Honeymoon: Third party sites vs. direct booking

I travel a lot and normally book things direct (less additional fees, choice of airline, and you can more easily customize your trip). However, pretty much all my trips to Central and South America have been through a third party - I had one horrible experience where the actual place was DEFINITELY NOT AS ADVERTISED (literally 5 star at 4 star prices, for 2 star quality), and never again risked it.

The only exception is if you were staying at a hotel chain where the quality is fairly standardized internationally, like the Ritz Carlton, Raffles, Hilton, Marriot, etc. FH and I are a bit more adventurous, so we like more local getups, which can be a amazing life-changing experience (we once stayed in tree house literally in the jungle where jungle plants were poking through the windows) or sometimes a catastrophic miss (oh the horror stories)

We booked a Secrets resort directly through them, although you can get some great deals through Costco as well! Highly recommend Secrets.

I only do direct bookings I don't trust 3rd party. Try a resort.

I have friends who have both used cheap Caribbean and expedia. They both had great experiences. Ive looked into both for our honeymoon and find expedia has much better reviews and seems more legit to me. Also one of the places at the top of our list is always cheaper on expedia

I used cheapcaribbean for our honeymoon to Cancun and loved it. I don't think I'll ever book a tropical vacation any other way. I was able to book hotel, flight, transportation to and from airport, and our tour (which includes transportation as well). They guarantee cheapest pricing but will match the price if you find it cheaper elsewhere I believe. It made everything so stress free for me. You can filter results by adult only listings as well, which is also what we did. They let you pay it off either all at once or in 2 separate payments. When you're looking through flights they also help try to find cheapest available (ie: it'll say book one day earlier and save $80 per person!). I highly recommend them

The process doesn't seem "straightforward" with cheapcaribbean? We use them all the time and it couldn't possibly be more straightforward. It is very easy and reliable. I highly recommend them. They do everything for you!

We used Travelocity for our Maui trip. It seemed to be the cheapest for the package we wanted and I used my Ebates too

I am trying to avoid the 3rd party sites. I was trying to book and Bed and Breakfast in Denver last night and I could not call the place directly to book. I would suggest booking directly.

Have you considered a travel agent? Maybe reach out to a local agent. They will do all the research for you and make recommendations based on your wants/needs. Many times offering a flexible payment plan which works out great since you're also planning a wedding. Just a suggestion :-)

I've used vacationexpress.com on multiple occasions and I've never had a problem.

I'd recommend a travel agent! They can get you awesome deals and upgrades that you wouldn't get booking 3rd party or even direct

Thanks for the responses. We have some additional needs where I think it's best if I talk to someone. We were planning on flying from PR to DR then returning to Philly directly. So we were trying to play around with the round trips or one way parts of the site. Now we're considering finding a hotel in a more remote location of PR and just skip the additional air fare. I've used 3rd party sites before for more last minute trips and it turned out fine. It was just a headache seeing the different prices, not being able to book this early, and cross referencing their options on TripAdvisor.