The morning after our wedding we were off to the airport to fly to Florida for our honeymoon. We flew into Tampa and rented a Mustang convertible and drove 4 hours to our hotel in Miami.
The next morning we did some shopping to get some snacks and wine for the cruise and then headed to the port. We were sailing on the Carnival Ecstasy to Key West, FL and Cozumel, Mexico.
We were on the ship a few hours before we sailed away so we walked around, grabbed some drinks and Mike did a little drunk dancing.
Early the next morning we arrived in Key West. Neither of us have been there before and we didn't have any excursions planned so we rented a moped scooter and just did some sightseeing.
Funny Story, this isn't Mike's real wedding ring. On the way to the airport I realized he forgot his ring at home, so once got to Miami we went to Wal-Mart and he picked up this ring for $30 so he wouldn't be a newlywed without a wedding ring.
We were only in Key West for a half day and then we were off to Cozumel.
We arrived in Cozumel around the middle of the following day. We had an excursion planned. We rented dune buggies and were going snorkeling.
I do not know how to swim so I almost chickened out and didn't go snorkeling, but I knew if I didn't I would really regret it so I did it! It was awesome. As soon as we got about 2 feet into the water there were fish everywhere. We swam out with our group a good distance and checked out the fish and coral. I would totally go snorkeling again (I'll bring an underwater camera next time though)
After snorkeling we headed to the other side of the island for lunch. We stopped at a little hut on the beach and had some amazing tacos, beans, and rice.
I loved these pop cans and bottles. I actually saved them. They were of course written in Spanish, but they were also about half the size of cans and bottles here. So cute!
After lunch we drove back to port and did some shopping for the kids before heading back to the ship to watch for drunk people running so they wouldn't miss the ship.
When we got back to our room we had chocolate covered strawberries, champagne, and a Carnival Ecstasy 'ship on a stick' waiting for us. I had requested these about a week before our trip to surprise Mike.
Our final day on the ship was a sea day, we just hung out by the pool, ate a lot of food, took naps, and saw a couple shows. Early the following morning we were back in Miami and it was time to get off the ship =(
We rented a car again and headed up to Cocoa Beach. We did some driving around and hung out at the beach before getting dinner and heading to bed.
On our final day of our honeymoon we rented a kayak and headed to Manatee Park. Mike says this was the best part of the whole trip. We kayaked around for a few hours and were surrounded by manatees the whole time. Before we did this, Mike didn't know what a manatee was, he was a bit worried about them being mean and either biting him or tipping our kayak over.
Once we got in they just swam right up to us. They liked to be in the shade so they would just swim under us and hang out by our kayak. It was awesome.
Our final stop before heading home was Disney! We only had about 2 hours before we needed to get to the airport so we parked at Downtown Disney and practically ran to T-Rex for some lunch. We luckily grabbed a seat at the bar, ordered within minutes, stuffed our faces full and were off to the airport to head home.
We arrived at the airport, checked in, and got right on the plane. We were cutting it close, but we made it.
We had an awesome honeymoon and I want to thank everyone that bought us excursions or items off our Carnival Honeymoon registry. It helped out so much and we had so much fun! I can't wait to go cruising again with the kids.
