Our Honeymoon, Part I

Yep, there is a part one. For our honeymoon we decided to go to the Turks and Caicos Islands. Everyone always asks how we decided on Turks and Caicos. Easy. I've been to a lot of Caribbean islands and we wanted this to be something new for both of us. We also liked that only 300,000 people visit it each year...that means it's pretty uncharted as far as tourism goes. I'll be posting pictures once we get the professional ones. Photos are always slow!


Day One
We had a super early flight to Miami and woke up around 4 a.m. Luckily we only had an hour layover in MIA before we headed to TCI. We flew through a lot of rain and experienced a lot of turbulence...not the best for me because it is a control freaks nightmare. The rain was from the cold front that had come through Texas a day or two earlier and that had given us the 13 degree weather. The nice thing about the flight was that is was nearly empty...it was an off week for tourism down there and we were glad for that!


The airport in TCI is the tiniest I've ever been to. It took forever to get through customs and the luggage claim was a large open room where they threw the luggage haphazardly all over the floor. Adventure? Yes, please.


There are no stoplights on the island. It's that small! We arrived at our hotel at Grace Bay and it was beautiful. Everything was manicured and every plant and flower I've ever dreamed of growing in my garden was growing there.


When we walked into the open air lobby, they immediately handed us a cold towel that smelled like lavender and a fruit punch. Then, one of the front desk girls took us on a tour of the property and of our suite. It's a large property with a small number of guest rooms. Very intimate.

Or suite was 100 sq. ft. smaller than our house. It doesn't look it in the pictures but it really was! There was an amazing full size kitchen with viking appliances - and we definitely weren't cooking. One of my favorite things was the daybed on the porch. I could spend hours on that thing reading.


We were exhausted by the time we finished our tour and decided to take a quick walk on the beach, order room service and go to bed early. Plus, it was chilly (70 degrees) and overcast...not really beach weather.


Day Two
Since the weather still wasn't ideal we decided to have a relaxing day. We had breakfast al fresco and went to the spa for an amazing massage. This spa was the best I've ever been to. Just the way it was designed, with treatment rooms outside, was so peaceful.


After totally relaxing, we went to Lemon for lunch. TCI might be small and not very touristy but they do have great food. No fast food...gourmet food that would make mouths from NYC water. Robert had a lamb burger and I had chickpea fritters with raita. We both had hummus and you could tell it was homemade.


After that we took a taxi over to the conch farm. It's the only one in the world and Robert is obsessed with finding conch shells on vacation so it was a must. It had been damaged by hurricane Ike in 2008 and a lot of it was not repaired but it was worth it. It was a pretty quick tour but we learned how they grow and how to tell a male from a female. We also got to meet Sally and Jerry, their resident celebrity conch.


Our taxi driver waited for us and took us on a tour of Nikki Beach, which used to be a celebrity hot spot before they stopped paying taxes. TCI is so secluded, we were pretty sure Jay Z could walk on any beach and not be noticed.


After that we went back to the hotel and grabbed a pod on the beach and just relaxed until dinner.


For dinner we had to try another recommended restaurant - Grace's Cottage. It's interesting to note that none of the restaurants we ate at were on the beach. Those restaurants are for tourists who like all-inclusive fare. This is where we learned that people eat around 8 or 9 p.m. We arrived at 7 and were the first there...but we got the best table. We played table topics, tried a bunch of wines and had a great time.


When we got back to our hotel we found a letter under our door telling us about the earthquake in Haiti and informing us that we were under a tsunami warning. The TCI is completely flat so if there ever were a tsunami, there wouldn't be much chance for anyone. It was also weird because TCI is only 200 miles from Haiti and we didn't feel a thing. Luckily we had satellite so we were able to tune into CNN to see what was going on. That's when we turned on our phones and listened to voicemails of panicked family. This is a part of our honeymoon we will always remember - we saved the letter. A day later big military aircraft were being diverted to TCI and rescue workers were flooding the empty rooms in our hotel. We had no problem sharing our hotel with there heroes and we felt bad that we couldn't do more. Our hotel was very generous to accommodate them.



Stay tuned for more...