We were married on a Saturday night and our flight left at 6am the following Monday. We had a super short layover in Miami {which, by the way, that airport is HUGE!!} and before we knew it, it was about 2pm and we were putting our bags down in our room!
Jamaica!
The view from our room.
We did a whole lot of laying around, eating, drinking and enjoying the nightly shows in the main hall. From steel drummers {amazing!} to comedians, to game shows and fire breathers, there was something going on every night. You could either enjoy them or sit at the bar in the piano room and chit chat. The piano was in the swim up bar which was the building directly in front of our room so we stopped there quite often for beverages. The hummingbird was, by FAR, my favorite drink that I tried while we were there. Rum, bananas, and more rum. And maybe some grenadine.
This guy crawled on his TOES!
The main pool that stayed wayy too cold to be enjoyed.
Our complimentary breakfast on our second day. Yes, we over indulged, but they left the options list on the door the night before after we had been drinking with dinner. Breakfast sounds amazing after a few drinks!
The {literal} ghetto behind the resort. This is such a poor country! We had no idea just how bad it was until we were on the road going to Ocho Rios for Dunn's River Falls. And apparently the exchange rate is something crazy like $1 US dollar is $8 Jamaican dollars. We accidentally tipped a guy $20 and we're pretty sure he thought we were rich. We laughed once we got over the shock that we took out a $20 bill!
I took so many ocean view shots. I just could NOT help myself. I had never seen anything as beautiful in my life. I've already said it and i"m sure I'll say it again, I cannot wait to be back at a location like this!!
Tokyo Joe's was made our top 2 list.. Don't get me wrong, they were all yummy, but there's something about choosing the food you're going to eat and then watching it being cooked right in front of you. Picking the protein, veggies, spices was such a cool experience. Very, very yummy. We couldn't help but bang the gong when we walked by it!
A pina colada and a strawberry daiquiri. Many, many of these were had by us. But that was before we found out about the hummingbird. And the chocolate monkey, or whatever it's called.. The chocolate/banana drink, you know the one. YUM! I wish I had asked them how to make a hummingbird. I still crave it!
I cannot talk about our honeymoon and not add in this. This word was completely foreign to me until we were walking by a plant and I saw it. It still brings laughter whenever I see it, much less say it. Come on, say it out loud. Don't you just want to laugh? Happiness.
After dinner, waiting for a show to start.
All three, just breathtaking. I want to go back!!
The one thing our travel agent told us that we have to do while in Jamaica is to visit Dunn's River Falls. It's a waterfall that you walk UP. It's kinda cool that I can say I walked up a waterfall. Granted, you were holding hands with the stranger in front of behind you, but still, pretty cool.
The tour guide would take your picture for you, but only after screaming for you to get lower in the water and to go as far back as you could, basically making you go into the waterfall behind you. When I say this water was cold, it's an understatement. I've never felt such clean, crisp, COLD water in my life. You have to experience this once in your life! But be prepared to turn down a lot of hair braiding and marijuana offers. Tons of offers!
Yay! We completed the climb walk! It only took about 30 minutes, but boy was it a work out. I wish we had thought to buy water shoes while at home because they were like $30 over there! And we didn't want to get our only pair of tennis shoes wet, so we splurged on them. Now, just gotta find a reason to wear water shoes! Too bad I hate tubing!
After the waterfalls, we had about an hour to eat and walk around the Ocho Rios resort. It was a beautiful resort and from what I hear, we only walked around a quarter of it. Big resort! But this was their beach area. Definitely small! I mean, it went down a little bit on either side of the piers, but not nearly as long as the Montego Bay beach.
We took a glass bottom boat tour one afternoon. That was really cool. I wish my camera was better and had gotten some good pictures of all the sea life below, but in all of them, it just looks like a blob of blue water.
An underwater cave. The tour guide said these can get very, very deep. I don't remember a number, but I do remember him emphasizing on the very part. Don't you just want to see a mermaid head pop out from under there? Haha.
The view of the resortwhile we were on the boat. We didn't go extremely far, but we definitely went far enough where the water started to get dark. So, SO pretty.
