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!

Wedding Wednesday.....Our Honeymoon-ANTIGUA!!

We spent a majority of our honeymoon, 10 days, at Sandals Grande Antigua. We left San Juan (to read about our time in PR, go back a few posts) around 9:30 Tuesday evening and arrived in Antigua an hour or so later. Upon check-in, we found out that we were upgraded about 7 room categories to the Verandah Concierge Suite. Apparently Sandals does this a lot, and we were more than happy to take the upgrade.

Pineapple accents everywhere! I was in LOVE :)

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Caribbean Grove Entrance

The resort is stunning and the grounds are immaculate. It's divided into two parts, the Caribbean Grove side and the Mediterranean Side. The Med side is newer and a big high-rise building where the Caribbean side feels very tropical where no building is over 3 floors tall and is set amongst the trees in a jungle like setting. We chose the Caribbean side because we LOVE having that tropical feel while we are on vacation! Our room was in a great location-almost right in the center between the two sides. We had both big pools within 50 yards of our room-one to either side.

Caribbean Grove Pool

View of resort from Mediterranean Building

At the swim-up bar :)

We set up a honeymoon registry through Honeyfund.com in order to register for all of the 'extras' for our honeymoon- massages, excursions, etc. We lucked out and ended up with about $1300 which made our honeymoon even that much sweeter! I highly recommend making one, especially if you're like us and you don't really need many of the typical registry items!


Here are some pics of some of the fun we had while there-sorry that they're all close-up's we snapped ourselves; that's what happens when you travel sans friends/family!!

We had a couples massage

We went on a sunset cruise

Ate yummy dinners

played in the pool

We went zip-lining through the jungle

We went jet-skiing through the bay

Took sunset walks on the beach

We also rented a car one day and took on the island ourselves. I had to get a temporary British driver's license in order to be able to drive and it was definitely an experience driving on the wrong side of the road! We went all around the island and got to see so many neat places. Antigua must not believe in street signs, because there were none around. We relied heavily on our cartoon map that they gave us at the front desk, but we somehow managed to make it around the island. It is, afterall, only 18 miles from one side to another :)

Our ride-straight off the set of the movie Just Married. Ha :)

With my driver's licence

We even found a pineapple farm- Antigua has a rare "black pineapple"

Sandals sliced and delivered this to the wrong room so I never got to enjoy it :( It smelled AMAZING though!!!

At Devil's Bridge- a rock bridge formed from the waves. So neat!

Then, on our last full day on the island, my sweet husband lost his wedding band.....in the ocean. We were out snorkeling off the shore and when we returned to the pool, we noticed it was gone. We searched and searched and searched some more, but it was gone. Thankfully, we had trip insurance so we will get to replace it. Until then, he's wearing a fabulous temp we purchased at the Antigua Airport! Ha! It even has a spinner band. Amazing.   


Now, for anyone who's wondering my overall thoughts/review of Sandals it's this: It's overpriced. Is it nice? Yes. Is it over-the top amazing? No. We paid a pretty penny to stay here and if it hadn't been for all of our excursions, we would've been very bored. The resort itself, while nice, was pretty boring and full of either 21 year olds or 60 year olds. Not that's anything wrong with either of those groups, but hubs and I weren't into acting like our enitre honeymoon was spring break 02' or our retirement vacay. Ha! There also wasn't much in the way of night-life and you were constantly hounded by spa people about setting up spa appointments. You always had photographers in your face snapping your picture and they charged you a fortune for the excursions and such. We had a great time, but it was not worth the price we paid to stay here-and we got a great deal vs what they normally charge. Would I go back to Sandals? Yes, but only if it was a crazy good deal and the only all inclusive available at the time, otherwise it's just not worth it. There are LOTS of other all-inclusives out there who offer more and cost a lot less!!

Coming next.....Our last stop. South Beach :)

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Honeymoon Re-Cap Part 1....Old San Juan

We left for our honeymoon on Monday afternoon and departed for San Juan, Puerto Rico. We wanted to be rested, plus we wanted the extra day to spend with out of town friends and family on Sunday. We loved having a day to rest, pack, and see everyone before we left the country. I highly recommend leaving on Monday, or even later for your honeymoon!

Because of the crazy amount of flights we would have had to take to reach Antigua in one day, we opted to split it up into two and spend the first 24 hours of our honeymoon in Old San Juan (where basically every flight to Antigua had to pass through) and then fly into Antigua on Tuesday. Our return flight was free because we had frequent flier miles, so we only had to buy a one way ticket. After searching around, I found that it was cheaper for us to fly to San Juan on Air Tran and then onto Antigua on American. If we were flying it all in one day, I definitely would've stayed with the same airline, but since we were flying in Monday and out Tuesday, it didn't matter that we were using different airlines. Note: I'm the travel deal guru of our relationship, so it only made since for me to book our honeymoon. I know it's not "the norm" for the woman to book the honeymoon, even taboo for some, but for us, it only made since for me to do it since I'm more skilled at deal finding than he :)  
We arrived into San Juan Monday evening, picked up our car from Hertz and headed to our hotel. We stayed at the Gallery Inn in Old San Juan, and holy cow, was it unreal- it looked like something out of the Bachelor. It's an old mansion full of hallways, gardens, and tons of little nooks and crannies. I found it by watching the Today Show (which I love and watch religiously like a big ol' news nerd) where they were doing a piece on great hotels at great prices and they featured the hotel. After Trip Advisoring it and seeing it's overly positive reviews, we knew that's where we wanted to stay. The room was less than $200 a night and the President and his family are friends with the owners. We didnt know this until we arrived, but once we were checked into our room, we learned that we were placed in the same room that the President stays in when he's at the hotel. Yes, the President of the United States. Amazing.

Entrance to the Inn

View from our patio door

The pool.

The wing where our room was located. That's our door to the left.

Rooftop Garden and breakfast area

On Tuesday morning, we woke up and went out sightseeing. Our flight didnt leave until 9:30 that evening, so we had the whole day to explore. We visited the old fort, walked the streets (which had a very Old World European feel) and toured the Bacardi Plant.  Since our hotel was in Old San Juan, we did most of our exploring on foot, but the Bacardi Plant was located about a 10 miles, so we had to drive out to it. Thankfully, we paid the extra for the GPS and it was our lifesaver.

 

Complimentary cocktails on the tour :)

We really liked San Juan and would definitely go back and visit again; especially since it's so affordable and getting there is simple and usually pretty cheap :)

Next up......our time in Antigua!!