So, right now I'm checking out sites, searching for brochures and I'm talking with people who already have experience in this "matter".

We more and more like the idea of getting married on a tropical island, just the two of us, and then give a diner party for family when we're back from our honeymoon. Maybe we'll attend a "Love & Marriage" event to gather more ideas. We'll just see about that.

Do you have any ideas about getting married far away? Let me know!

Regards,
Ilse

Babbled by Ilse at 8:12 AM
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Hey all,

Yesterday James asked me to marry him! He asked it in such a nice and romantic way! But that's our little secret. We want to keep it to ourselves how he asked :). I didn't have to think about my answer at all, since I see it as an official confirmation (or however you wanna call it) of the feelings I already have living in my heart for a very long time!

We haven't set a date yet or anything, but I'm so happy!!!!!!

We've told my parents and my brother and his girlfriend tonight. They were expecting something, since we had told them we had some news to share, but they didn't know for sure what it was. So it was a surprise for them too.

Now we can start getting all the neccassary information and look for ideas for our wedding. We don't know yet how we want to do it all, but we're not in any hurry.

Well, I don't know what to write more, so this is it for now!

Talk to you later!

Babbled by Ilse at 7:52 AM
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