Weddingbee Blog

If you remember, our honeymoon was a total surprise to me. As in, I had no idea what we were doing or where we were going. Mr. Cardigan planned the whole thing start to finish, and I didn’t have an ounce of say in it. It was slightly terrifying and absolutely thrilling at the same time!

And now, it’s finally time to recap the Cardigan honeymoon! So grab a snack and settle in, ’cause I’ve got a lot to share!

We woke up bright and early (5:30 in the morning, to be exact) on the day after our wedding to head to the airport. We were both tired and dragging, but I insisted on a quick photo before we headed out of the hotel. Our first official non-professional photograph as a married couple!

We were SO excited. And I found it incredibly romantic that we were about to head to the airport and I had no idea where I would be in just a few short hours!

Of course, once we got to the airport though, I found out where we were going right as we checked in—Orlando! We rushed to the plane and hopped on. Several hours later, this was the view we saw out of our rental car:

Eeep! I see a cruise ship! We were sailing on the Carnival Dream, which is currently the largest ship in Carnival’s fleet. Look how huge it is compared to the Disney cruise ship!

In the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you this: a couple of months before the wedding I found out that we were going on a cruise. We won’t get into how I found out or who spilled the beans, but I knew. That was all I knew, though. I didn’t know where it left from, where it sailed to, or what we’d do while we were in the ports. So, even as we were pulling up to the cruise terminal, I had NO idea what countries I was about to visit!

This was the point in the vacation where it really hit me that we were actually, finally on our honeymoon. We were married and on vacation, and it was an absolutely wonderful feeling.

As soon as we got on the ship, we took care of the most important thing first:

Drinks of the Day! My absolute favorite part of cruising!

We spent some time checking out the awesome ship…

And our unbelievably amazing room…

We had a bathtub! If you’ve ever been on a cruise, you know how much of a luxury this is!

And possibly my favorite part of it all, our balcony.

Mr. Cardigan looks pretty proud of himself for planning this whole thing, doesn’t he?

Shortly after we got on the ship, we set sail and our honeymoon officially started! Since it was our honeymoon, we decided to go all out and have dinner in the ship’s fancy restaurant for our first night. We got all dressed up…

And had some of the fanciest, most amazing food I’ve ever eaten.

(Sorry about the photo quality. Fancy restaurant + mood lighting = bad photos.)

I remember telling Mr. Cardigan as we were going to bed that night that I had such a wonderful day, I would have been happy if that was all there was to our honeymoon. We could have gone home right then and there and I would have been a happy girl.

But, oh no. I still had a week of amazing cruise bliss to enjoy. I mean, seriously, how can you not be insanely happy when you wake up every morning, walk onto your balcony, and see this:

Sigh. I love it! On our first full day on the ship, Mr. Cardigan and I didn’t waste any time in getting to the whole “being really lazy” part of the honeymoon. We woke up, grabbed some lounge chairs, and settled in!

We spent the day doing more or less nothing. We lounged, ate, lounged some more, ate some more, and drank some tasty, tasty drinks of the day. I think that our drink of the day cup says it all:

Why yes, this IS the best day ever!

The afternoon of our first day on the ship, Mr. Cardigan decided that all of our lounging around was really wearing him out, and he needed a nap. So, he went back to the room to sleep while I trekked up to the salon on the ship for my PWC!

That’s right, I got my hair cut on our honeymoon! Now, before you get all excited let me warn you that it isn’t a huge difference, and I’ll be honest and say that I kind of regret it. I’d been dying for some side-swept bangs for a while, even though I know they drive me crazy, and I spontaneously decided to go for it on the honeymoon…and they’re now driving me crazy.

But they look pretty cute!

I love how they look here, but of course I can never get them to do that. I swear, hairstylists must know some sort of hair voodoo to make my hair behave.

After a pretty (un)eventful day, Mr. Cardigan and I were super excited about our first night in the ship’s normal dining room. And, you could say I was just a little bit excited about my favorite dessert in the world: warm chocolate melting cake!

I think I made this face every. single. night. when they brought me my warm chocolate melting cake. Oh, how I love it!

And finally, with full bellies, we headed back to our room to enjoy one of my other favorite things about cruising – towel animals!

We posed with our cute crab (?) for a while, basked in the excitement of officially being married for 24 hours, and went to bed early that night in preparation for our first port of call the next morning!

Would you ever let your SO plan a surprise vacation?