We got home late last night from our honeymoon and it was wonderful!
We spent 8 days in the Bahamas at Sandals, which is an all-inclusive resort. It worked out great because we didn't have to worry about having cash on us or tipping and we basically got to wear bathing suits all week.
Day 1: Our flight left Minneapolis at 6:30am, which meant we had to leave home at 2:30am to drive the hour to the airport and check in 3 hours early for an international flight. Only, someone failed to mention that the ticket counters don't even open until 4:00am! So we had to sit and wait and were basically the only people in the entire MSP airport, which is a very big airport.
We had a layover in Miami and then had a quick 45 minute flight down to Nassau. We had a 15 minute shuttle ride the resort and the fun began!
Our room was great, the photos don't do it justice, and our view was AMAZING! We ate dinner at the Cricketer's Pub, which served the best fish & chips I've ever had. Then we hung out on the beach after sunset and then headed to the pub for some drinks. We met 2 awesome couples there; one from Toronto and one from Cleveland. We stayed up drinking with them til about 1:00am then finally called it a night.
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| no one around... |
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| driving on the "wrong" side of the road! |
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| view from our room |
Day 2: Jason slept in a bit and I headed down to the pool to start soaking up the sun. We had lunch at one of the many outdoor restaurants on the resort. There were 10 places to eat in all; Kimonos (Teppanyaki), Casanova (Italian, duh), Baccarat (French), Crystal Room (steakhouse), Cricketer's Pub (authentic English Pub with late night menu), stone fire pizzeria that make custom pizza's, Cafe Goombay (on the private offshore island, Bahamian food), Terrace Grill (international, sandwiches and such) and one buffet place that had a huge spread of breakfast and lunch. Surprisingly, only the one place was buffet. Everything else was order off a menu.
There were two pools on the resort, one a quiet pool and one a party pool with music and games going all day. Can you guess which one we went to every day??? So we spent the day by the pool and rented a wave runner. We went out for a bit but the wind made the waves so hard that I had to come back in early- too afraid of falling off- and Jason stayed out a bit longer.
We had dinner at Casanova's and found our favorite place on the resort: the oceanfront day beds with fire pits! There were only 6 total beds but they were spaced far apart and you didn't have to wait long to get one. The upside of going to the Bahamas during hurricane season is that hardly anyone was around!
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| view from lunch |
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| my hair after swimming in the pool and ocean all day! |
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| pool at night |
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| Jason is a girl-drink-drunk |
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| you can't tell from the photo but we had a perfect view of the ocean |
Day 3: We headed off the resort this day to go to Atlantis. It's a huge resort down the beach from Sandals and has a water park, casino, restaurants etc. We got to see more of the Bahamas on our cab ride over there and I was surprised to see how poor it was. It was much worse than Mexico; parts seem to be destroyed during hurricanes and never get repaired.
Atlantis itself was extremely overwhelming. It was too big- we literally got lost walking around- and very expensive. It was $110 per person for just the waterpark day pass and another $80 for the aquarium. We didn't pay for the aquarium but lucked out later in the day when we just walked right in. Again, being that it was September (and 2:30 on a Wednesday) there was hardly anyone there.
The water slides were great and the aquaurium turned out to be pretty badass too! By the time we were done with them though we were too tired to even attempt the casino or restaurants at Atlantis so we ventured back "home" and had dinner at the Crystal Room. I had some of the best prime rib and crab legs I've ever eaten!
Then the party got going late night at the Pub and one glass of white wine led to probably a whole bottle and I danced my ass off, much to Jason's embarrassment, with the staff and other locals all night. As with my bachelorette party, people were down right shocked to see such a white girl have such good dance moves.
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| toll booth to keep the riff raff out of Atlantis |
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| love it! |
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| this shark came start at me through the glass- almost died of fear! |
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| sword shark |
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| fish larger than Jason! |
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| this water slide goes underwater into a clear tube that runs through the shark tank |
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You can see from outside the tube running through the tank and these sharks were larger than Jason!
