One the that is finally here...

[allanahx]

Sooo... It's finally going to come around... hopefully!

I'm Allanah and going to be the bride while Martin my partner is going to be stood at the bottom of the aisle probably eating chicken nuggets We will be 30 and 32 respectively and have travelled to the USA before so this isn't anything new for us, but the places we are going are!


So our trip started when we decided to get married at Paradise Cove in Orlando. Martin didn't want a massive Disney wedding but we compromised with Paradise Cove and because of Covid our guest list dramatically decreased so we were able to add an extra week to our honeymoon

So the plan is this:

Staying overnight at Manchester Radisson Blu Airport Hotel as an extra splurge because we didn't want to pay for parking and our usual lifts will be going also. We will be flying out from Manchester, indirect through London Heathrow and will be flying with British Airways as Premium Economy.

We will be landing in Orlando and staying in a villa with the family which we've stayed in before. Its basic, but its in a good location for us and its 5 bedroomed with an amazing price.

We will have 14 day tickets for Walt Disney World but we will probably only use 8 days of these ourselves

We land on the Monday and have until the following Friday in Orlando with our wedding on the Wednesday, a make up trial for myself, some extra wedding bits and a hen and stag do for both of us... So I'm not all that sure how this will all go.

The day before the wedding we are checking in to a Vrbo which is in Blue Heron Resort, directly around the corner from our wedding venue and conveniently one of the hotels which the boat will drop of us off at the end of the wedding

We will have the following full day on the Thursday and on the Friday, it is my nieces 6th Birthday so we plan to spend some time with her in the morning before making our way to the airport for phase 2 of the holiday and the reason why its so difficult to link it into one of the location choices.

Phase 2 is our honeymoon and our first stop is LA.

We will be staying in the HWood Hotel which is on Sunset Blvd on the Friday and Saturday night. Will let you know how it goes. A lot of our hotels are more budget because we compromised on this to maximise the holiday. We won't be spending a lot of time in Hollywood.

We land on the first night at 7:30pm and intend to make our way from LAX to the hotel and then grab some tea once we have checked in at In-n-Out or Chick-fil-a which are both near by before probably hitting the hay because that flight and drive will probably have taken it out of us and the West Coast is a few hours behind Orlando.

The following day (Saturday) we have booked a Hood-life tour... so I'm probably going to get shot at the start of my honeymoon but Martin is completely into the whole rap scene and its the only thing he's really asked for... well that and to go to Central Perk... So this is a 10am tour and is supposed to last 3 hours. The reviews are all great on it and Martin is super excited... me.. eh... I mean it will probably be interesting and something different from what most people do. We intend to hit Hollywood walk of fame briefly because once you see one star you see them all I suppose and then we will be off to the Warner Brothers studio tour so Martin can get Central Perk in and I can go fanatic over fantastic beasts. Once that's done it will be about 5:30-6pm and then we are gonna take a drive to Santa Monica for the evening there before returning to bed and getting sleep. If anyone has any recommendations for foods please pass them along. We aren't going overly fancy because w'ere not really that kind of people... like we can scrub up if we really need to but we're more casual and eat what the locals eat kind of people.

We are going to check out on the Sunday morning and if we have anything we desperately need to hit we will do early that morning before taking a nice little drive to Anaheim.

We are going to be staying at the Days Inn by Wyndham at Disneyland which is just off the 5 according to the map. Again, nothing massively expensive, supposed to be about a 20 minute walk away from the parks and does breakfast so we can grab and go. We intend to spend time in the parks on the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and we have park hoppers and its our first time. We are going to hit evening shows on the Sunday and Monday because we're flying early in the morning on the Wednesday and so we don't want to be up too late.

Again, we're not going to be having massive meals because while we're foodies we literally snack through Disney rather than eating big meals.

On Wednesday we reach phase 3... we drive to LAX for a bright and early flight (8:45am) to Hawaii the big island.

We are staying in an Air BnB and it is a tree house which we are looking forward to. We booked one for near Kona because most of things we are doing are from this side of the Island. We are staying at Hawaii from the Wednesday until the Sunday giving us 4 days to do everything we want to do.

On our first day because we are idiots we booked Manta Ray diving at 7:15pm. Bare in mind that Hawaii is 3 hours behind so don't know how this will go.. Also I should mention that Martin isn't great with putting his head under water so that is going to be fun!

The following day we are aiming to snorkel at Captain Cook Monument and then we are going on a Mauna Kea stargazing trip which is something we've been desperate to do. The following two days are going to exploring volcano national park as well as the green and black sand beaches. We've done coffee plantations and stuff in the past and we're prioritising our time.

On the Sunday we are flying to... Oahu! We fly in and check into another Air Bnb and yes we are aware of the restrictions, we have checked this one out and completely legitimate. We stay at the Air bnb from Sunday to Wednesday. We have booked Kualoa ranch on the Monday for an 8:30am ATV 2 hour tour and then we booked Toa Luau for the evening so we are going to keep to that side of the island.

The other days we have nothing formally booked because we intend to use the Shaka guides to tour the island and do some hiking. If anyone has used these and have tips please let us know. We are aiming to eat at most food trucks and we aren't big fish fans so that's going to be interesting. We are going to try things like poke but we will see how it goes.

On the Wednesday we transfer hotels to Aulani the reason why we compromised on all our other hotels was so that I could have three glorious nights at this place. We intend to relax, chill and do sweet FA for three days, well except eat Mickey bars and go to the spa.

We check out on the Saturday morning and fly to our final destination as Phase 4 of the honeymoon... New York!

The reason we chose New York was because the flight worked out better for us, (we're flying premium both ways with BA). It is a half way point from Hawaii to the UK which will help us with the jet lag and it was also one of the places that we wanted to go but hadn't yet.

We are staying at the Club Hotel Times Square which is about a 5 minute walk to Times Square and 3 blocks from Bryant Park. We're flying in the Newark from Hawaii so any advice would be great. We stay there from Sunday (the time we land) to Thursday when we fly out on a late flight home. We have Explorer passes with 7 attractions on them and we have pre-booked Lion King so far for the Wednesday evening before we fly home.

We are aiming to hit the Statue of Liberty, 911 memorial and museum, one world observatory, top of the rock, Chelsea markets, Brooklyn bridge, DUMBO, Central Park, natural history museum and maybe even a cheeky trip to Coney Island if we have chance.

We are not intending to do a lot of shopping throughout all of our trips but we usually do bring back some little souvenirs such as magnets so this won't be a trip report for you if your after shopping trips

I will let you know how each of our trips and experiences go and what we found helpful and not. If anyone has any tips or advice they can give that would be great!

[anji]

Wow! That all sounds absolutely amazing and I can't wait to read all about it. Have a wonderful time!

[babbymint]

oh my - what a fantastic itinerary! Have a great wedding/honeymoon/holiday!

[HermioneGranger]

Your trip sounds amazing and really similar to my honeymoon I'm in the middle of planning! We're doing NYC, San Fran, LA, San Diego and then Hawaii but only Oahu.

Where did you find the Hood Life tour? My husband to be has been to LA before so this might be a good way of mixing it up for him.

[enjibenji]

Wow, sounds an amazing trip and Congratulations on the wedding 😊