The Journey of our Honeymoon
My husband and I got married on September 14th and we left on September 16th for a 2 week trip!
When we started to think of our honeymoon and where we wanted to go, we knew we wanted to go to Europe. Justin is such a huge history buff and loves going to historical places and neither of us are big beach bums - we live at the beach! Justin had never been to Europe, so we thought London & Paris would be the perfect spots. I had been to both before with my family, but I knew it would be a different experience going just us 2. I was browsing flights to London last November on a cozy day and I happened to find flights for $200 each from LAX, nonstop to Gatwick, London on Norwegian Airlines! We hadn’t even finished finalizing our dates or locations, but I knew we couldn’t pass it up. We had our flights booked by the end of the day and our honeymoon was set! We reserved a 12:00 p.m. flight 2 days after our wedding.
When we were thinking about where to stay, we knew my dad would have the best suggestions. He is my travel guru and has the best recommendations! He suggested the W Hotel in Leicester Square, so we had a reservation there for the first 3 nights. For the last 2 nights, we booked an Airbnb in West Kensington to be close to Stamford Bridge and experience a different part of the city.
When we originally booked our flights on Norwegian Air, we didn’t have the highest expectations because we knew it was a low fare flight. We knew we were going to have to pay for our bags and a bunch of other fees, so we were definitely expecting some things to go wrong… I have to tell you, It was one of the BEST flights I have ever been on (and I have flown a lot!). We were one of the first people to book this flight, so we got really lucky with our seat selection. We secured the window and aisle seats in the exit row. Justin is 6’5, so leg room is a must for him! When we boarded the plane, we immediately got to our seat and it was the first row after the restroom barrier, aka all the leg room in the world. We immediately noticed how new and clean the plane was and the crew was SO wonderful and lovely. My sweet husband gave me the window seat so I was happy! When we took off, we immediately started looking at our movie choices and ordered champagne from our screen to kick off our honeymoon. After the first movie, I fell asleep for the next several hours. When I woke up, we were almost landing in London just as the sun was coming up. After the smoothest landing, we got our luggage immediately and jumped on the train to the city! We grabbed a taxi right outside of the train station and headed to the W in Leicester Square.
Since I work in the Hotel Industry, we knew our room was not going to be ready at 9 a.m., so I was prepared to walk around London in my airport “hobo chic” outfit and messy hair. To our surprise, the W had our room all ready for us and we were able to get checked in to our cozy room and lay down for a while! When we realized we weren’t tired at all, we got right up, freshened up and headed out to walk the city. We immediately walked right to the water and had the most stunning view of the London Eye.
After walking along the river, we came across the cutest pub and grabbed some lunch. This place had the BEST sweet potato fries! We couldn’t tell if we were exhausted or if we were just so excited to be there, but we sat in silence just staring at our stunning views around us. We went to the hotel to take a small nap and ended up walking to Buckingham Palace to check it out! After walking for a few miles, we ended up grabbing dinner at the cutest Italian restaurant right by our hotel. I kid you not…. our hotel was walking distance to EVERYTHING! Everything was so close and it just made it seem so special to walk there and discover new places. We were instantly in love with this incredible city. We went to sleep so happy in our incredibly comfortable bed, so excited for everything we would see this trip.
