Friday, June 27, 2014

Honeymoon |Part Five|: Freeport, Bahamas


Freeport was our last stop on our honeymoon.


Cody had warned me that Freeport may be a lot like our experiences at the beach at Atlantis, but luckily it was the complete opposite. We were both so relieved, and had a great time on yet another beach excursion.

I have to give Cody some credit with all our days at the beach.
For someone who really could do without the beach, he really tried so hard to make me happy and made sure we had a great time each day. My husband is the best. :)


Thursday morning, we got off the ship and headed to where our excursion group was meeting. We chose the all-inclusive option, so food and drinks were included in the price. We all loaded onto charter buses, and they shipped us off to a beach about 20 minutes away from where we docked. As weird as it sounds, I actually really enjoyed riding through the island, seeing what everyday life was like for these people. It was very eye-opening, and made you realize there's more to the Bahamas than pretty beaches and drinks in coconuts!

Once we arrived at the beach, we noticed that it was almost like a mini-resort. A bar, restaurant, mini straw market, photo shop, clean bathrooms and beautiful beaches with lawn chairs ready for use.



As we were walking over to pick out our beach chairs, we noticed the couple who ate lunch with us at Atlantis. We all decided to sit together, and we were sure glad we did. We had so much fun talking with them and getting to know each other more. It really made us feel like we were at the beach with good friends. We talked so much, Cody and I hardly even got in the water before it was time to eat lunch and go back to the bus. (which resulted in sunburns for the both of us...oops.)



After the bus ride back, we really only had a few minutes to walk around the pier where our ship was docked. But we had enough time to goof off a little and take some last honeymoon pictures - even in bacon shirts!






Once we got back to our room, we managed some quick showers, lots of aloe for our sunburns and yet another nap. The sun had completely worn us out. We somehow worked up the energy to get ready for a simple buffet dinner for the night. My outfit of choice - yoga pants to cover up my sun-scorched, aloe covered knees. (I was a big baby, I'll admit.)

Cody went a little crazy through the buffet line, eating about 30 mussels total.
He was so proud that he tried something new, he was asking me to take pictures of him! HE NEVER ASKS ME TO TAKE PICTURES OF HIM. He was that proud of himself. 
It was really cute!



After a walk around the boat, we ended up doing what we do best, sitting and talking in the lawn chairs on the upper deck. The sunset was completely stunning for our last night for our honeymoon.


We came back to our room to find our favorite towel design yet...


Now if only we could have two honeymoons. :)


In case you missed any of the other honeymoon recaps, you can check them out below!

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Honeymoon |Part Four|: Nassau, Bahamas


I have been advised by my biggest blog critic (my husband) that these posts are entirely too long and I need to cut to the chase for my readers' sake. ;) But I just can't do that because I don't want to forget a thing. So y'all bear with me, and I promise Cody said that very lovingly and jokingly. He really is my biggest fan. :)


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Our second honeymoon destination was Nassau, Bahamas.


 After bugging Cody pretty hard about taking beach excursions each day, we ended up booking an all-inclusive day at the beach at Atlantis for our day in Nassau. After hearing so many great things about it, and seeing how cool it was on TV, I was pretty excited to check it out for myself.


 Wednesday, we woke up to some pretty crappy weather. Lots of clouds and some showers. The Atlantis tour guides warned us about the 60% chance of rain for the day, and gave us the opportunity to get our money back for the excursion. We decided to still chance the trip and headed out anyway. And thank goodness we did! The weather turned out to be beautifully sunny, and we didn't see one raindrop the entire day.

The Atlantis tour guides were very informative and helpful, escorting us to the buses and eventually giving us a small tour of the resort as we headed to the beaches. Since, it was all inclusive, we were able to use the Atlantis towels and beach chairs, which was so nice and convenient.



The beach was absolutely beautiful. Clear, blue waters with white sand on shore.
Another perfect view for the day!






The only thing that stood in our way of having a peaceful and relaxing day at the beach was the constant nagging of locals that had no affiliation with the resort.

Hair braiding? No. Jewelry? No. Jet ski? No. Banana Boat? No. Booze cruise? No. Coconut drink? No. Get hammered? Get high? No. And no.

We didn't let them take away from our day by all means, but I was so shocked Atlantis allows for that to happen on their beach. It honestly, took a lot away from the resort for me. Once a place I would have liked to stay, but not so much anymore. Kinda disappointed. :(

Once we had enough of the sun and the talk of getting "hammered", we decided to use our free lunch coupons and find one of the restaurants we could eat at. After being turned away by two that were on the list (another annoyance...), we finally ended up getting hamburgers and chicken sandwiches to fill our hungry bellies. We found some shade and got to eating right away, when we noticed another couple from our cruise ship having to eat in the sun due to lack of open tables. Cody quickly offered the other side of our table for them, and got to talking to them like we had known them forever. They were so sweet, and they even shared that they found out they were pregnant the day before! We kind of felt honored to know!

Once we were done eating, our excursion tickets let us explore the aquariums on the resort. It was nice to get out of the sun and see all the fish and sharks just swimming away!









Cody and I took the scenic walk around the resort back to the bus, and we headed back to the ship.




Once we were back in town, we had some extra time to kill before we had to be on board. We decided to walk around, visiting the straw market, a few souvenier shops, as well as some local restaurants/bars.





We ended up at Conch N' Kalik, where we sat at the bar and ordered a few drinks. Eventually, we moseyed our way back to the dock where we sat on our balcony to take in the last few views of Nassau before our ship set sail to Freeport.







After yet another mid-day nap, we worked up the energy to get ready for dinner and enjoyed time walking around the boat. We ended up sitting by the pool, talking to old women and watching a lot of people attempt the Wobble at the cruise "pool party." Talk about entertaining. ;)





Our next and last stop was Freeport! 


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