Honeymoon Part 3-Wrap Up

We had further adventures on our Honeymoon such as:

• Jeep tour (which was like a pick up truck with a roll cage on the back). The tour was amazing, from Captain Cook's landing, to Tahitian Pearl shopping, to the top of Magic Mountain(the view from the top is breathtaking), to a pineapple plantation and more! Definitely worth the money.
• Rented a car and drove the entire island-On one of our last days on the island it rained...ALL DAY, granted we went during their typical "monsoon" season, it would maybe rain once a day as a light sprinkling, but this day, it absolutely poured. Therefore, we went to our concierge desk and rented a car at the hotel. We drove around the entire island, stopping at their major grocery store, some strip malls, as well as some Tahitian pearl stores. It was a ton of fun to see the other side of the island where the locals mainly are. 
• We walked to local stores to explore
• Hung out in the Hotel Pool and Bar
• Enjoyed the spa at the hotel with a couples massage

Overall, we had a wonderful Honeymoon that was relaxing as well as adventurous. We would highly recommend going to Tahiti and more specifically, Moorea. 

35 Hour Sale!

Carnival is having a wonderful 35 Hour sale! 
We've booked our cruise and our bags are ready to go!

See you there!
 Visit Carnivals 35 Hour Sale now!

Honeymoon dining experiences

We are so excited to share with you our delicious encounters in French Polynesia.

We always ate at the hotel for breakfast since it was complimentary and helped us save some money to spend on other meals. Note: not everyone receives complimentary breakfast. Typically if you booked an extensive stay with the hotel, you will receive more incentives.

Breakfast was always good. They call it a continental American breakfast with Asian influence throughout the options. One thing is you need to learn to order your eggs the way the egg cook will understand. I usually had to tell them flipped. If you say over easy or over medium, they cook them like cooking up eggs. There was always an assortment of bread, sweet breads, Tahitian prepared fish, yogurts, cereals and breakfast meats. 

Lunch

We ventured out once for lunch. Typically we were at the pool at lunch time and ordered off their menu. The pool menu offered Happy Hour throughout the day which was nice since they offered different food then the main dining area.

We went to Snack Mahana the day we decided to venture out. It was about a quarter of a mile walk from our hotel each way. It is a local favorite and good eats for an afternoon snack. 

When we arrived, we realized we did not bring enough money as we would have been comfortable having and the place did not take cards. We had $48 which seems like a lot for lunch, but it covered the check to the penny exactly.

There was a lot of confusion about how to be seated and how to order. No one talked to us or told us anything yet spoke with people who arrived after us. We made the educated decision to seat ourselves. We had someone arrive to take our order about ten minutes later. Jon ordered fresh squeezed pineapple juice to drink and I ordered a local beer. The nice thing with all the restaurants in Tahiti is that they give you bread and butter as part of your meal. No matter what you are eating, you will get bread and butter.

Jon ordered a cheeseburger and I ordered a tuna steak sandwich. The food was good, nothing spectacular. This could be due to not having enough money to order anything too expensive.

Went to pay after the meal and it was $48 exactly and tipping is not customary in Tahiti so we did not have to worry about not having enough money to tip.

Dinner

We always went out to eat for dinner typically. Pretty much all the restaurants and the hotels had agreements for shuttle service to pick up and drop off hotel guests. All you had to do was go to the concierge and tell them what you are looking for and for what night and they will book you the reservation.

Le Mayflower

This restaurant is considered the fanciest restaurant to go dine at on the island. We saved it for our last dinner in Mo'Orea. This is the only restaurant that you have to pay for the shuttle service. It was like $5 a person I believe. We had made some friends earlier that week and they surprised us at dinner by crashing our reservation, which we were perfectly fine with! We really enjoyed their company and have created a friendship. 

We had bread and butter, like every restaurant, pineapple wine, Jon ordered a steak entree and Mary ordered their famous lobster ravioli. Though the food was delicious, we believe the hype was too high for the restaurant and the food did not blow our minds per-say. We, of course, ordered dessert which was delicious as well. Mary ordered a pineapple ice cream sundae and we are hazy to what Jon ordered haha.

Overall, the food was delicious and the company was great. Would not rank it as high as the concierge and travel books would, but definitely worth checking out. 

