Weddingbee boards

I have driven FI crazy with my obsession with finding the best possible places to stay for the least amount of money.  He would have been more than happy to trust a travel agent/overpay and not get the best value. But I wasn't.

People looked at me like I was insane when I said I wanted to pay on average $100/night in Italy. They said we were going to end up in some pretty crappy places for that price.  But I did it!! Well $103/night and these hotels/Villas/B&B's are gorgeous!!  I'm so excited!!

And now that FI is not longer ready to kill me, back to the STD's, hotel blocking and finding Hair/MUA…  Not quite as fun

I used tripadvisor.com to research the hotels and read reviews. For booking, I went directly to the hotel's website. I found the best prices were from the hotels themselves, they often had special deals that did not show up else where. 

Also, for our Venice hotel, there was this symbol at the bottom 0% and a thing that asked "are you a nozio traveller?"  So, I found the Nozio site and signed up and when I went back to the booking page and entered my info, I had saved 10 euro a night. The Rome hotel I found was completely out of our price range, until a discovered a special they were having. If you stay 3 nights including a sunday, sunday is free. With that we got a 4 star hotel.

For Florence and Sorrento we booked outside of the city center. About a 15 minute walk for each, but living in NYC we are used to walking and there is the option of bus service as well. We were thinking about renting bikes in Florence anyways.

Venice, our first stop 3 nights 
http://www.locandalacorte.it/

Florence 4 nights    
http://www.villaantea.com/

Sorrento 4 nights

http://www.villaoriana.it/en/index.php

Rome Last 3 Night 
http://www.riverpalacehotel.it/hotel-roma-index-en.htm  

I also used tripadvisor to search for flights and ended up booking thru cheapoair.com  I googled promo codes and saved and extra $20

we're going to Italy too! We leave in 2 weeks - I'm going to explode while sitting here, waiting... I've already made up our "to pack" list, strategized our baggage situation, washed and pre-packed everything I can between now and then... there's nothing left to do!

We're flying to Venice, staying at Hotel Alle Guglie for 2 days, getting on a Norwegian cruise around Greece, and then coming back to Venice for 3 more days. We booked the Laconda La Herion for the entire stay in Venice, but Hotels.com overbooked, so they bumped us up to the Alle Guglie for the first part of the trip for free, and gave us a $100 hotels.com gift cert.

I'm looking at the Laconda La Corte website and it is GORGEOUS! You're going to have an amazing time! :-)

Thank you bees!!! I wish every loads of fun on their honeymoons as well!! And that you get your dream trips as well.

@Pugsandkisses Your right, apartments are a great option. If we ever go back we would look into them. But for our first trip, we liked the idea of having hotel staff to ask for ideas and directions if we need them.

@bunnyfoofoo  I'm so jealous your going so soon! We have to wait till November. The cruise sounds great, we originally wanted to do one. Your hotels are beautiful too.  Your gonna have an amazing time!

First off, Yay!!! I think this is the most replies that I've ever gotten from a post.

@Georgia Bee  I've heard wonderful things about the Amalfi Coast. We planned to look into what there is to do around there in November and squeeze it into our trip. Two weeks seems like a long time and yet I'm not sure how we will fit EVERYTHING in.

@Prewitt Hopefully all the walking we will be doing will make up for all the eating. But at least by that point I won't have to worry about fitting into my dress.

@NewsoL That's amazing, I wish we would have gotten the venture card earlier for those miles. But at least it should help us with our next trip.

@ninerz113 Keep in mind we are planning for November, which is off season. If we went during the summer I'm sure it would be costing a lot more. 

Let me also mention, we did not book the basic room room in venice or rome, we took the step up.  I do feel as if we splurged on Florence and Rome. We also should have booked airfare a couple months earlier we could have saved $150 and had a direct flight back from Rome. We have about a 2 hour layover in Madrid each way.  In other words, it could have been done cheaper. I just had an average price in mind and was able to make it work.

Flights and hotels are costing us $3,000 + $112 for travel insurance. My goal is to keep our spending around $200/day. (someone, please tell me if that is actually realistic.) So ideally we are looking at $6,000 for 2 weeks.

@ legatorain Sounds like you had a great trip!  Thank you for letting me know that our budget is abut right.  Thanks for the heads up on the museums, did you book before you left or while you were over there? I would rather plan for what we want to do in each city and not necessarily what we will do each day.  I'll start looking out for a pair of sz 14 rain boots for FI.

@ chasesgirl @ alwayslove  May our honeymoons be all we've ever dreamed of!! Have a great time!!

Tonight FI and I start Rosette Stone.  Wish us luck!

Oooo we're doing Rome and Sicily. Can't wait! Am listening to a 'learn Italian' CD on my daily commute like a right geek to prepare!

Beautiful and quaint hotels, I love your selections and savy with booking!