honeymoon in Barbados (part 5)

For the last day of our honeymoon, the mister set up a very special excursion. While researching things to do outside of the trips offered by our resort, he found a small, family-run stable that offered horseback rides. The reviews were amazing, so he called and arranged for us to take a one hour ride. The owners, Sam and Bernard, who are husband and wife, were extremely nice and very accommodating. Bernard picked us up at our resort and drove us to their home, where we signed some paperwork and got set up on our horses. Bernard, and his assistant, Sham, then took us and one other couple on our ride. Bernard was a wonderful tour guide, sharing with us the history and culture of Barbados as well as entertaining us with some of his poems and freestyle raps. He called it "edu-tainment." I also lucked out that he volunteered to take my camera, so we have some great photos of us on our horses.

Bernard (on the left) and Sam (on the right) helping the mister up on his horse, Bishop

me and Zorro

and we're off!

Bishop had to be put on a lead for part of the trip because he was being ornery

Bishop was not happy to be in the water. Zorro loved it.

back at the stables

Once we were done with our ride, Sam brought us some delicious fresh-squeezed juice and after we cooled off a bit Bernard drove us back to the resort. On the way back, he bought us some sugar cane to try. It's very hard and basically you just tear off a chunk and suck out the super sweet juice before spitting the cane back out. I couldn't even manage to tear off my own piece. The mister loved it, but I wasn't a huge fan.


Hands down, this was the best part of our trip. Sam and Bernard (and their two girls) are such a lovely family. Their business is well run and you can tell that they love what they do. We learned so much about the culture and history of Barbados and it was definitely more personal and intimate than the large resort-run tours.

Once we were back at our resort, tired and sore from our ride, we decided to top off the day with a couples' massage. It was absolutely heavenly and the perfect way to end our honeymoon. The next morning we were up at 3:30 to catch our 7am flight back to the states. Back to reality...

honeymoon in Barbados (part 4)

The day after our history lesson, the mister and I signed up for the sea safari tour through the resort. So. Much. Fun. After being bussed to the marina bright and early, we boarded our catamaran (?), slathered up with plenty of sun screen, and set sail to snorkel and swim with the sea turtles!













The turtles were so calm and gentle. There were big ones, small ones, and ones with really old, mangled shells. I could have floated in the warm Caribbean waters for hours, just watching. While on our safari, we also snorkeled near two shipwrecks, had a yummy Barbadian lunch - complete with rum punch - and swam in the crystal blue waters of Carlisle Bay. It's relaxing just to think about it.

Only one more honeymoon recap to go - and this was the definite highlight of the trip!

the hangover (kit)

UPDATE (1/16/13):
Thank you all for the kind words and interest in my bachelor party hangover kit tags! Due to the influx of requests, please email me at hmgmcguire at gmail dot com to inquire about availability and pricing for customized hangover kit tags.

Please note that I prefer to be emailed directly (hmgmcguire at gmail dot com). I will not reply to comments left on my blog.

Thank you again for your interest!

-Heather


 Original post:

This weekend the future mister went to Charleston for his Bachelor Party. A grand time was had by all and luckily there were no babies, tigers, missing teeth or lost and sunburned grooms. I did have a bit of fun on Thursday night (and a much needed break from invitations) while I created these for the guys:

Hangover Kits! They each contained two bottles of water, two mini bottles of Gatorade, a travel bottle of Advil, Pepto-Bismol, hand sanitizing wipes, gum, and some Airborne for extra antioxidants and electrolytes. Oh, and the future mister got a small box of BC Powder, his preferred headache medicine.

And here's a closeup of the tags I made for each guy (Warning: there is some foul language on some of them. Not meant to offend, just quotes from the movie).

images from imdb.com, photoshopped by me

I was told my kits were "life savers" on Saturday morning.

What did your fiance do for his bachelor party?

Aruba, Jamaica oooo I wanna take ya...

To Barbados!

A few weeks ago we were finally able to wrap up our honeymoon plans! Barbados isn't one of the places we thought we would be honeymooning, but I won't bore/confuse you with the long story involving my parents' timeshares (which I still don't fully understand myself). Regardless, all we want is an all inclusive resort in the Caribbean, and Barbados fits the bill.

Bright and early the Sunday morning after our wedding, the future mister and I will be jetting off to the Almond Casuarina Resort in St. Lawrence Gap, Barbados.

(source - all photos)

I'm REALLY looking forward to being able to unwind with the (no longer!) future mister and the three B's - Beach, Booze and Books. One of the things we liked about this resort is that we can take the complimentary shuttle to check out the beaches and restaurants on the two other Almond properties on the island (just in case we get bored with the selection at our resort). We're also really excited about some of the optional excursions we can take:

Rum & History Tour (of the oldest rum distillery in the world - Mount Gay)
Sunset Cocktail Cruise
Outback 4x4 Tour
Turtle Feeding Trip

Daydreaming about this place will certainly help me through the winter blahs! What criteria did you use to decide on your honeymoon?