Les Tipaniers

This was the first place we ventured out for dinner. It came recommended by our travel book and by the concierge. Shuttle pick up was free and they took you back to the hotel promptly after your meal.

They are an Italian restaurant with a small hotel attached. We cannot pinpoint exactly what we had to eat here. It was average Italian food, nothing too delicious to remember it by.

Coco d'Isle

Though we did not know it at the time, this place was our most favorite restaurant to eat at! We ate here before Le Mayflower because it was not as "upscale" as Le Mayflower, but definitely had the best food options with the most delicious food.

We ordered pineapple wine and received bread and butter, like usual. Jon ordered a pizza and Mary ordered off the tourist menu. The food did not disappoint at all!

Jon thoroughly enjoyed his pizza and even took some back to the hotel. The Tourist menu included a three course meal. Mary chose the raw tuna appetizer, the steak entree and a bananas foster dessert. The appetizer and entree were so delicious and decadent, you did not even need the dessert to top off the experience.

This is the number one restaurant we always tell people about whenever they ask us about what we really enjoyed eating in Mo'Orea.

Tahitian Village Dinner Show 

We booked this evening as an excursion when we booked our honeymoon. It was a fun and cultural evening out. 

We were picked up by a shuttle at the hotel that transferred us to the village. We checked in and were taken to a refreshment area where they had an alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverage waiting for us. This area had a beautiful view of the ocean during the sunset. We waited here until all guests had arrived and we started our tour through the village. We learned about their heritage, cultural, traditions and how they were founded. We were then led to the area where they had our dinner cooking in the ground and shared the history about cooking under ground.

After the tour through the town, we headed to the dining area. We were seated in groups and were able to go fill up our plates. Drinks were not included in this package. As we made our way to the buffet line, we noticed how different the villagers eat compared to what we had been eating all week. Everything was mayonnaise based and contained lots of fish in which we were not accustomed to their preparation. The smoked pig was good, just a bit fatty and no sauce to go with it.

After dinner, two of the villagers put on a show on how many ways men and women can wear a sarong. This portion lasted a lot longer than it should have. The total show was about 45 minutes of watching a sarong transformed into different outfits.

Once the sarong show was over, we made our way to the seating area for a show. The villagers started us off with some humor by pulling a man from the audience to try and open a coconut according to the way they had just showed us. Then they pulled all the women on stage to hula dance.

Once the show started, the villagers focused on their wedding traditions and their fire dancing. The villagers put on a magnificent show and provided us with a meet and greet after. It was a fun evening to do something out of the norm.

Today's cruise deals

Looking for a quick getaway?
I've received two updates today from some amazing cruise lines about awesome deals they are having...
1. Carnival is having a Super Saver Sale but book only until Sunday!! www.carnival.com 
2. Royal Caribbean is having a 48 hour sale on some of their hottest destinations- www.royalcaribbean.com 

Our next cruise is in March of 2015-sailing on Carnival cruise lines and headed to "The Saints," Hope to see you there!

HoneyMoon Part 2

After being greeted at the airport by the live flower Lei's

, we went to our hotel (Intercontinental) which was beautiful. We checked in (while having a signature orange drink) and found out we had received a free upgrade as well as free room credit to use at the hotel. The room was very nice and had a beautiful beach view. 

Since it was our honeymoon, we received a little gift from the hotel and headed off to bed. The next morning we woke up and headed straight outside. It was absolutely beautiful (really humid for us dry heat veterans). We went straight to their restaurant at the hotel and had breakfast. 

The restaurant has no air conditioning or anything as it is outside. We ate with the birds and other animals outside and walked around exploring our hotel. In the afternoon, we had a transfer from the hotel to the pier where we were catching our ferry to the island of Mo'orea. The pier area has a lot of people around there and we just sat and waited for the ferry to arrive, all-in-all, about an hour. After getting on the ferry and the short ride (about 45 minutes) over to Mo'orea, we had a transfer directly to our hotel, again, another Intercontinental hotel. 

It was beautiful. The entire lobby/bar had a roof over it, but other than that it was completely open air. We loved every minute of it. We headed off to our bungalow (not an over-the-water one) and settled in. The room was beautiful with our own pool on the deck and sun lounge chairs. The room had a nice bathroom, a nice sitting/living room area, as well as a separate bedroom. Beware that the room has one air conditioner in the bedroom and other than that the windows are just screens. 

