Friday, July 29, 2011

Our Honeymoon- St. Thomas USVI

We arrived home from Wilmington on Sunday night April 3rd around 9pm. We quickly unpacked the car of wedding presents, wedding decorations, clothes, etc. so that we could hurry up and repack for our Honeymoon. It was a quick turnaround, but one we were very excited about. We were sad that the most amazing weekend of our lives had come to an end so it was nice to think about the Honeymoon. We left Monday morning bright and early for St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. I have to admit that it took me a day to get out of the “weddings over” slump. Thank goodness we were in absolute paradise so it wasn’t too hard 
We arrived just after lunch time on Monday and headed straight for the hotel. We stayed at the Marriott Frenchman’s Reef thanks to my god-father Earl. He was incredibly kind and for a wedding present let us use his Marriott points for our 10 day stay in St. Thomas. I couldn’t believe how incredibly generous and selfless he is. Thanks dad for such an amazing god father!
Our first day was spent at the hotel enjoying the water, beach and room service. Needless to say we were exhausted from the weekend’s events, so a nice relaxing day lounging around our hotel was just what we needed. We had a nice seafood dinner out and then called it a night so we could rest up for the remaining days.
We were woken pretty early as our room faced the back of the hotel where the maids and workers utility office was. Since this was our honeymoon we decided to see if there was anything they could do to move us to a quieter room with a better view. Next thing we knew, we were being moved into a waterfront villa with an AMAZING view. Re-packing and re-un-packing was definitely worth having this room free of charge for the remaining 9 days stay. All I can say is Marriott definitely treated us like gold throughout our stay.
I’ll spare the moment to moment details and get to the main excursions we took. We started with a catamaran trip and snorkeling. We left from the hotel and headed out on the Sea Turtle excursion. The boat was really nice but sure was packed. In about 45 minutes we made it to our destination and quickly jumped in the water to begin snorkeling. The sea turtles were HUGE and everywhere. We even got to hold a sea urchin.
There were so many places we had researched and knew we wanted to see that we decided to rent a scooter while we were there.
At first we weren’t sure if we would rent it for just a few days, but before we knew it we ended up keeping it the entire rest of our trip because of the convenience of getting around the island and seeing the numerous places we wanted to see.
On our fourth day we hopped on the scooter and headed around the island stopping at Magen’s Bay . Magen’s Bay is said to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. We definitely agreed with the advertisement and felt this beach was incredible. We hiked from one end to the other, snorkeled, got some sun, and enjoyed a nice drink under the pavilion as we watched the sun set. We were hoping to get back to this beach another time while we were there, but there were so many places to see and things to do that we never got a chance.
On our fifth day we decided to take the ferry over to St. Johns. We had heard so many wonderful things about this island that we had to see it for ourselves. The neat thing is that you can take a ferry that allows you to bring your scooter or vehicle with you. This was the way to go because we definitely saw way more of the island with our own transportation. We were able to scoot around the entire island and see so many national parks as well as BEAUTIFUL beaches and fun little touristy shops and restaurants. We would lie out on the beach and snorkel for about an hour or two and then we would jump back on the scooter and head to the next destination.

We enjoyed St. John so much that we decided to come back on our eighth day on the island. We tried new restaurants and new beaches so as not to see the same thing twice. St. John was definitely one of our favorite places and we will be sure to get back there sometime soon…we hope!
For the rest of our stay we traveled to different beaches, spent some time at our resort, met fun locals as well as vacationers, shopped at the numerous duty free shops, enjoyed the nightlife, and ate at amazing restaurants. We enjoyed fabulous meals all around the island. One of our favorite hole in the wall spots was an outdoor jerk chicken and bar. There was always live entertainment and a sweet man cooking the jerk chicken. He would always give me samples. Another neat thing about this place were the chairs.
They weren’t normal bar seats, they were swings. We had a couple of nice dinners out as well as a few local yummy spots. We tried breakfast all over the island but my favorite was the crunchy French toast and fruit from our hotel.
Oh so yummy!!!
Kevin and I each picked out a “present” for ourselves to remember our honeymoon by. I chose David Yurman Jewelry and Kevin picked out a really neat watch. We picked up a few gifts for Ellie, my aunt and cousin who watched her and our parents. One of my favorite finds was a hand painted ornament with a bride and groom on the beaches of St. John. It says Just Married 2011. I can’t wait to pull it out this Christmas.
Before we knew it our trip was nearing an end. We had the most wonderful time and knew we would someday be back. We got lots of sun, spent amazing time together that we will never forget and traveled all over St. Thomas and St. John. It was definitely the PERFECT honeymoon. Needless to say when we returned home we may have been in a bit of a depression from the whirlwind 2 weeks we had just spent together. It was back to reality and work for us. But we sure were thankful to see our sweet puppy. We have so many incredible memories that we will treasure forever. We are so thankful for each other and the ability to take such an amazing honeymoon.

























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