As Mike Sees It (2)

Hello again everyone! It's been quite a while since I made an appearance here on the blog, but since Vicki's input on the honeymoon planning was restricted to her continuously reminding me all she cared about was "going someplace where someone brings me drinks as I lay on the beach," I did the heavy lifting on the planning so it makes sense that I should be the one who writes about it.

When we first started scheming about where to go on our honeymoon, and scheming is indeed the appropriate verb here, we were thinking someplace exotic. We both love to travel and therefore wanted to take this opportunity to go someplace we'd never been to and wanted to visit. The front runners were Greece, Thailand, and India. We soon realized since none of those places are exactly close, the flights are pretty pricey. But that wasn't going to dissuade us since (if you do this right) you only get one shot at a honeymoon. So it became a matter of figuring out which place made the most sense.

But leave it to a sitcom to throw a wrench in our plans. We were watching the Hawaii episode of Modern Family, which features a scene were Cam and Mitchell debate the merits of exploring and seeing sites on your vacation versus laying by the pool and getting pampered. I was firmly in Mitchell's camp on this one; when you go someplace you need to soak it all up and experience the place, because you can lie around anywhere. But then it hit us both: after the wedding and all the related craziness, lying around is what we're going to need. So in a moment of deep revelation we both decided that instead of spending lots of cash on the flight, we should go somewhere in the Caribbean that would be much cheaper to get to and invest the funds into an all-inclusive resort instead.

I thought it would be easy at that point but lo and behold, the Caribbean is full of all-inclusive resorts (guess we're not the first people to have this idea. Who knew?). So we (and by "we" I mean I) began doing our research into places that fit our budget and gave us what we wanted. After that we narrowed it down to about four different places. Then my anal grad-school-self kicked in and decided the best way to figure this out was to write down all the pluses and minuses of each place and assign them points based on that (I know, I'm a dork. I accept this fact and Vicki does too).

After considering everything the winner and place we booked is Secrets Wild Orchid in Montego Bay, Jamaica. The pluses on my list that led us this location include:

• Direct flights from Baltimore to Montego Bay, followed by a short drive to the resort from the airport
• Wait service at the beach and pool
• A soaking tub on our private balcony
• 8 restaurants and 10 bars on site
• The inclusion of a honeymoon package which gets us spa discounts, a bottle of champagne, and some other gifts
• Tons of activities, sports and otherwise, all included
• 24 hour room service, including stocking the mini bar
• DOLPHINS (<----Vicki's edit)

There are lots of others too, but this post has gone on long enough so I'll stop there. Since we've booked this we both feel much more at ease with everything, as we now know what reward is waiting for us at the end of the end of the tunnel (besides, you know, getting married). The place looks amazing and we both cannot wait to get there and start getting pampered. We have more info about the place (including the option for people to get us massages and other things as a wedding present; hint, hint) on our Wedsite.
Until then, we'll be dreaming of cocktails and sunsets on the beach...

 {source}

*sidenote, Vicki says that lady's butt is bigger than hers.