So, if you get bit by mosquitoes, head to your local drug store to get some spray. What seemed to work well for Mary was one that we purchased locally at the grocery store, it does include deet, hence the reason it actually works. We explored the hotel a bit which had a dolphin area as well as a sea turtle rehabilitation area. It was magnificent. 

We decided to do dinner at the hotel. There we shared a steak and a noodle dish. It was pretty good food (although we were hungry, so it could have just been that). We sat outside for a while before turning in for the night. 

HoneyMoon Part 1

I know that it has been a long time since we posted, and we apologize, but in our defense, we have been swamped with our new puppy!

On to the beginning of our Honeymoon, Let me preface it with when we left the wedding reception to us leaving on our journey. Our ceremony and reception were on Friday, and we had many friends and family that flew in from all over the country to be there. So Saturday Morning, we snuck off to einstein bagels (we were starved [we didn't eat at the actual reception]). After eating at einstein bagels  we went to Mary's family's house for a brunch where we had her entire family and a lot of our great friends there. We packed the car full of our gifts (yay!) and headed to Jon's aunts house where his entire family was. We had lunch there (even though we just finished eating) and went off to get gas and headed home. After getting home and unloading our car, we heated up our leftovers (AKA our meals from the wedding reception) and packed to leave to Tahiti the next morning!

Our plane took off to LAX on Sunday morning. We arrived at LAX and we were hungry as it was early in the morning and our flight did not leave until 3PM. We attempted to get to the international terminal (knowing that there is plenty more to eat/do in that terminal) Unfortunately, they don't let you in the international terminal until AFTER the ticketing gate opens for your specific flight, which is 3 hours before your flight takes off. They even had checked us in in Tucson for the international flight, but you need to re-check in apparently. Therefore, we were hungry and seatless until noon. Did I mention it is like 8:45 AM? So, after asking all the employees, we determined that the ONLY place to eat was an employee type cafeteria area. What a great start to our Honeymoon. After walking off our breakfast and waiting for a little while, our ticket gate opened and we were the second in line! We got ticketed, went through security, and hello beautiful international terminal. One thing about our air carrier. Air Tahiti Nui, they will not upgrade you to save your life. Even if there are only two people in first class and the plane is 30% full.

We decided to eat somewhere and decided on the Border Grill. From what we thought, mediocre food got us through. Then we wanted to explore the lovely terminal. It was all brand new and it was really nice. We caught our flight from some random terminal in the middle of this weird area with big air conditioning tubes. If I could remember what it was called or what number it was, I would tell you. From that terminal, you board a bus and they take you to another area in which you board your airplane. It was awesome! We are avid believers in flying Air Tahiti Nui. Upon boarding the aircraft, they give you a flower and we sat in our seats. What was great is our airplane was about only 30% full, therefore we had no problem spreading out. After we took off, we received our drinks- Hello Champagne (by the bottle, in all, we downed six). They also serve 3 meals on this flight, and not any chincy peanuts (which we still love by the way). I am taking full meals- Hot and all. The flight is awesome because there are personalized like tablets in the back of all seats. You can watch Television, see where you are flying, or turn it off to sleep.

Upon arrival, we realized that the flight attendants had changed outfits multiple times throughout the flight. They were hilarious and very attentive to all of our needs. When we stepped off the airplane (yes, stepped) we headed straight to the area where our luggage was (very humid and pretty much outdoors, be prepared). We then went through Customs and found our van ride, they greeted us with Live flower Lei's!

Day one of Honeymoon is complete.

Stay tuned for more!

Coming Soon- Our HoneyMoon Adventures!

Coming soon will be a few blogs of our HoneyMoon adventures. Check out the preview below. We went to Tahiti!! Please note that it was a week long vacation and we really explored the islands therefore it will take a few posts to tell you what we did and what we recommend. In the meantime, if you have questions about it, please comment and let us know! 

