Derek & I got married!!! Seriously best day of our lives. Thank you Jesus for bringing Derek into my life at the perfect time. I have always had the desire to get married, as well as to go on the honeymoon right after the wedding day. We were blessed to be able to leave for our honeymoon in the *early morning after our wedding. Our flight departed at 8 am from Minneapolis, which required us to wake up at 5 am, ew! But since we were hyped about being newlyweds it was really no problem. I made sure to have some of our favorite yogurt, cold brew, and Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches ready to go. Our luggage was all together before our wedding day (I was so excited it was all packed about a month ahead!) and our new home was ready to be lived in. I tried to be organized as much as possible, and everything went very smoothly! My maid of honor was generous to pick us up and drive us to the airport, then off we went to Pensacola, Florida.
I wanted to write a blog post about our experience at Pensacola since we were limited in our traveling options, it is not very well known to be a honeymoon destination and thought this could maybe help your trip planning. To list them off of barriers to travel: we were underage to rent a car, I wasn't able to get my passport in time, we definitely wanted a beach honeymoon, and we wanted to keep it cheap.
I really, reallyyyy wanted to book a trip to an all-inclusive Mexico resort, but nope! Had to cross off that possibility. So we looked into San Diego, beaches in Alabama, and different spots in Florida. I originally landed on booking a trip to Fort Myers, but Derek and I had a change of heart to go there. We don't have an exact reason why, but it was suggested that we look into Pensacola by my sister's friend's mom of all people! Although it was the first time I had met her, I started researching this cute little island life of Pensacola Beach. I was hooked. Derek was hooked. Then hallelujah, after way too many hours of googling, we had found our honeymoon destination!
Pensacola Beach is about eight miles in length and 1/4 mile at the widest part, connected to the mainland by a bridge. It took us about 30 minutes to use Lyft to arrive at our destination from the airport. On one side you'll have beautiful views of the bay and on the other side the Gulf of Mexico. From our VRBO, we could see both! Pensacola is well-known for being family-friendly, having powdery white beaches, and simply being peaceful. To keep our trip affordable, we chose to rent bikes for the week. I found Emerald Coast Tours and they were able to deliver our bikes, provide a bike lock, and it cost $50 per bike for the entire week. Delivery was an additional $20, totally worth it, they had great communication with us and the bikes worked great. Thankfully Pensacola is quite flat, so having cruiser bikes worked well. From our VRBO, we biked to the "downtown" part of the island, it was about 2.5 miles and took us about 20min. It actually added quite a bit of adventure to our trip - biking at night, in the rain, and after being stuffed to the max after eating out for dinner.
Pensacola Beach also provides a free Trolley that runs across the island end of May into the beginning of September, seven days a week, 4 pm-midnight! We sadly missed out on giving this a try since we were traveling in October.
In addition to keeping more money in our pockets, we used InstaCart to order groceries and have them delivered directly to our VRBO condo. I was using their free trial for our honeymoon and had prepared a grocery list and meal itinerary prior. Our plan was to eat the majority of our breakfasts at our condo, and lunches, then a few dinners. I made sure to order some fun honeymoon foods too like chocolate-covered strawberries, red wine, Talenti gelato, whip cream, and coconut Bai drinks. We also packed from home a cooler, bag clips, our own tinfoil, napkins, reusable ziplock bags, butter, olive oil, and honey. Our favorite breakfast places we went to were The Native Cafe and Cafe Nola's. For lunch we tried Casino Beach Bar, located right on the beach - the Mahi Mahi was delicious. Make sure to try the famous Bushwacker drink while you're there - we went to Sandshaker Lounge since I read it was considered the "original Bushwacker", however it wasn't that impressive but they have a fun rooftop and play live music. We were definitely the youngest ones there. For dinners, we went to Flounder's Chowder House (my favorite one), Shaggy's (not as good as we had hoped), and Peg-Leg Pete's (a very long wait, *2 hours even at 8 pm, we made a romantic beach walk out of it, the oysters were worth it, especially with the crispy parmesan.)
Now, what is there to do while you're there?! In Pensacola, the long strip of beach is absolutely stunning, clear aqua blue and the softest (squeaking) white sand. You could easily spend the day(s) being a beach bum, make sure to rent chairs for your beach time. We went on plenty of walks along the shore, had a little photoshoot of each other, and would wear a headlamp at night watching all the tiny crabs run back into their holes. Check out Pensacola Beach Gulf Pier, it costs a few bucks to walk around but we saw some dolphins and enjoyed the company of lots of fishermen. The little beach shop right there has snow cones for a cheap treat too! Other activities that could add to the trip include walking along the boardwalk and window shopping, there is parasailing, rentable stand-up paddleboards, glow-in-the-dark kayaks, surfing lessons, booking a sunset cruise (Jolly Sailing/Adventure Sailing), visiting Fort Pickens, and Opal Beach.
Our VRBO was a split-level condo, with two balconies, laundry, kitchen, jacuzzi, pool access, and was a short walking distance to the ocean. Finding a place to stay in Pensacola is where it can get expensive, we spent $1600 for 6 nights. Then our flights were about $500 for both of us, including a checked bag. Our trip was very reasonably priced, and we had an absolute blast.
We truly believe that you can make the most out of every situation if you put your mind and heart into it. After a long season of wedding planning, and doing the majority of it all on my own, it was wonderful to not have a single thing on my to-do list and soak in the first stages of our new life. Married at last to the man meant for me.
Thank you for reading!
Claire
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