Love, laughter, and unexpected adventures: The UK’s funniest honeymoon stories

The path to a ‘happily ever after’ can sometimes be paved with unexpected and uproarious adventures!  

Honeymoon season is in full swing, with two-thirds of honeymooners heading away between May and October. To celebrate the season of love, we decided now was the perfect time to run a competition, looking for the UK’s most hilarious (and shocking) honeymoon tales. We had so many great entries, proving that love and laughter most definitely go hand in hand.  

From all our wonderful entries, here are a selection of our favourite stories…  

1. WINNER: A slippery situation   

[Image: Samantha, pictured just before disaster struck] 

The competition’s (unlucky!) winner is Samantha Spence, whose honeymoon took a dive bomb in Croatia’s Krka Park. Samantha’s honeymoon disaster occurred when she and her new husband were exploring the stunning scenery around the National Park, unaware of the treacherous path ahead.  

“I was looking around at the beautiful scenery as the place had me in awe. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking, even though I was walking on a slippery wooden walkway with no rails on the side,” Samantha explains.  

You may be able to guess what happened next! “I wandered a little too close to the edge, slipping right off the walkway into the water. As I felt myself slip, I grabbed my husband Richard’s t-shirt to try to stay on the walkway, but somehow I managed to pull him in too!” 

The shock of their sudden icy plunge was only intensified when the couple realised swimming in the park was strictly forbidden – and it hadn’t gone unnoticed by the locals who quickly rounded on the couple to confront them!  

“The park doesn’t let people swim in their waters due to the wildlife there, so we were told off by a cross Croatian who thought we disobeyed the rules. We had to swim together to an area we could get back onto a path and briskly run away. We felt so embarrassed – like naughty kids!” 

2. On thin ice  

[Image: Rebecca ‘enjoying’ her surprise honeymoon] 

Sometimes, surprises can backfire. That’s exactly what happened with Rebecca Roberts, when her new hubby planned a skiing surprise that tested love’s limits. Rebecca says, “We almost got divorced! He had planned a surprise honeymoon for me; I could have cried when we arrived – it was skiing! I’d rather have poked my eyes with hot coals. I could not do it and did not enjoy it! Then to top things off, I broke my leg on the slopes!” 

However, the couple’s love endured the cold, with Rebecca saying, “We are still together. We have a good relationship, and we laugh about it now. He still loves skiing, but he takes our daughter now while I stay at home with my dog – which is bliss!”  

3. Nature’s love song  

[Image: Andrea and her husband on their Tenerife honeymoon] 

One couple’s honeymoon got off to a roaring start when their post-nuptial bliss was interrupted by a surprising soundtrack. Andrea Dimmock and her husband were honeymooning in Tenerife when they encountered a somewhat unusual resident… 

“We were relaxing in Tenerife, but every morning we could hear a noise that sounded like… well… a couple getting it on! Later, we found out that one of the local residents kept a lion as a pet and it was actually his roar that we were hearing!” 

The wild honeymoon must have been a good omen – the happy couple have just celebrated their 27th anniversary! 

4. A happy accident  

[Image: Shutterstock] 

On Sue Hickey’s honeymoon, a champagne mishap became a beautiful bond. Sue explains, “My husband and I were opening our champagne in our honeymoon hotel on the balcony. The cork flew onto next door’s balcony and caught the young daughter on her head!”. 

Mortified, Sue and her husband quickly apologised and invited the family to join them for a drink, leading to a lifelong friendship blossoming.  

“That was in 1985, and we are still very good friends with them to this day!” says Sue. “They come from Finland; they have visited here to stay with us, and we have been to Finland to see them. None of us will ever forget that story!”  

5. Fishy business  

[Image: Shutterstock] 

New bride Lorna Walkden and her husband David’s honeymoon took a turn when David experienced a mishap in the Maldives. Lorna explains: 

“David went snorkelling while I sat in the bar watching. I kept glancing up from my book to where he was and noticed that he was splashing about a lot. I then saw he only had one flipper on. I ran out of the bar and onto the beach to check he was okay, and he had disappeared under the water! He popped back up a few seconds later with a flipper in his hand and made his way to the shore. 