You may or may not know but I am mildly agoraphobic; large spaces without much in them (e.g. deep water, outer space, even being on the 50 yr line in an empty stadium) give me really bad anxiety. When I opened my eyes in the tank part of the slide I almost had a heart attack because it was like being deep in the ocean with sharks all around. |
Day 4: Woke up very hung over...
Laid in bed far too long and only got up because I had a spa service booked for 1:30. I got an 80 minute West Indian massage and a 35 minute Feet First Reflexology massage. It was so amazing that I actually feel asleep on the bed and I felt a million times better once I left.
Went back to the room for a nap, because that's what you do after sleeping in and getting a two hour massage... those are tiring ya know. We went to dinner Kimonos and Jason actually tried sushi! It was very entertaining and we ended the night at- you guessed it!- the ocean front lounge beds and topped it off with some late night pub food.
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| Jason catching the flying shrimp in his mouth! |
Day 5: Included in Sandals Royal Bahamian is an offshore island. There is a ferry that leaves from the dock every hour so we caught the first ferry and were so totally in love with the island that I never wanted to leave!
This was the only day there was any bad weather, the sky opened up and rained like hell for about 10 minutes and then cleared up right away. Gotta love the Caribbean!
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| awesome tiki hut lounge beds right on the beach |
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| view from tiki hut lounge bed |
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| down pour |
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| the sky 10 minutes later |
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| sunbathing |
Day 6: This day we decided to try the few snorkeling offered by the resort. The waters didn't seem too bad from shore, but once we got farther out the waves were pretty high and my fear of deep water set in again. I got sea sick after about 10 minutes of being in the water and it didn't get any better back on the boat :-( This was about the only bad thing about the trip though so I can't complain and I was proud of myself for just getting in the water!
That night we partied at the Pub again with the couples friends we had made and met another couple from Jersey. Everyone was super nice- who wouldn't be in a good mood in paradise!?
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| Drink of choice on the beach, Miami Vice, it's 1/2 pina colada and 1/2 strawberry daiquiri. YUM! |
Day 7: Sunday Jason stayed in the room in the afternoon to keep his Irish self out of the sun and to try and catch some football. I went to the party pool and won the "Name that Tune" game, got myself a nice bottle of rum :-)
We ate at the pizzeria and were super stoked to be able to catch the Season Premiere of one of our favorite shows on Showtime, Dexter! It was a pretty laid back day and as much fun as the Bahamas were we started getting a bit home sick. Neither of us have ever been away from Eva for more than a long weekend so 8 days had us suffering from full on Eva withdrawals! Complete with the shakes and sweats...
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| had to get a picture of how tan I was :-) |
Day 8: Our final day at the resort we packed, spent a little more time at the party pool then got cleaned up, ate lunch and headed out to the airport.
Our flight out of Nassau was on time but once in Miami our flight was delayed and we had to sit around ffffooooorrreeeeevvvveeeeerrrr! I was also a bit annoyed that it felt like we were in another country. Everything was in Spanish and then some things were also in English. No joke, signs and announcements would be in Spanish first and then sometimes also in English. There was also a woman sitting right across from us at our boarding gate whose 4, maybe 5 year old, kept crawling up into her lap, pulling down her tank top and breast feeding like there was no tomorrow. I am all for breastfeeding, wish I could have done it longer with Eva, but if you're child is about to enter school, maybe it's time to stop breast feeding. At least in public. Or at least cover up when your kid whips your whole boob out. Just a thought...
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| We were level with the moon on our flight home |
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| Almost 1st Class seats! |
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| Sad to be leaving... |
We finally got home around 1:30am. We were very tired and missed the sunshine but we're happy to be home with Eva and Tyson. While we had an amazing, restful, romantic time, we've decided to only do long weekends away for the next few years. Wait for the longer trips until Eva can come with.
I'm thinking a B&B in Duluth for our anniversary...
