Wedding Wednesday.....Our Honeymoon-last stop, South Beach

We left Antigua around 3:30 on a Thursday afternoon. We left the resort around 12:30 and had a short 10 minute ride to the airport. Upon arriving at the airport, we realized that there wasn't much to it-in fact, it reminded me a lot of the Port Au Prince Airport in Haiti. The check-in was outdoor, in a covered area-there was a nice breeze so it was actually pretty nice! We waited in line for about 15 minutes and then headed to the next check-in spot; I say next because there were several. We proceeded to the window and paid our $50 fee to leave the country ($25, each) and then went through another gate where we had to show our passport, a second time. We made it through that gate and then came to yet another gate where we had to show our paperwork again and then we headed to the actual security check. We put our carry-on luggage through the scanner and mine was flagged because of my medicines. They had to check my ENTIRE carry-on, down to EVERY last corner-talk about feeling a tad invaded! Ha! After finally making it through the security check, we were in the actual airport. 

We didn't each lunch at the hotel as we thought there would be plenty to eat at the airport and boy were we wrong- aside from a pizza counter, there was nothing. There were a few cute little shops, one in particular that we used to buy M's temporary wedding band.....for $7.95 :) The sweet cashier told us that she would be our official witness to make our new wedding band official! Ha!

The pizza counter and the new wedding band!

The airport did have free wi-fi which was really nice and after waiting around for a couple of hours it was time for us to board our flight. We lucked out and ended up being on one of American's brand new 737 planes- SO nice! It definitely eased my flying anxiety being on such a nice jet!

We arrived in Miami a few hours later and entered in the crazy mess of customs. If you've ever been through customs in Miami you know it can be quite the hassle, but overall it went pretty smooth. We felt like rats being pushed through a maze, but overall we made it through in pretty good time and without hassle. We grabbed a taxi and then headed to our hotel, which until we reached the taxi car, I had no clue as to where we were staying. The hotel in Miami was a surprise from M. He researched it and booked it all by himself and he picked a winner.....The Cleveander!

Stole this photo from Google since I forgot to sanp one!

M had also called the hotel earlier in the day and told them about losing his wedding band as well as the house flooding before our wedding. He asked the hotel to make sure our room was extra special and they totally delivered on his request! We arrived and were handed what is quite possibly the best pina colada I have ever consumed and then we were whisked away to our room. The hotel had upgraded us to what they called the "best room in the house" and had yet another surprise for us as we walked in- rose petals, EVERYWHERE!!!

They also gave us a sweet note and a bottle of champagne to enjoy! How sweet are they?!

View from our patio

We were super excited about our night in Miami so we changed clothes and got ready to hit the town! We were stoked about being in South Beach and couldn't wait to enjoy all it had to offer us!

As we headed out it started to storm, but we thought,"Eh, it's the beach, it will stop in like 30 minutes." Ha! Were we ever wrong!! It stormed, and stormed, and stormed. The streets filled up with water, the wind was kicking and here we are walking the streets under a dinky little umbrella! We stopped into one of those trashy beach shops for a bit to try to stay dry and then we ended up in the gellato shop- the same shop featured in the Jersey Shore.

view from the porch of the gellato shop

We grabbed some gellato and waited for about 30 minutes hoping it would let up, but by this point we were half soaked (me wearing white pants mind you) and we decided to head back to the hotel to re-group. We made it back to the hotel about 10 minutes later and were totally soaked. The hotel was CRAZY by this point with people EVERYWHERE watching the NBA Finals- and I mean C-R-A-Z-Y, like spring break style. We took our soaked bodies up to our room and ordered room service for dinner and decided to just call it a night! So much for our big night out in South Beach. Ha :)

elevator shot on the way back to our room- drenched.

We woke up at 4:45 the next morning for our super early flight home! We had a pit stop in Dallas, which has THE best airport that I've ever been in, and then we flew home to Lexington! We had a great honeymoon, but we were very excited to be home!! We are planning on cruising next summer for our one year anniversary, so we will try to tackle South Beach again next June. Fingers crossed for no rain!