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We hadn’t lined up our Puerto Rico or Grand Turk excursions before getting on the boat, but luckily, there was still plenty available. They say to book early, and some stuff did fill up, but we really weren’t sure what we could and could not do financially until we got down to the wire. In San Juan, we chose a Rainforest Drive up through the Yunque Rainforest, a 28,000-acre rainforest that is the only one in the United States.
But first: Castillo de San Felipe del Morro, from our ship
Our tour guide was funny and knowledgeable, regaling us with historical and political facts during the 50-minute drive to El Yunque. He was also resourceful:
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On our first full day, we dropped anchor off the coast of Half Moon Cay, Bahamas, where Carnival has a private island. Princess has a similar setup with Princess Cay. There’s no dock, so they tie tender boats to the side of the ship and shuttle you to the coast, which takes about 10-15 minutes. We were so stoked about settling down on the beaches, only to hear a disheartening announcement that the winds may prevent us from going to Half Moon Cay, since the tender boats were rocking to and fro, making for an unsafe load. Happily, they were able to tie up the boats on the other side of the ship, but it was still rocky.
Then, it started raining.
People were bailing off the boat, but not us! I was determined. And by the time we got to shore, the weather looked like this:
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Initially, Mr. Ladyfingers and I weren’t sure we could do a honeymoon at all, much less one outside the state. We tossed around the idea of St. Augustine — the oldest city in America and local, in Florida — but finally settled on a Caribbean cruise after running the numbers and discovering we could do it, after all. Yay!
Man, oh man, are we glad things turned out that way. We seriously had the best time ever, have been doing nothing but raving and reminiscing about our honeymoon cruise, and are already planning our next cruise for early 2013. Southern (or Western) Caribbean, here we come?
We researched (OK, I researched) the different lines to exhaustion, and finally settled on Carnival as the most cost effective option with the best itinerary at that time. We sailed out of Miami on the Carnival Liberty, on the way to Half Moon Cay, Bahamas; Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas; Old San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Grand Turk.
Miami, one of my all-time favorite skylines, pre-sail-away
Throughout the honeycaps, I’m going to attempt to provide you with some cruising advice, but be forewarned:
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As an incredibly generous wedding present, Mr. Mole’s parents will be giving us 5,000 Euros for our honeymoon. Mr. Mole’s older sister and her husband took the money after their wedding and ran off to Spain on a fabulous vacation. I feel serious trip envy when I look through their pictures and hear their stories of fabulous hotels, dinners, and sightseeing adventures. So I immediately started dreaming about spending our honeymoon drinking great beer in Brussels or eating paella in Madrid or riding ferries around the islands in Greece.
Image via Fodor’s Europe Travel Guide
However, there was one major roadblock to these European dreams: time.
Mr. Mole just started his job in July, so we have to be careful about how many vacation days that he takes in the first quarter of 2012. We are already having to take four days off in January between our destination wedding and hometown party. We can probably get another five days off in February for our honeymoon. If we leave on a Sunday, the day after our hometown reception, as planned, we are probably looking at a max of a seven-night vacation.
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I wrote a post about our thoughts on our honeymoon way back in September. Why is it that when you’re planning a wedding, anything more than two weeks ago feels like it was way back when?
We were thinking Mardi Gras and we were thinking Hawaii. Well, after checking some prices online, we were re-thinking everything. Mardi Gras was do-able, but Hawaii was out. This being the one part of the wedding Mr. Kettle and I were footing the bill for, we couldn’t spend up all our money or we’d be living off of wedding gift cards and love for a few months post-wedding.
I don’t exactly remember how the idea originiated, but it was inspired by my idea to spend part of my honeymoon celebrating Mardi Gras. There are Carnival celebrations all around the globe at different points of the year.
What’s Carnival you say? Glad you asked.
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| Image via Brazil Carnival |
After the amazing first part of our honeymoon in Maui, we flew back to Honolulu which is where we had to fly home from. We stayed at the Sheraton Waikiki right on the beach and had a beautiful view over Diamond Head and across the town and out onto the ocean.
It was quite the change of pace going from being in an incredibly secluded resort to the hustle and bustle of Waikiki. To say the least, we wanted to high-tail it right back to Maui quick smart.
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
After a glorious day at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, we spent the remaining three days soaking up all the Disney we could handle. There are whole books dedicated to visiting Disney, so this certainly will not be an all inclusive guide, just our experiences as honeymooners.
Lodging
There are plenty of options for lodging in and around Disney and Orlando, but Mr. P and I decided to stay on Disney property. Hotels at Disney range from crazy expensive to economical (aka slightly less than crazy expensive). We decided to stay at Port Orleans French Quarter, which is considered an intermediate hotel, because we wanted to splurge on our honeymoon, but still be able to pay our rent.
I practically floated off the plane when we touched down in Oahu (because I was so excited, NOT because of my white wine/flying meds combo ). I had fantasized about coming to Hawaii since I was a little girl and to finally be there, and feel the warm breeze and smell the clean air, was (literally) a dream come true.
Our first stop on the way to our resort was the rental car office. We’d taken the advice of friends who had visited Hawaii before us, and arranged to have a car for the week. And I’m SO glad we did! Having that a car made our island experience so much more laid back and awesome. Not having to rely on resort shuttles or cabs the whole week was definitely worth the price!
