Not THE Big Island, but A big island: Our Honeymoon in Aruba

By the time we left for our honeymoon, we were exhausted! We had soooo much fun with all of our friends and family but we were pretty much non-stop for at least the two weeks prior to leaving for Aruba. When we planned our trip to Aruba, we didn't know we'd be going to Hawaii so soon after our return. With travel PT everything is pretty last minute.... so were still in the negotiating phase with the people here in Hawaii when we left for Aruba.

Anyway, we finally made it, and it was a welcome sigh of relief from all of our recent excitement. For the first 5 nights we stayed at the Renaissance Hotel down town in Oranjestad. This hotel definitely has a more city feel to it with lots of shopping, places to eat, and an all night casino. Here we are, right off the plane, jumping right into relaxation mode:

At the outdoor hotel bar: Blue

This hotel had a pool that was raised above the street. You can see the Caribbean across the street in background:

From the first floor of the Renaissance, you could hop on a boat to their private island. It was about a 10 min boat ride and worth every minute!

Here we are on the boat:

The beach on the island was amazing. Beautiful white sand, swaying palm trees, hammocks sprinkled all over the place, a tropical bar... who could ask for more? There are two different beaches on the island. One is for anyone. We though the sand on this beach was a little less rocky and we enjoyed it's proximity to the bar. The other beach was adults only. We were going to stay away from this beach, but we heard it had some flamingos....so we decided to check it out.... for the "flamingos".

Here's one of the hammocks we mentioned.... can't you just picture my Dad here?!?!

Besides "flamingos" the private island had lots of other wildlife to offer us. Here is one of the many iguanas roaming around the island... they were everywhere.
One early morning we were the first people to the island and had it all to ourselves. We spent quite a while watching crabs dig themselves out from under the sand. This one kept trying to get out of the sand but would see the two of us and then rebury himself. I guess we're easily amused!
Since we weren't sure what the final numbers would be for our wedding until the last minute, we weren't sure how much money we'd have left over for our honeymoon. To ensure that we could enjoy ourselves we decided to register for some of the things we wanted to make sure we had time to do. We were lucky enough that ALL of our gifts from our honeymoon registry were given to us! The first activity that we registered for was the Mi Dushi Sunset Lovers Cruise given to us by our good friends Lesa and Matt. This was an AWESOME cruise! We met some really nice people and basically just relaxed for a few hours on the open sea. They had an open bar and the crew was super nice. Here we are on the hammock at the front of the boat:

They also had a rope swing that you could swing right into the water with! I was a little nervous about this but decided I had to give it a shot:

(I know - a really attractive shot of me!)

Here's Adam showing off with a back flip!

Since we had so much fun with one of the couples we met on the Mi Dushi, we decided we should use our next gift the following night with them. Adam's parents, Jason, and Wil purchased us our bar crawl on the Kuku Kanuku. This was a wild ride! It started off by going to each participants' hotel. We were the first to be picked up, along with our new friends Laura and Blu. First stop was for a sunset on the beach with a champagne toast. Here's a good shot of the spectacle of a bus:
Our tour guide for the evening was Mama. She was absolutely crazy but a ton of fun. Here we are posing with our Mama:
Next stop was for dinner at some one's really beautiful mansion. Dinner was edible at best, but the company was great. The couple sitting across from us and at the end of the table are both from Boston. The girl sitting next to us was a physical therapy assistant.... so lots of great conversation with some really nice people.

So here's the deal with the Kuku Kanuku: You buy a sippy cup and get a "free" drink at each of the three bars you visit. If you want another drink you have to buy it. These drinks were quite strong and the sippy cup was no thimble. We have no idea where we were all night. The bus would go around these round abouts 4-5 times in a row honking it's horn and with all of us yelling and shaking our maracas that we had been given. At the second bar, we were welcomed by a surprise performance by the apparently reincarnated Michael Jackson:

And, as if that wasn't enough..... he actually got back on the bus with us and came to the third bar! The third bar was a trip. They had all these Mexican props for us to play with. It was like a Mexican Fiesta:

Beth doing the Mexican Hat Dance with our new friends cheering me on:

This evening ended with a search for pizza that resulted in finding some not so tasty hamburgers. All in all, it was enjoyable evening, and lucky for us, we got to sleep in the next morning!
Next up was our gift from our friends Erin, Kaine, and Kim. The bought us a Tom Car excursion and snorkel trip. A Tom Car is a four wheel drive vehicle that looks like this:


Adam had a ton of fun driving this thing around through sand and rocks. I was terrified for most of the time and screaming my head off! I was the only female on the trip and after doing it I understand why. We were absolutely covered from head to toe in dirt when we were done - and I mean absolutely covered. I was a little embarrassed walking back into the hotel when we were done.... that's how dirty we were.... ew! The tour was pretty cool and you got to see a lot of things that you wouldn't otherwise have access too. Here is a natural bridge formed by rock behind us. This one is actually called Baby Bridge. There used to be a bigger one, but it fell down a few years back.

The next day we packed up our things and moved to the Westin. Because we get points for SPG hotels, this portion of our honeymoon was FREE! This hotel was totally different from the Renaissance. It is in what is referred to as the "high rise" district of the island. This is on the west coast of the island and the beach is lined with hotel after hotel. There was a little more stress associated with this beach because if you wanted a cabana, you had to arrive early. If you didn't get a cabana, then you may as well lay yourself down on top of a fire because you will burn. This is pretty much what we looked like for most of our honeymoon:
You can see the beach is kind of crowded. We missed the peacefulness of the private island, but we by no means suffered here at the Westin! We should mention that, not only did we have enough points to have 5 nights for free here, but our wedding planner, Anne, completely hooked us up! She had us upgraded to a junior suite overlooking the water with not one, but two porches! We were also given a bottle of champagne and a free night at the Westin in Aruba to be used some time within the next two years! We feel incredibly lucky and really appreciate everything that Anne did to make our wedding day and honeymoon super special.
Anyway, here is the sunset from one of our two porches:

Next up is our barefoot dinner on the beach at the Westin given to us by our cousins Heidi, John, and their daughter Monica, and Lisa, Scott, and their kids Rachel, Lauren, and Matt. What a great gift! They made you take your shoes off as soon as you stepped on the beach. We had a 5 course meal that was delicious! Shrimp cocktail, escargot, Caesar salad, fillet Mignon and Mahi Mahi, and dessert (which we barely had any room for!). They also served us a bottle of champagne! Here we are before the sun went down:

A little romance between courses:

Dancing on the beach after dinner:

This was one of our best meals in Aruba and definitely our most memorable!

Our last gift was a couples' massage at the spa at the Westin given to us by Aunt Judy, Uncle Mike, and cousins Drew, Erin, Logan, Kennedy, Kati, and Greg. We thought it would be a little weird to take pictures of this, so we don't have any. But, we had an awesome time and were super relaxed afterward. We got a bottle of champagne and some chocolates afterwards too. Notice a trend? I think we had at least one bottle of champagne per day in Aruba and that doesn't count any mimosas we may have had in the early part of the day!

One of our last nights we met a nice couple at happy hour. There just happened to be a baggo set at the Westin, and we thought since this couple had never played, that it would be an easy win. We one the first two games, but then they kicked our butts the next three after Adam showed the guy the proper technique for throwing the bean bags.

They were pretty happy that they won:

We had an amazing time in Aruba and highly recommend it to anyone who wants a romantic vacation on a beautiful beach. The people of Aruba are all super nice and it's motto is "one happy island". We can see why and were really said to leave!