Half Moon Bay Resort, Montego Bay

Alright, guys, I am so excited to share our honeymoon to Jamaica with you all today!

We had an absolute blast on our honeymoon. Like I feel like we had more then you’re supposed to lol. After going to Switzerland and Paris for our original honeymoon, I wanted this one, the real one, to be as simple and relaxing as possible. Which is exactly what it was!

It was the perfect amount of relaxing and lounging with a little bit of adventure thrown into the mix!

After an easy three hour (direct) plane ride to Montego Bay and a 15-minute car ride to our hotel, we finally arrived at Half Moon Resort for our honeymoon.

It’s the Carribean, so it was a rainy afternoon, but we were handed a welcoming rum punch upon arrival and could have cared less about the rain.

We were brought to our room, which was a suite inside a little cottage, overlooking the ocean and it was perfect! I wish I would have taken photos of the room when we first got in, but we were so excited to go explore! We had a little living room area with a huge balcony.

We had our bellman take our photo, then headed down to our private little beach to feel the water.

We met with the concierge to make our plans for the week, we did a personal rum tasting then went to get ready for dinner.

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dress: eternal ivory

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I loved our first night because since it was a Tuesday, the hotel was a little sleepy, so it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves.

We had dinner by the beach, the live music started at 8:00 pm and it was the perfect little first day.

 

 

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Wednesday was the most beautiful day of them all! We were so thankful for this relaxing beach day. As I kind of mentioned at the beginning, it rains a lot in the Carribean, like at least for 45 minutes every day since it’s a tropical climate, but this day was blue skies all the way! We relaxed on the beach, swam in the water and drank an embarrassingly amount of Strawberry Daiquiris – lol.

Seriously, I don’t want to tell you just how many we probably had! They were just so good and it was our honeymoon so calories don’t count…. amiright??

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We quickly found out that our favorite place to grab lunch at the hotel would be at their traditional jerk chicken station right on the beach!

It was so fun watching them cook everything right there in front of you and then easily going right back to your chair.

 

 

The beach bar also became a quick favorite for us to hang out at. We loved two of the bartenders, Nicholas and Coswell. We could sit there and joke around with them all evening.

We also loved the fact that at 5:00 pm every day, a Jamaican band would start for happy hour. They would serve live bites and you could go back and forth from the bar to sitting on the beach watching the sunset.

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On our third day, we had a private driver from the hotel take us to Ochos Rios to go to Dunns River Falls. This was really cool and we had a great time! I will say, it was a little more touristy than I anticipated, but Colton and I chose to do this without a guide or a tour and had a great time with just the two of us!

We were able to climb the falls on our own, take the more difficult route and take our own time as opposed to being with a big group.

Also, just a heads up, the water is freezing – lol.

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After Dunns River, our driver took us to the coolest little local place for lunch. We drank red stripe, had more jerk chicken and just enjoyed ourselves for a little bit before heading back to Montego Bay.

We loved our driver because we were able to stop whenever we wanted, he really talked to us about the area, the history and was just all around really great. It was definitely the way to do it!

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That night, we got all dressed up and hopped on the golf cart to travel up the mountain to go to dinner. The views were incredible!! If it wasn’t so dark, I would have taken a photo!

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As you guys saw on Instagram, we went horseback riding. I’m sorry, “horse swimming” and were in for a great surprise. When we signed up for this, I thought we were going to go for a relaxing horse ride on the beach.

I was wrong – lol.

We took the horses swimming, bareback and it was the most interesting, unrelaxing experience of my life haha. But it was an experience and I’m glad we did it! We definitely have a few good stories to tell from it – that’s for sure!

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Our last night they had a barbeque on the beach for the resort and it was so fun! Of course, they had live music as usual, but that had a lot of different bands that night!

They had crab racing and fire twirlers and so much more! It was the perfect little send-off and ending to our honeymoon.

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On our last day, our flight was fortunately not until 3:00 pm, so we were able to spend a few extra hours on the beach with one last daiquiri in hand.

In the end, we truly had the best trip. We were both so relaxed, so go with the flow (which I never am) and really enjoyed these first few days as husband and wife. After the craziness of the wedding, it felt so nice to just relax and let loose.

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ABOUT THE TRIP 

Getting There: 

Getting to Montego Bay was super easy from Houston, which is 100% why we chose it as our honeymoon destination. On Southwest, it was a quick three hour, direct plane ride.

The Hotel: 

We stayed at Half Moon Resort, about 15 minutes away from the hotel and absolutely fell in love with it.

Would we recommend it to anyone else for a honeymoon? I don’t know, we keep going back and forth. Colton and I loved it, but it depends on what you’re in too. If you want a modern, sleek, upscale high rise resort, then this isn’t the place for you.

Half Moon was a very traditional, old-school Jamaican Hotel and had a two-mile stretch of cottages and villas as opposed to a normal hotel. Prince William and Oprah and a long list of celebrities have stayed there as a place to get away.

It’s the perfect place to relax. It really reminded me of a luxurious country club on the beach, as opposed to a normal hotel. I felt so at home by the end of the week, we knew everyone staying there, as well as all of the staff and found ourselves planning our next trip there…..but bringing all of our friends and getting a villa the next time!

What To Do:

• Sailboating at the beach
• Dunns River Falls in Ochos Rios
• Horseback Riding
• Spa Day: We had a couples massages after our horseback riding experience and it was amazing!
• Tennis Lessons
• Golf
• Parasailing
• Scuba diving

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If you have any questions, leave them below!

xo,

Lauren