“I ran towards him to check he was okay and noticed the end of his nose was bleeding. He had found a shelf under the water where the sand dropped down and saw a fish. As he went to look closer, the fish darted out and bit him on the end of the nose, causing him to panic and lose a flipper! He had then dived to retrieve the flipper as, after all that, he didn’t want to lose his deposit!” 

6. A camping catastrophe  

[Image: Marie’s camping honeymoon] 

When Marie Crook and her new husband decided on a low-key camping honeymoon, they couldn’t have predicted the snow showdown they had coming. Marie says: 

“We decided to go winter camping and snowshoeing at Santiam Pass. We were both quite unprepared and inexperienced with camping in the snow, as romantic as the idea sounded at first.” 

The trip turned out to be one camping catastrophe after another.  

“On the way to our planned camp area, I kept accidentally kicking myself in the backside with my snowshoe when it flipped up and ended up falling over. My husband fell down a ditch because it was hidden by snow.  

“Eventually, we got to the camp area and started to make hot chocolate to warm up. I was sitting in the little snow hole we made and accidentally tipped over the pan with the hot chocolate in… We decided to try and rest a bit, then realised we’d brought our summer sleeping bags with us instead. I lay there with my feet in my backpack and all my clothes on, trying to get warm. Then we thought we could hear wolves in the distance. It was starting to get a bit dark, but I told my husband I really didn’t want to stay there. He agreed, and we hurried so fast to pack everything away.  

“We were shoving things anywhere they’d fit. I think my husband ended up wearing part of the tent like a cape; we were just in that much of a hurry. We put our snow shoes on and just ran through the wilderness. As scared as I was, I also couldn’t stop laughing, thinking how we looked like gremlins trying to run with a wide stance and without falling over and constantly looking behind us to make sure nothing was following us. Eventually, we made it back to the car, and we both couldn’t stop laughing at how ridiculous and clumsy the whole thing was. Whenever I think about it now, it plays like a Laurel and Hardy film in my mind!”  

 7. Honeymoon roulette 

[Image: Lee and his wife on their unexpected honeymoon] 

Sometimes when plan A falls through, plan B can bring an unexpected adventure! That’s what happened with Lee Minton and his wife. The pair were due to stay with a friend for their honeymoon when the friend had to cancel due to an emergency. “We arrived in New York with a few nights booked and nowhere to go from there. So, we stuck a pin in a map and found ourselves in Wildwood, New Jersey, in the most gorgeous retro hotel.” Lee explains, “There were dolphins playing near the beach, an amazing retro diner, a fabulous boardwalk, a nature reserve where we saw a Bald Eagle, and a veterans parade. From panic came pleasure and a place we would never have found!”  

8. Lost and found 

[Image: Julia and her husband on the boat trip] 

What was meant to be a relaxing honeymoon in Mykonos quickly turned into a double disaster for Julia Maggiorana and her new husband, when they found themselves in an unexpected treasure hunt. Julia says, 

“The picture I shared is before the double disaster. We were on a boat trip in Mykonos, sitting at the front. Thirty minutes in, the unimaginable happened. I wanted to swim, so I put my wedding ring and proposal diamond in the sunglasses case, thinking they would be safe there. When we started moving, the wind was really strong, so my husband tried to take the rings out and we heard a noise – the rings fell and we couldn’t find them. We started searching with the whole tour group; there were Spanish, Australian, French, British, and Italian people all looking for my rings! We finally found them, but the wind had taken my husband’s flip flops and thrown them to the sea, so he remained without shoes for the rest of the afternoon.”   

9. Crashed the wedding  

[Image: The photobomb picture] 

Nobody wants someone else stealing the spotlight on their big day – especially not a total stranger. For Natalie Starling-Booth and her husband, it took getting their wedding photos back to realise they’d hosted an unexpected guest of honour! Natalie says, 

“We got married in Cyprus, so our honeymoon was also our wedding rolled into one. When we got some of our photos back from the big day, we were perfectly photobombed by a man on the beach who turned up right in the middle of us!”  

As the season of love and honeymoon adventures continues, these hilarious and heartwarming tales prove that those little unexpected moments can lead to lifelong memories! 

If you’re planning a honeymoon and want to ensure it goes off without a hitch, why not book a trip with eShores? From preplanned multi centre itineraries to bespoke holidays, just get in touch with our team to begin planning the honeymoon of your dreams.