Honeymoon: Second Installment

Since last time I didn't really talk about our honeymoon for some weird reason, I will now!

We had SO much fun! I was expecting way more sun and heat and lounging on the beach, but our trip turned out way better than I would have planned. There was a hurricane dying down the week before we got there, so it was still cloudy and a little rainy when we were there. There was one day that was really beautiful, but we were still got to lay out in the warm sun for about 30 minutes. We decided it was perfect because it was in the 70's, so it felt nice to be outside, but a little chilly, so it was perfect hot tub weather, and still warm enough to get in the ocean a few times. If it had been hot and sunny the whole week, we would've been way lazier/tired and gotten sunburnt. Instead, it was the PERFECT relaxation weather and resort.

I LOVE islands and beaches, so I was hoping I wouldn't be disappointed with our resort because the beach was small (and the view of the water was obstructed by a pier). It ended up being the perfect honeymoon spot. Jamaica is so lush and green (which was not the case in the beautiful beach lands of Aruba & Curacao) which was so refreshing after living in dry, arid Venezuela all year last year. There were beautiful mountains, and it just felt so tropical. The whole resort was covered in beautiful flora. I loved it! It felt like we were in the jungle. The beach wasn't "the perfect beach" but it was still nice. The water was pretty, and I ended up really enjoying the pier because there was a lot of seating on it, so we got to sit out there a few times and enjoy the ocean view sitting above the water, which was really cool. We even got to eat dinner on it one night! So cool.

And even though there wasn't lots of sand, there were lots of restaurants overlooking the beach, so that was great. And we really enjoyed our ocean view from our room. We also loved all the amenities at our resort. Sandals resorts always have all-inclusive restaurants, but at ours we had tons of places to eat - 7 restaurants, 3 bars, 2 swim-up bars, and they were building other ones while we were there.

Our room was central to everything - three restaurants, the beach bar, the beach grill, three pools, two hot tubs, a piano lounge, and the water sports area. It was so nice to have everything be so close! One of my favorite parts of every day was eating a huge breakfast buffet at a beautiful restaurant overlooking the water. One of Whit's favorite parts was sitting on the balcony. We each got a few mixed drinks during the day - sometimes from the bar, sometimes from swim-up pool bars that we would immediately take to the hot tub. My favorite thing to do was go to this secluded hot tub surrounded by plants and trees.

It was nice to have alcohol included because neither of us had ever had many mixed drinks before, so we got to try a bunch of different ones for free and if we didn't like it, we could just get a different one instead. We also had a bar in our room with full bottles of rum, whiskey, gin, and vodka with mixers. Whit had fun experimenting with making mixed drinks for us.

Mostly all we did all week was chill - sitting in different relaxing spots, going to the hot tubs, and looking at the beach. We also played a bunch of fun games - mostly pictionary. We did do some of the water sports though, which were pretty chill. We learned how to sail, went on one of those big aqua trikes, went on a mini snorkeling excursion, and took a ride on the glass bottom boat. We ate every lunch at the beach grill, and Whit fell in love with jerk sauce. We bought some and made hamburgers yesterday with them...so good! Dinner was always the highlight of our day - we would each get 2 appetizers, wine, a delicious entree, and then dessert. We always took so long at dinner! We couldn't figure out if other people weren't maxing out their food options, but we certainly took advantage of the 'everything is included' policy.

We had a really fun week being together and enjoying each other, but weren't too disappointed that we had to leave because we had a room full of wedding presents to open and a house to unpack! I feel like I left out a lot, but it was a great trip! Check facebook for pictures soon :)