J and I were at Sam’s Club over the weekend. As we walked in we were cattle prodded to a section of the store where a woman was selling trips at a really really ridiculously cheap price. 5 days 4 nights in Cancun for $149 per couple. WHAT?! We would have to provide our own airfare, but we figured that would be about $300 per person… so for $750 (plus food… which we’d buy even if we were just in Birmingham) we could be swimming and sunning and enjoying our marital bliss while sipping mai tais in Cancun. Sounded good to me. We asked the girl a mazillion questions trying to figure out what the catch was. Surely we’d have to sit through a time share seminar. Nope. Or maybe there were bugs in the room. Nope. She assured us that the only “catch” was that we had to provide our own airfare and that she’d be gone by Sunday. Of course we were still skeptical, but when she told us that there was a 100% money back guarantee she had us sold. If we changed our minds we could bring our receipt back to Sam’s and get a full refund. No questions asked. Yes siree…

So, we bought ourselves a $149 honeymoon and high tailed it to the closest internet connection to find out if we got ourselves a good deal.

First place I checked was Trip Advisor. My “go-to” website whenever I take a trip. I love that the reviewers can post their own pictures, what a good way to get an idea about what the resort or hotel REALLY looks like. Sans Photoshop and airbrushed models. The reviews weren’t great. But I’ve found that most reviewers are hyper critical about things that wouldn’t bother me. The pictures were fine. Not the most gorgeous beach resort I’d ever seen but for the price we were willing to overlook that. Then we read that the beach resort wasn’t really on a beach, more of a rocky hill near the ocean, or a boat dock. That frustrated us. And then after a wee bit on Trip Advisor we discovered that flights out of Birmingham were really $400 rather than the $300 that we thought they might be. The reviews and expensive airfare meant two things.

#1. It wasn’t nice enough for the most spectacular and romantic trip of our lifetimes
#2. It was too expensive for a “hey, let’s go to Cancun” spur of the moment trip

Which meant the very next day we were back at Sam’s Club returning our honeymoon. Ya know what they say, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Oh well. On to bigger and better.

All pictures Traveler Photos on Trip Advisor