Sparkler Oahu Tip #1: Rent a car! And if you want a Jeep, reserve early!
We didn’t end up with the Jeep Wrangler we were hoping for because EVERYONE visiting Hawaii wants a Jeep Wrangler. So make sure you specifically ask for one and reserve it early if that’s your top pick. Sparks and I were perfectly happy with the car we ended up with though… hey, we were in Hawaii!!!
Sparks in our sweet ride
Our Hawaiian honeymoon began in the most romantic place in Chicago… the Blue Line to O’Hare.
Yep, you read that right. The morning of our honeymoon began with a sweaty, frazzled ride on the El. Us silly Sparklers thought we could wake up on a Monday morning and just hop on the highway with no trouble at all. Yeah. Right. If you’ve ever tried to get out of Chicago on a Monday morning, you’d know we were kidding ourselves.
Thankfully, Brother Sparkler was our airport chauffeur for the morning, and he quickly rerouted us to the nearest Blue Line. After a panicked climb to the train platform (and me practically getting caught in the train door), we were finally on our way.
Sparkler Hawaii Tip #1: Leave yourself plenty of time to get to the airport. Seriously.
Once we made it to the airport and got through security, Sparks and I had a chance to relax a little bit. We browsed around for a magazine or two, grabbed breakfast and… wait, what’s that? Why are all of those people getting in line? Oh yeah.
That would be our plane. Boarding without us.
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The day after our wedding, we jetted off to our honeymoon. In case you need a refresher of where the Ponies honeymooned, here’s a clue:
Walt Disney World!
Sadly, we did not buy the bride and groom ears. We just couldn’t justify the cost.
The first day of our honeymoon is a complete blur to me. I did not sleep at all on our wedding night, and not for the good reasons. I simply could not shut off my brain. Due to time constraints, our honeymoon started the morning after our wedding and I was completely unprepared. I just couldn’t stop worrying about all the things I needed to get/pack/take care of before we left that I couldn’t sleep. I do not recommended this. Follow Mrs. Candy Apple’s advice and prepare ahead of time. Or, better yet, delegate the task of packing for your honeymoon to someone else you trust and has less to do, like your new spouse.
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(’Ferien’ is ’holiday’ in German!)
Hello hive! I have missed you guys so much, but we’re only on day five of our nineteen day honeymoon so it’ll be awhile before I can get back to blogging regularly. Mr. Funnel Cake’s Swiss keyboard on his netbook is not really helping out the situation either as I keep switching ’y’ with ’z’ and pressing random buttons. But I really wanted to share the sneak peek our photographer gave us on our wedding day! I think it paid off scheduling some down time for the photographer between our wedding and evening shoot because he had time to edit a photo and whip it up on the web already!
(Photo by Timwill Photography)
Our wedding was the best wedding ever.
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Wow! Our honeymoon was the most amazing holiday we have ever been on! We could have gone anywhere and it still would have been fun! It was a great time to spend together, being freshly married, calling each other husband and wife, and saying “Mr and Mrs Teaspoon,” followed by a fit of giggle (usually by me!)! Just enjoying the time together after the incredible high of the wedding and relaxing together after that excitement prevented both of us from sleeping!
The unbelievable pool at our hotel
We spent a lot of time like this:
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After religiously entering sweepstakes through Fodor’s and not being selected on multiple occasions, it was time to get real about our honeymoon travels. My first thought was HOOOORAYYYY! We actually get a honeymoon?! Between his busy schedule and our general lack of funds, it’s a mini-miracle. The next step was Katy Perry Decision Time—do we go some place hot or cold?
Best Face Ever image via Capital Bay
Easy peasy choice for me! I’m not a lover of swimsuits, and I get a sunburn if I look at a light bulb the wrong way. Maybe it’s different for you, but I’ve just about decided that being hot is a punishment comparable to any number of these torture devices.
I’ve been putting off this post for a while because this subject is embarrassing for me. I can’t swim. Now when I say I can’t swim, I don’t mean that I can’t swim well. I mean I cannot swim at all. A lot of people get confused on this point. Let me make myself clear. I can’t doggy paddle. I can’t even float. People give me a weird look when I tell them that. But it’s true.
Most people learn to swim when they’re young. I’ve stories from people who brag that they were thrown into a pool by a relative when they were a kid and swimming just came naturally. Well, I was thrown into a pool when I was a kid, too. My uncle threw me into the deep end when I was eight years old. I did not instinctively learn to swim. I thrashed for a bit, took in some water and sank to the bottom of the pool. The only instinct I had was to crawl across the pool floor until I reached a level where I could stand up. I was probably underwater for less than a minute, but it felt like an eternity. After that day, I was absolutely terrified of the water. I didn’t get back into a pool for nearly ten years and by that point I was afraid to do anything other than just stand in 5 feet of water. Many people have tried to teach me, but I just tense up.
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When it came time to choose our honeymoon spot, there were a few things Mr. Porcupine and I decided upon pretty early. We’ve been incredibly lucky to go on some great vacations together. So far we’ve been to Puerto Rico, Mexico (twice), and on a cruise around the Caribbean islands.
[Vacationing in Cancun]/Personal Photo
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