After getting married at the beautiful Elmore Court in November 2024, Francesca and Alex wanted a honeymoon that offered the best of both worlds – adventure followed by pure relaxation. Here’s the story of their special journey through Dubai, and onto Sri Lanka and the Maldives…
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We had been recommended Sri Lanka by multiple people and had only heard what an amazing place it was with plenty to see and do. We really wanted to do something different for the first part of our trip that would be more adventurous, and then have the second part as downtime in the sun. We’ve always wanted to visit the Maldives, so this was perfect for the second part of the trip.
We chose to have a long planning process so that we could enjoy it without it being all within a short space of time. This made the process really exciting, and we could take the time to really plan the entire wedding experience we envisioned.
Dubai
Our honeymoon began with a night’s stopover at the Park Hyatt in Dubai. This was a perfect first stop as the flight wasn’t too long, gave us an opportunity to explore Dubai, which is amazing, before our ongoing flight to Sri Lanka to fit with the rest of the timings of our trip.
Being on our honeymoon, we wanted to be able to make the most of our days, which Sally worked to pull our itinerary together amazingly well.
Sri Lanka
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We are beach people normally on holiday, but we wanted to do something that would be a memorable trip for our honeymoon. Sri Lanka offers so many options to explore, travel around, and enjoy so many different areas.
We travelled around Sri Lanka with our tour guide, who gave us all the knowledge and history of the country. We spent the week stopping off at multiple locations that offered completely different experiences – from elephant watching on safari, climbing Lion Rock to exploring the tea trails. It was a trip that we will never forget and would recommend to anyone as the itinerary covered everything.
We were both hesitant at first to climb Lion Rock, but it is something that we are so happy we did as the hike had the best views. We loved Sigiriya as there was so much to do, but the most memorable was going on safari to see the elephants.
The Ceylon Tea Trails were the perfect end to the Sri Lanka part of the trip as it was so relaxing and amazing to see the tea picking process with a full tour of the tea factory along with tea tasting. Our hotel created a wonderful three-course private dinner for us and throughout would make anything you wanted.
Our guide, Prabath, was amazing and so knowledgeable about everything that we saw and visited. He was so proud to show us all of Sri Lanka and went above and beyond to ensure he got to know us. We experienced everything we wanted to see to make it a memorable trip.
The Maldives
The Maldives was simply incredible! From the moment we got there, it was just the ultimate relaxation and much needed after Sri Lanka.
We will never forget flying and seeing the atolls for the first time and landing at LUX South Ari Atoll.
The hotel was incredible. We had a warm welcome the minute we stepped off the seaplane, and it instantly felt like paradise.
Everything was organised and ready so that we could check in easily and start to relax.
We loved how you could walk around the resort so easily, and everything was so relaxing. The hotel offered so much variety of restaurants, drinks and activities. You could walk around the whole resort and it never felt too busy. Our favourite thing was snorkelling around the resort and seeing the sea life in the crystal-clear waters.
For our final night, they decorated our restaurant table on the beachfront, and we had dinner with our feet in the sand!
Looking Back
Every hotel we visited throughout the trip was aware that we were on our honeymoon and made sure to make it so special for us. All the hotel rooms were made up with special decorations and personal photos from our wedding, which was such a lovely touch.
Sally made sure that we had such special treatment throughout the trip, which made it even more memorable. We had private dinners, floating breakfast, spa treatments and much more, which was incredible.
We would definitely recommend the mix of adventure and relaxation as we had the best of both worlds. It was a trip of a lifetime and something we will always remember.
Our advice for couples planning a similar honeymoon: take the advice of Beaver Travel as they managed to plan our itinerary perfectly and had lots of knowledge on both locations. We would recommend Sally to anyone looking to book a spectacular honeymoon! She met with us to initially discuss what we wanted, and then she took our ideas and turned them into an amazing trip that incorporated everything that we had asked for.
Thank you, Sally, for putting together such a special and unforgettable trip!
Cesca & Alex
