Weddingbee Blog

Shoes. SHOES SHOES SHOES. Shhh—-

I’m kidding, I’m kidding. This blog post is not going to be about shoes, I promise. I think I’m well and truly done in that respect. Thanks for sticking with me through all of that.

Instead, I thought I’d write up another epic post recapping our North American pre-wedding-moon. To make things less repetitive for you, I’ve decided to cover our remaining cities into one GIANT post—so be prepared, this’ll be a long one folks. First up, I showed you how we spent our first week in Orlando, playing and staying at the Pop Century Resort and theme parks. So, where did we go next? I’ll give you a hint: this city was for Mr. Jaguar.

Vegas, baby! We flew from Orlando to Vegas on US Airways, and I was happy as a clam passing the time watching TLC on the five hour flight. We don’t get that channel in Australia, so I lapped up all of the wedding and baby goodness. We arrived in Vegas at about 9PM, and got a great view of the strip lit up at night from the plane. After joining the longest taxi queue in the world, we zipped off to our hotel for the next four days: the beautiful Bellagio on Las Vegas Boulevard.

We stayed in a Deluxe King Room on the 26th floor, and it was AWESOME. The room itself was massive, the bed was amazingly comfy and the bathroom was so big, I couldn’t get it all in one photograph. The only pictures I took of our room have clothing and shoes strewn all over it, so you’ll have to trust me on this one. So how did we, on our stingy travel budget, afford to stay in a 5 star hotel in Vegas? The answer, my friends, is to go mid-week. We stayed for four nights, Monday through Thursday, and checked out Friday morning. The room rates in Vegas are much cheaper during the week; we looked at staying an extra night and the price was doubled and then some. We paid less for our Bellagio stay per night than we did for the Disney resort! Our room was towards the rear of the hotel, but still had a partial view of the other hotels and some of the strip, and if you looked directly down you could see the amazing Bellagio pools and courtyards. Here’s a bit of the view from our room, by day and by night:

Our time in Vegas was pretty chilled out. We explored the sidewalks and casinos together on foot, met a friend for some delicious Mexican food, and spent almost a whole day shopping at the Premium Outlets. (Oy, did we shop.) But we did arrange one busy, busy day, where we were up and out of our room from 6 AM and didn’t return home until well after 10PM. What were we doing? We were road-tripping out to see the Grand Canyon! We didn’t have a car while we were travelling, so booking a tour was a must. Ours was through Las Vegas Grand Canyon Tours—not a bad day! It was a lot of time spent snoozing on a coach, but the views at the end were totally worth it. We had around three hours to spent exploring the rim, and the tour took us to several different spots along the way.

The weather was stunning  and we couldn’t have asked for anything better. But alas, our time here was quickly up, so we said one last goodbye to Vegas {or was it Paris?} before heading off to our next destination.

The flight from Vegas to Vancouver was nice and short, and we went from mild t-shirt weather to FREEZING COLD WINTER, brrrr. We’re not crazy, we were expecting it to be cold—but it was still a little shock to the system getting used to it. A friend who lives in Vancouver recommended our accommodations to us, which was less hotel and more furnished apartment. I couldn’t have loved it any more than I did; it had a kitchenette, was walkable to downtown Vancouver and was quiet and cosy. If you’re ever needing a place to stay, check out the Sunset Inn and Suites. Our room was the Executive Studio Suite, and it looked out over the snow-capped city. Ah, the city. Considering I’m not a big city-girl, I felt very much at home there. Although I’ll admit that I’m kind of biased, considering we had fantastic company while we were there, plus I found my wedding dress in New Westminster—so, good memories all round! And I haven’t even mentioned my discovery of Tim Horton’s coffee and maple oatmeal yet…

We hoofed it around Stanley Park on foot, taking in the harbour, mountain and ocean scenery. It was gorgeous—there was snow on the ground, the wind-chill was icy cold, but it was the perfect day. I won’t even tell you how many pictures I took on this part of our trip, because it’s just embarrassing.

Mr. Jaguar and I also caught a gondola up to Grouse Mountain, where I attempted to walk about in the knee-deep snow in really inappropriate footwear. (I had a brain-fart while packing for our trip, and despite ensuring I had many, many winter layers in the form of clothing, I completely spaced on snow-footwear for Canada. Lesson learned!) We sipped hot chocolate and indulged in some poutine, and then I died and went to heaven. Hot chips and cheese and gravy in one dish—where have you been all my life?

While Vancouver was lovely, it was really just the starting point of our next big adventure: the Canadian Rockies! Mr. Jaguar and I caught an early morning flight over to Calgary, where we met up with a guided tour and got ready for our next eight days. Our itinerary included Jasper, Lake Louise and Banff, and we were so excited to see some real alpine scenery. Vancouver seemed like the tropics compared to how cold it was when we stepped off that plane and into Calgary. Hoo boy!

