Broke But Happy: Our Untold Honeymoon Experience In Malta

We were so young, dumb, and broke, but we had the most incredible experience in Malta on our honeymoon. 

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A Shotgun Wedding But No Baby On The Way

My wife and I lived and loved very fast. We started dating in October, took our first international trip together the following March, we were engaged by July, and married in September. We moved to England to start our lives together and before we had been together a year, we were on our honeymoon in Malta, just south of Italy in the Mediterranean Sea.

There was no baby on the way to spur us into a rash decision but we did have a reason to move quickly. I had been offered a transfer from Omaha, Nebraska to the company’s new branch in Manchester, England where I would help build out the sales team. My wife and I weren’t living together and she wouldn’t move in with me unless we were married. I wasn’t going to move to England without her, I didn’t even think about it.

I proposed at the end of July and we were married six weeks later. Looking back now, it was absolutely crazy and I would lose my mind if my daughter, Lucy, did the same. Somehow we still managed to put together a beautiful wedding in the middle of a downtown park with a limited list of 100 of our family and friends. Somehow, we were also able to put together a reception at a nearby hotel for 300 people who made time on short notice for our special day. We were so young and inexperienced, we didn’t even receive points for booking the event.

An EasyJet Holiday Package

We moved to Manchester earlier than needed to start my new job and put together a package holiday from EasyJet, one of the largest LCC carriers in Europe. Why? We didn’t really know any better and we didn’t have much money. The move was expensive, setting up a new life was expensive, and my wife wasn’t able to immediately work as I was, further limiting our resources.

Our week in Malta started off with an aircraft switch from a standard EasyJet A320 to a charter 757, certainly an upgrade. Upon arriving in Malta, we made our way to the hotel and what we found was shocking. We certainly knew what EasyJet was/is but we have never booked a holiday package with any other carrier ever again.

The hotel was empty, I can’t recall seeing another guest the entire time. Not at check-in nor check-out, not in the lobby coming back from seeing the city; not even during the one time we visited the unheated saltwater pool in late September.

Honeymoon Suite With Bunk Beds

We didn’t book a honeymoon suite – I’m not sure the property had one – but we certainly didn’t book a bunk bed family room either. We got one though, and two twins pushed to make a king bed (common in Europe) complete with an undetermined stain that I lean toward being blood. Try as I might, I don’t have the name of this hospitality palace in any confirmation emails, apparently my email client deletes content older than a decade.

In this family room, complete with kitchenette, a balcony (that was actually decent but I don’t have photos of the balcony, just from it), and a 12″ tube television.

The hotel bothered to install electricity saving key card requirements but didn’t bother to move the water heater from above the tub. It technically had a shower function, though it should be noted that the it was just a hose hooked up to the tub faucet. The bar of soap from the prior guest was a nice touch.

At the time, we were 23 and 24 and found humor in the situation. We still find it hilarious now, though if for some reason we were ever to find ourselves in a similar situation we would immediately check right back out and fly home rather than be stuck there for a week.

But maybe that’s the problem with where we are now versus where we were then – we just laughed and had a great time rather than letting it ruin or cancel our holiday. Surely, that has to be better than letting it bother us.

Beauty, Happiness

Malta was an incredible place for a honeymoon. Days were very warm, and sunny but not sweltering in mid-September. The color of the mediterranean and fresh breeze blowing through the island. The sandstone buildings of old Valetta were astonishingly well preserved. It felt like paradise.

One of the most incredible coincidences occurred while we were on the island. We were advised by some locals (our hotel was without a concierge) of the best steakhouse in town at the time and we were able to get a reservation last minute. We were led to the third floor to our table for two. At the time, I was a smoker and the table next to me, another couple but middle aged, asked me for my lighter. The accent was unmistakably American but without a regional slant. I asked where they were from in the States, and she answered, “you’ve probably never heard of it. Omaha, Nebraska.” Omaha was even smaller then than it is today and of those from Omaha that traveled abroad, I’d never once heard anyone mention Malta.

What were the chances that of all the times either of us could have visited the country, both couples were there at the same time? What were the chances we’d both pick the same night and same times to have dinner, and that of the three floors they could have set us at, we were seated at side-by-side tables? And what are the odds that neither table speaks to the other and the connection is never made at all? It was an incredible series of coincidences that amazes me still to this day.

We couldn’t believe it, and had a fascinating conversation with the two of them. We told them of the Fawlty Towers experience we were having and they invited us to just sneak into the Westin and give their room number as they would be out the next day. We were in our early 20s and couldn’t pass it up. We felt like at any point we would be found out but tried to enjoy ourselves anyway.

We spent the next day with them touring Valetta, he was Maltese and had emigrated to Omaha but comes back every year. He gave us the rich history of the island, its role in World War II, the colonial British governance years, and cultural influences from Italy and beyond.

The food was incredible.

Reflecting After All These Years

It’s been nearly two decades since we were married on a rainy day in Omaha. Our honeymoon in Malta could have been a tragic experience in the oddest, dirtiest hotel we have ever stayed in, but we really didn’t care. We were happy, in love, and basking in the Mediterranean beauty of this island nation we’d only learned of when we selected our package. We had little money but we didn’t care about that either. Through the strangest chance meeting with some fellow Nebraskans, we had the most amazing experience in Valetta and to this day it reminds me that the world is small, but amazing, and if you’re open it will still surprise you.

Now, with two kids, all these years later, I think we are just as happy as we were then. But there’s no way on earth we would stay in that hotel.