Hello, I am a new member and a little new to traveling. I am getting married this october and my fiancee and I want to go to italy for our honeymoon. I have contacted a few travel sites that I am a bit familiar with. A travel package (for example) starting at about $2000 per person, we can go to italy roundtrip for 4 days in rome and 4 days in florence (including hotel, most breakfasts and a couple of dinners and rail passes). The question is why would we have to pay the same price per person if we are sharing the same room? Couldn't we just book our own flights and find a hotel and one of us not have to pay a full price for a hotel room but just share the room? I just do not see why we both have to pay $2000 ea. It's like we are both paying $100 a night to share the same room and bed. I understand if one of us paid that price and just bought a plane ticket and checked into the hotel together would that be cheaper?. If any of you can explain this in simple terms I would appreciate it. I think I can save more money doing it ourselves, plus I have alot of traveling points from my credit membership which I can redeem for free nights at hotels in europe inlcuding italy.

&quot;<i>I think I can save more money doing it ourselves</i>&quot; In general you are correct . . . . . .

If you look at the small print, you'll probably find that that &quot;per person&quot; price is based on there being two of you in the party. If it was a solo trip, you'd pay more.

Having said that, you can probably work it out more cheaply.

Many travel package companies charge people who sign up alone a &quot;single's supplement&quot;.

Anyways, most posters here are definately DIYer's and yes, I think you could put together a much better trip for yourself than what you would get through a tour company. Five nights in Rome and five nights in Florence would be an especially simple trip to put together. Look around on the boards for a bit, you'll find recommendations for hotels, apartments, restaurants, neighbourhoods, how to buy train tickets, how to get to and from the airport, how to book the necessary museums, personal safety, what to wear, how to pack, everything you could thing of, really.

Hello darko24, and welcome to Fodorville!

First, congratulations on your upcoming marriage! May you have many happy years together.

I think you will find a large majority of people here are do-it-yourselfers. Half the fun (for me) of travel is the pre-trip planning, including getting advice from the wise people here.

When you travel in the U.S. (where I assume you are from), rooms are generally the same price for one or two people. Not so in Europe. There are designated &quot;single&quot; and &quot;double&quot; rooms. Single rooms may be very very small and contain just one twin bed. Double rooms may contain a double bed, two twins, a queen, or a matrimonial bed (twins pushed together to make like a king). The hotels will also charge differently, depending on which room you get. Two in one room usually gets a higher price than one in a room, but it probably is not twice the cost as the tour companies charge. Yes, they seem very expensive.

It is really quite easy to do the bookings by yourself, and you will definitely save yourself money.

There is a lot of wonderful help here. You can search by cities, sights, etc. by typing in the search box what you'd like. Or you can ask a specific question (i.e., my budget is ?, we're wanting to go ?, we've got ? many days, etc.) Good start.

Sounds like your points will help as well. Now start planning that honeymoon!

Happy travels!

Darko--you have come to the right place if you want help in DIY travel planning. In general, hotels in the least expensive package deals are on the outskirts of the tourist centers, which means they are somewhat less desirable if city sightseeing is your goal. If you have travel points that can be redeemed for hotels in the cities you'd like to visit, your main expense besides airfare is covered.

Read some of the posts here, decide where you want to go and ask specific questions about your areas of interest--I promise you'll get lots of help.

Barb

Prices for packages are almost always based on per person with two people sharing a room. As mentioned, take a look at the &quot;single supplement&quot;.

Because you are admittedly so inexperienced, though, I would recommend finding a package. You'll have plenty to plan without worrying about where to go, when to go there, what's open when, getting around, or getting into things (and competing with tour groups). Especially if you are also planning a wedding.

For a honeymoon, however, do you really want to take a tour? Why not pick one place and explore on your own?

or &quot;based on double occupancy&quot;.

Basically, the price you're seeing is for your half of the room.

I can't count the number of times I've seen a deal advertised or in my email box and at first I thought it sounded pretty good. Until you take the number, double it (for two people), subtract the cost of the cheapest flights you could find.

Then the number I have left is what I am looking at for hotel and when I divide it by the number of nights, it's always too much for a hotel I wouldn't have picked anyway. Many hotels include breakfast, dinner - well, that's not bad except then you're tied into probably eating at some hotel instead of a nice little place nearby (maybe anyway).

Just my opinion though. Some people really don't want to mess with looking up air prices and which hotel to stay at. Some of us like it a little *too* much!

Hi D,

It is almost always cheaper to DIY in Italy.

Prepare a draft itinerary and let us help you improve it.

For an 8-day honeymoon in Oct, I suggest flying into Venice - 3 nights, train to Florence - 4 nights
fly home from Florence FLR or Pisa PSA

or

Take early train from Venice to Florence, leave luggage at train station, see Florence, train to Rome that evening - 4 nights, fly home.

Happy honeymoon

Pricing is different in Europe.

That room you are thinking of as $100 a night is actually $200 a night and they have split the cost equally. You'd find that if you went as a single person you'd have to pay around $150-$175 a night (one person occupancy of a double room), which is why there are single supplements on most package holidays.

They're not charging you twice for the room - they've dividing the $200 cost (quite modest price given the state of the dollar) between the 2 of you. If you reserved the room for the 2 of you it would still be apporx $200 - not $100 (unless It's in a small very modest hotel at the end of hell and gone).

You can probably save some money by doing it yourself - but - more importantly you get to make you own decisions.

But - if you're asking if that's a very large budget for that trip - it's not. (For hotels in major cities in Italy we figure between $300 and $400 for a double room in a pleasant place in a central location.)

Thank you for the quick and informative responses. I am looking forward to planning this trip and having fun in the process.