Blissport

The moment I got engaged my fiancé started thinking about all that girly wedding crap that guys, frankly, hate. We don’t care what color anything is, who sits with who or what time of year is best. I did start thinking immediately about my travel plans, I mean, my romantic honeymoon getaway. Actually, guys have three, and exactly three thoughts after getting engaged.

The first thought is: major props to Blue Nile for hooking me up with a sweet engagement rock that blew her away and your website rules. The second thought is: can my bachelor party be declared a national holiday?  btw, check out Manvite for help with that.

And the third thought: isn’t a “romantic” honeymoon basically a major league luxe vacation with unlimited budget, filled with sun, naughty sex, booze and outdoor adventure – anywhere in the world I want to go?

Good news is that the answer is yes. Bad news is that planning a killer honeymoon is super complicated. Can you name all the Hawaiian islands?  Do you know the difference between Anguilla, Antigua, Antilles and Aruba? Don’t fool yourself – you don’t.

So Bam! Here we are. Blissport.com rules. Your fiance is going to take care of all that wedding crap. Guys’ job: get planning on the honeymoon.

Let us explain how we did it. You can spend the next 50 hours learning world geography, searching all the travel review sites and comparing them to all the top 10 hotel lists, narrow down your list, try to figure out what places offer the activities you both like, and then maybe start booking the trip and filling in oodles of details. Or you can realize that Blissport.com already did if for you.

Our site is not like the other travel sites with a bazillion hotels and travel reviews to sift through. We only have 300 hotels, in 30 destinations. Every single hotel has won awards and gets great reviews on the travel review sites. When you search Blissport, you are searching only the best (we spent a ton of time researching hotels, restaurants, activities, and nightlife for every budget so that our grooms will have a killer good time).

Put your preferences in our search tool, we give you a dozen or so choices and help you narrow the options quickly and easily. Once you find your ideal resort hotel – we hook you up with reservations, plane tix and then get to the details of restaurants, champagne cruise, surf lessons, spa appointments, golf reservations and whatever your badass selves want to do on the ultimate world tour.

Bottom line is that every bit of our site is customized to your exact needs. And we rigged the tools so she’ll think you’re a champ. We dare you to find a similar site. If so, let us know so we can trash talk them.

OK, so we are launching, time to throw props to our favorite people.

Stay tuned for Honeymoon Like a Pro from superbowl-ring-carrying Aaron Taylor in May. Blissport will be giving away a FREE honeymoon every month.  Aaron will be doing on site video, in his spare time from his own launch with Legends of South Bend. Go Irish despite their sucky 2007 performance.

We love Pueblo Bonito in Mexico (that’s Spanish for kinky honeymoon sex) cause they are giving away our first free honeymoon come this fall. Until then, check them out.

Steve Finley could kick your ass – just so you know – cause he is a pro baseball player and you are not. But instead of that, he is going to show you how to whip your soft marshmallow middle into a six pack. Seriously, he is filming the videos now and they will be live by March.  And if you are not tough enough for Steve’s work out, Brian Weaver at Pure Motion has your fat ass covered.

And finally, thanks to our investors and advisory board. When you finish all your paperwork, handshakes and kissing we will list you here too. (Seriously, we are not kidding, we love you).

I’ll be posting weekly.

We continue to find amazing things to do in Hawaii, and specifically for a Maui Honeymoon. There is an amazing combination of posh relaxing living, hanging out at a sweet resort - but also any activity that you can imagine.

One great activity is to summit Haleakala. From West Maui, it may take 3-4 hours to reach the summit. What is great is that after the big hike, you can be back on the beach for sunset, having a drink and relaxing for the night.

Our Italy hotels recently went live on the site and can be found at Italy Honeymoons. Italy is a great destination for honeymooners who love history, culture and of course food. It is a long way from the honeymoon beaches of Mexico and the Caribbean - an entirely different honeymoon planning exercise.

For any guys out there planning this type of trip, make sure to check out all the activities we have listed on the site for you - its a quick guide to the "best of" type places to check out.

One of the toughest decisions on these types of trips is how many different cities to stay visit and hotels to book. We typically recommend staying in a destination for at least 3-4 days so that you have a chance to unwind and get to know it. You don't have to do everything at once and should consider staying in just one location for your 7, 10 or 14 day honeymoon. There is always time to go back for more later in life.

Blissport has been getting some interesting editorial write-ups since our launch. For example, Kara Williams at BellaOnline gave us her thoughts and feedback at BellaOnline. Kara really seemed to "get it" in that we are trying to help the groom play a valuable role in planning the honeymoon and creating a trip that everyone will enjoy. She called out our "what she will like and what he will like" sections saying sometimes they fit well and sometimes perhaps they are too stereotyping. That is something that we are going to work on with feedback and input from our users.

Do women really like going on zipline courses? I know my wife does, and she screams like a monkey while doing it!