Want to head to Tahiti? Check out their airline website. In our books it gets a flying 5 star! http://www.airtahitinui-usa.com

Most Recently-Alaska

Let us first tell you about our latest travel adventure: ALASKA- Known as the Last Frontier. 
We went here on Norwegian Cruise Line- The Norwegian Jewel. (As an editors note- Mary has been to Alaska with her family before this trip. But, it was my first time) Leaving out of Seattle, our first Port was Ketchikan, AK. Here we went to the logging show which is only a few steps from the ship's port. It was awesome! A must do! They teach you all about the logging culture as well as it is interactive. (Alaskanlumberjackshow.com). From there we went across the street (literally ten steps) to the Bar- Fat Stan's. Where we had a good stop for Beer before shopping in this mall area where Fat Stan's is located. After that the sun was out and we sat on the patio at Crab Cracker Seafood Bar. Please note that I do not like seafood, but Mary does and the rest of the group that we were with does.  Everyone ordered a variety of things, but let me tell you, what you order is what you get. You order King Crab legs, you're going to get only King Crab legs on a plate. Nothing else. So, please beware. After that we got back on to the ship to sail away. What is amazing about this place though is the planes are flying in on the water and much littler boats are surrounding the cruise ship, so it really is a treat to be outside when departing from this port. The next day we were in Juneau, AK. For starters, I knew Alaska would be cold, but did not know how cold! It was windy and rainy in Juneau. But, we took a wonderful bus tour around the city and learned more about the Alaskan culture there before taking a ride to Mendenhall Glacier. We did not hike to the falls near the glacier but got some great photos. It was freezing, but absolutely beautiful. We also visited the museum/visitor center (that costs $3 to get into) But it was well worth it as it shows you the melting of the glacier as well a teacher you about the animals. It also has restrooms and is toasty warm inside. After boarding the ship again and departing, we then sailed through Sawyer Glacier area (with all of the ice in the water, Titanic definitely goes through your head). It was cold, but absolutely beautiful. The best part? You get to see it all from the ship. 
The next day, we were in Skagway, AK. Where coming into port, there was a 5.8 earthquake, which apparently some people felt on the ship, and we slept through it. Either way, we got off in the morning to take a bus tour. Stop # 1 was the old cemetery where they tell you the old history of the town of about 900 people. Stop # 2 was a snowy hill in the mountains, where naturally a snowball fight broke out. In to Canada (about 10 mins.) and back into USA. We then went gold panning at this place where they also have a lot of tours (sorry, the name slips me). Then we went to the main street and went shopping. First, we stopped for a shot at the brothel that was PACKED! 1. they do tours there and 2.  it is a popping place to be, I highly suggest getting there early to have a drink. We also went to a popcorn place that as on the main stretch. It was so amazing! They literally pour the popcorn smells onto the street for you to go in there. After some shopping, we took a quick 5 minute walk back to the ship. If we were to head back again, a helicopter tour of some sort would definitely be in the works. After our next day at sea, we went on to Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada). This was both of our second time to this port and we absolutely fall in love with it more every time we visit. A very colonial looking town, with many young people, bars, coffee shops, food, and history. We started with, guess what else than a bus tour around the city. Where you can actually see Washington State, USA at certain points! We then headed out to The Docks restaurant (http://www.thedocksnow.com) Where we had wonderful food and service. On top of it being on the water, we sat at the back in what we would be used to calling a Sun/Florida/Arizona room. It was absolutely beautiful to eat out there before we went shopping around the downtown district and then of course took some photos in front of The Empress hotel (Which you cannot miss) then headed back to the ship to head out to Seattle. 

Overall, this trip was amazing. The thing that bothered us was the cruise ship. This was the second time we sailed Norwegian Cruise Lines (First time was to Bermuda, which will be another blog post). Both times that we have sailed them it has mostly been a disappointment. Lack of good food and good service. Also, they always shut down the buffet for certain hours of the day (which are the only hours that we are hungry) and then put the same food over and over out. Also, beware that they do not serve Lobster tail on this cruise, which was also a major disappointment as they had a real lack of good seafood. 

Pictures from this trip will follow.
Can you tell us about your Alaska Adventures? 

Welcome!

Welcome, First let us introduce ourselves to you.
A newly married couple that has traveled together many places inside and outside of the United States. With many upcoming trips planned, we want to share our experiences as well as deals we find for the money savvy travelers. In our mid twenties, what would we know about traveling right? Well, shockingly we have traveled many places that our entire families have yet to be and most likely will not go to. Therefore, we figured we can set up a site to share our experiences with the public as well as friends and family. Also, we will be sharing deals that we find on certain vacation destinations that you can book as well! 
If you have any questions for us, please email us!
-Jon and Mary

Can someone tell us where this is from?