Honeymoon
With our next cruise less than a month away, I thought I would re-post our honeymoon adventures from six years ago here.
Our honeymoon was such a blast! We didn’t miss any of our connecting flights and everything went smoothly.. Well, with the exception of my sinus problems. Every time it was time to land and the airplane would begin its descent, my head hurt so bad it felt like my eyeballs were going to pop out of their sockets and my head was about to explode splattering brain goo all over the cabin. That really didn’t happen, but I wanted you to be able to visualize how painful it was each time we were about to land.
We arrived in Miami with plenty of time to board our cruise ship, the MS Paradise (the only smoke-free cruise ship in the entire world at the time), but too late to get an upgrade. The ship was already full. It wasn’t that bad really. Although it would have been nice to have gotten the upgrade, our cabin was comfortable enough for us. The bathroom was actually quite roomy and allowed plenty of room for Brian and me (we usually take our showers together).
When we first boarded our main concern was sustenance because there wasn’t really much to eat on the plane and the airports didn’t offer anything delectable either. Brian and I were both thrilled to find that the lunch buffet was currently being served on the lido. Food was the first order of business. After that, we went to our room only to find that our bags had not yet been delivered. We couldn’t shower because we had nothing to change into. We did some exploration in the meantime and pretty soon the ship was starting to pull away from the port. We return to our room quite hopeful that our bags had been delivered at this point, they had not, and immediately I start flipping out. Had we been cruising before, we would not have been so alarmed. I was really thinking that our bags got left on the dock. They were actually already on the ship, but it usually takes a while for everyone’s bags to be delivered to their staterooms.
Our bags arrived eventually and we were able to take our shower and change into clean clothes for dinner. However, by the time we were ready to go to dinner we were too late for the early seating. We ended up sitting at the late dinner where we met Kevin and Kim. They were married on August 10 and were honeymooning also. He’s 30 years of age and she’s 25. The four of us got along really well and we actually spent quite a bit of time together.
The following night we attended the early dinner and met yet another honeymooning couple, Jamie and Jay. They were a bit younger than Brian and I. Jay is 25 and Jamie is 23. But they’ve been together for almost nine years. They were on the same deck as us and, actually, their room was just around the corner. We went on a couple of excursions with Jamie and Jay also. You’ll see some highlights of our cruise below..
The picture at the right was taken during the captain’s cocktail party. They served free hors d’ourves and cocktails. This was a real treat because the cocktails on the ship cost about five bucks a glass. Brian doesn’t drink, but we went to participate in the festivities anyway. We got to dance to a couple of swing numbers. We had a lot of fun!
Cozumel, Mexico was our first port of call. We spent about 12 hours there. It was our lengthiest stop. It was funny because Jamie, Jay, Kevin and Kim ended up on the exact same excursion as Brian and myself. There were actually two time slots, one at 8:00 AM and another at 10:00 AM. None of us wanted to wake up early enough for the 8:00 AM one so we all ended up taking the later horseback riding adventure. We had such a blast, but our glutes and thighs ached tremendously the next day. At least that was all I suffered. Brian had welts on his butt from the friction of his pants. Yet another disadvantage of not wearing underwear!
Our second excursion on Cozumel was a sail, snorkel and beach party adventure. Kevin and Kim were on a different tour that afternoon, but Jamie and Jay signed up for the same tour so the four of us got to hang out. Snorkeling wasn’t as fun as I anticipated. I guess it’s not really as fun the first time. Brian ended drinking gallons of sea water and I really couldn’t see much of anything because my goggles kept fogging up. Those were pretty minor compared to what happened to Jay, though. He ended up losing his wedding ring. It came off his finger when he jumped into the water and he and Jamie spent most of the time searching for his ring rather than enjoying the snorkeling segment of the excursion. They were totally bummed for the rest of the day. Even towards the close of the cruise, I don’t think they ever got over that mishap.
While in Grand Cayman, we visited the turtle farm, the Tortuga Rum Cake Factory (which was next door), the town of Hell and we fed the stingrays. The stingrays were actually pretty docile. They don’t have any teeth so they can’t really hurt you. They just suck the food from your had like a Hoover. It was a really neat experience.. Except for when one of them decided to attack me. I was scared at first, but it turned out to be pretty comical. Brian didn’t even get a chance to feed them because as one of the stingrays approached, he got scared and dropped squid that he was holding.
In Ocho Rios, Jamaica we got a chance to swim and play with the dolphins at Dolphin Cove and we climbed Dunn River Falls part of the way. It was a lot of fun swimming and playing with Mitch, the seven-year old dolphin that we were assigned. Mitch and his girlfriend Sugy also performed some tricks for our group. The experience was absolutely amazing and it was all captured on video! After the swimming with the dolphins, I got my hair braided. I’d never had my hair done that way before. Brian said it looked nice.
Dunn River Falls was beautiful, but the water was very cold and the current was really strong. It took a lot to keep your ground and not topple backwards to the bottom. After a few minutes of trying, Brian and I eventually just gave up. We were content to just watch the other people climb the rocky waterfall.
Pretty soon we were back in Maimi again. That was the end of our seven-day Western Caribbean adventure. We had been so pampered on the trip that we were both reluctant to return.. The only consolation we had was that we both agreed that we’ll get to do it all again in another few years!
Would you like to see more pictures from our trip? Follow this link..
Replies to "Honeymoon"
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