I heard that while you're in Jamaica, you have to try the Bob Marley shots. There was only one bar- of the 5 or 6 on the grounds- that knew how to make it. Or so they say, it took a while to make so I'm sure the busier bartenders just didn't want to deal with it. Once we found this pub, we knew we had to try them! Grenadine, banana, creme de mint and coconut.. Isn't it pretty? As far as the taste, the mint completely took over.
I wanted to put these glasses in my purse and run out. I need these in my life. Also, the french connection on the left wasn't too bad, either! And a strawberry daiquiri on the right.
Waiting for our food and watching soccer in the pub. This has got to be one of my most favorite pictures of my husband.. Isn't he just the cutest?! Love his face so much.
On this day, we planned to have dinner at this Thai restaurant on the Royal Caribbean resort, but it was booked up. It had it's own island and you had to take a boat to get to it! We didn't think we had to plan ahead since we made daily reservations at our resort. But this one obviously had many more people than ours! Montego Bay might have had 100-150 people staying while we were there? It was VERY nice!
Anyway, we decided to go to the resort regardless just to look around. When you stay at one Sandals resort, you can visit any of them on the island to enjoy their offerings. The drive to this one was only about 10 minutes so it wasn't extremely out of the way! The ones in Ocho Rios were 2 hours away and Negril was about 4 hours away.
There really wasn't much to see at the Royal Caribbean- They had a TON of room buildings that took up most of the space. But they did have their own reef, so that was kinda nice. You could walk all the way out there if you wanted to. Those people you see in the picture were the only ones in the water while we were there. This resort catered more towards the older crowd.
I did, however, enjoy chasing the peacocks while we were waiting for our bus back to our resort. I don't think they were too thrilled with me, though.
This was a day that we went from one part of the resort to another laying on various beds and chairs. Very lazy day on the beach means sunburn for this girl. Isn't that hilarious? Painfully hilarious. Literally. Haha.
Waiting for another show to start. I flat iron my hair during the cooler, less humid months, but looking at this picture makes me want to get it highlighted and let it air dry instead. I'm lucky that I can have the best of both worlds. Definitely came in handy with all that Jamaican humidity! Even in the middle of December, it got pretty warm in the afternoons.
Oh, complimentary bottle of champagne for our one week anniversary.. We so enjoyed you on the beach staring up at the sky. This night was so, so fun. Just the two of us, frolicking on the beach, up to no good with a bottle in our hands.
I found this pin in HobLob a few weeks before the wedding and I had to take it with us on the honeymoon.. I brought it to the beach with us on our last morning there and took a few pictures. Talk about sad, leaving that place!
Saying our goodbyes to the beach about an hour before we had to be at the airport. It was about 7am and the beach was so quiet. Extremely peaceful. I'm not gonna lie, I got all teary eyed knowing we were leaving. Everything we passed up, I said goodbye to. Especially these..
These were probably my most favorite thing to see.. Love bird feets! Just so cute.
And just like that, we were home again! There's the Superdome and the Mississippi River. Home sweet home!
We didn't leave the grounds of the resort but twice. Once to visit Dunn's River Falls where we had a late lunch at the Ocho Rios Sandals resort and then again to visit the Royal Caribbean. When I say we did a ton of sleeping and relaxing, eating and drinking, I mean it. This was the most relaxing vacation we've ever had. No major planning. No itineraries to stick to. Nothing. Very nice. We booked at a time that Sandals was offering 65% off {they do this often} for certain resorts with stays so many days long, so we got a great deal for this honeymoon! For something that should have cost us $10k, we paid a little over a third of that. Talk about awesome, right?!
I'd say we made a good decision going to the Montego Bay resort. We weren't impressed with the Royal Caribbean- it was just too quite and solemn for what we wanted. We liked that Montego Bay had it's quiet moments but if you wanted to party, there was a place for it! Maybe Royal Caribbean had that, too, we don't know, but first impressions stick!
I want to go back. Now. It was just such a good time. A perfect honeymoon!
After looking through the pictures that I took while we were there, I noticed that I sure did take a lot of food pictures! Maybe next week I'll post about all the noms we enjoyed! Yes? Yes!
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