Sleepy little Jasper was first. It was such a sweet town with its main street and surrounding mountains. Major sights included Pyramid Lake and the Maligne Canyon, which we hiked with the help of some snow boots and crampons. As we drove from place to place, we stayed pretty quiet and watched out the windows with our mouths hanging open, because the view was nothing short of spectacular. A lot of the big animals were already hibernating for the winter months, but we saw loads of deer, elk, goats and big-horn sheep. The drive down the Icefield Parkway was awesome, especially seeing the glaciers up close. Banff was big, busy and gloriously festive, already decorated for the holiday season. We hit up another gondola to Sulphur Mountain and just sat there with our coffee, ogling the views and pretending to ignore our runny eyes and noses. The cold was worth it.

One of my favourite memories of the Rockies though, is always going to be Lake Louise. Mr. Jaguar’s parents had visited a few years earlier and had raved about how wonderful it was. Of course, they went in summer – so things looked slightly different when we were there. The lake was already completely frozen over, so frozen that children were playing on it, ice hockey and skating rinks were set up…and you could walk on it. So, walk on it we did! We spent ages here, tossing snow at one another and admiring the scenery – and while it wasn’t as green or as beautiful as I’m sure it is in summer-time, WE GOT TO STAND ON A LAKE. Huzzah!

This would have to be my top picture of Mr. Jaguar and me, with Lake Louise in the background!

Before we move on, can I share one of my coolest photos with you? I was super excited to see this lone male elk lounging around and having a snack, and I love, love, love that I managed to capture it on camera. Here he is in all his glory!

I hope you’re still with me, because we’re getting to the end now. After two weeks spent in minus temperatures and a quick plane-change in Vancouver again, we eventually arrived in Honolulu—talk about a contrast from the Canadian weather! We did well with our choice of hotel here too—again, fitting it into our small budget. As much as I wanted another luxury hotel like the Bellagio, we just couldn’t afford it; even in ‘winter’, Waikiki hotels are incredibly pricey! Instead, I researched my butt off and we eventually decided to stay at one of the older hotels, the Waikiki Circle.

It wasn’t glamorous or luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, but it was big and it was comfortable. I was sold on its location to the beach (right across the road!) and the fact that it offered free beach towels and gear—plus we picked an ocean view room with an early-booking discount code, so had the most amazing views down Waikiki Beach! We spent many a day out there on the balcony, reading or stealing the free wifi from the McDonalds down the street, it was glorious.

We wanted to spend our last few days of the vacation relaxing and not doing much, but somehow we ended up being super busy. We did manage to squeeze in a lot of hours floating around in the water and beaching it up, but also drove out to see a luau and show at Paradise Cove, on the West coast of Oahu. We arrived in the afternoon in time to nab some cocktails and see the sunset over the ocean, and then sat down to the night show and a gigantic feast.. followed by more cocktails. It was touristy, yes, but we had a really fun evening.

Our last big adventure was a day-trip to Hawaii {the Big Island},  including a bumpy little inter-island flight into Hilo. We booked this through Discover Hawaii Tours, and it covered the cost of the return flights to/from Honolulu to Hilo, plus the entire day’s sight-seeing. Highlights included Rainbow Falls, heading inside the Volcanoes National Park and seeing one very cranky active volcanic crater spitting smoke and steam in every direction.

This day involved a lot of hiking and took in loads of sights. Mr. Jaguar and I explored lava tubes and tunnels, walked through rainforest trails, and walked over lava crusts and black sandy beaches. It was totally surreal to think that you were standing on and walking over an active volcanic area—even more so that evening when we got to see fresh lava flowing down the hillside, from a respectable distance of course!

And then it was back to Waikiki Beach, for one last day of shopping, lounging around and swimming. I’m not a big beach person, but I have to say – the sheltered sections of water near the Kuhio Beach Park were great! Sure, they might be designed for families with kids, but they worked just fine for me—there were no crazy waves, not a great deal of seaweed or creepy crawly things, and the perfect current for floating in the water with the man-friend.

Did I mention how perfect the weather was? We were so lucky!

But that, friends, concludes the Jaguars’ Pre-Wedding-Moon. Four weeks, two countries, a fair few cities and just a couple of temperature changes. After our time in Honolulu was up, we hopped on yet another plane with Sydney as our final destination.

As for me? Well, I was sad to be leaving all of those fun places behind, but glad to be headed back home. And really? I was happy to be done lugging my heavy wedding dress around with me—but that’s a story for another day!

What’s your favourite place in the world to travel to?