The Honeymoon Story.

D and I got married January 14 ,2006. 

We went on a Western Caribbean Cruise for our honeymoon, but that really wasn't the original plan.

OUR HONEYMOON- THE STORY 

Nope, first we wanted to go to New York City for our honeymoon and stay in the gorgeous, swanky Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. We'd take tours of NYC, shop, see Broadway shows, eat at Tavern on the Green, and take a dinner cruise around the Statue of Liberty. We then  finalized our wedding date, and realized  a super cold honeymoon  in NYC in January probably wasn't the most romantic honeymoon we could choose.  

We  then  talked about  going to a Sandals resort in St. Lucia. How romantic would an  adults  only, all-inclusive resort be? Awesome, amazing we thought. We checked into prices and flights, but it was incredibly  expensive. I've always been a  thrifty person and I just couldn't swallow the $$$ of paying for the Sandals resort.  

That's when D approached me about thinking about going on a cruise for our honeymoon. He said he knew I was claustrophobic and knew I had panic attacks when I felt I couldn't get out/off of something, but he REALLY REALLY wanted to cruise and thought I would honestly like it if I would just try it.  My thoughts were...Just try it? On our honeymoon? Not a time when I wanna be "trying" anything  other than "trying" on marriage at that point. He asked me to just pray about it. He then proceeded to show me pictures of cruises. He spreadsheet-ed out the daily cost of being on a cruise and showed me that compared to staying in a hotel and paying for food. He explained to me how we could see several places on a cruise without having to travel by car or plane. Instead, he said you just get on  the boat  and wake up the next day in a new place.  So after praying I got a peace with going on a cruise for a honeymoon. We weighed different cruise options available the week after our wedding, and decided on one.  (Notice I said we decided one one- not we prayed about one.) So somewhere around the beginning of August 2005 ,we booked and paid for a cruise IN FULL. We booked the Norwegian Sun out of New Orleans. God had different plans for us, however, because August 28, 2005 Hurricane Katrina hit the Southern Coast of the US. completely devastating the entire New Orleans region. Our cruise was canceled.  

We immediately called Norwegian, but they refused to refund our cruise costs right away. They said it would probably take up to3 months to refund our money. THREE MONTHS!?! No way, needed that money to book another honeymoon ASAP. We called the credit card company that we had used to book the cruise with- CitiCard. And let me tell you, they were amazing. We explained the situation, and they said they would be happy to refund me the money now and then  they would fight  Norwegian to get the refund. YAY! So then, we had another decision to make- what honeymoon do we take now?

Well this time we prayed about it and got peace about going on a Royal Caribbean Cruise out of Port Canaveral in Florida.  (And little did we know just how much this decision would really change our lives- more to come on that in the  future) 

WE had a complete peace about booking this one. Both of us- not just one of us, but BOTH of us. Not only did we have a  God given peace, but the cruise was...cheaper, went to more places, left the day after we got married, and we could fly there for pretty cheap on AirTran the day of the cruise and avoid hotel costs. 

The cruise was on board RCCL's  Mariner of the Seas, which at the time was the Second Largest Ship in the Entire World! 

Stay Tuned for our Honeymoon Pics and more to the Honeymoon Story.