Our Outer Banks honeymoon: Roanoke Island

A week or so before the wedding, Groupon had a buy-one-get-one-free deal for “The Lost Colony” tickets. I purchased the deal for two tickets and two back stage passes for the June 14 show. Total cost: $31 (versus $62). Part of our Thursday would be spent on Roanoke Island, so we decided to make it a whole day. The Lost Colony theater is in a complex with the Elizabethan Gardens and the Fort Raleigh National Park, and all three are close to or on top of the Cittie of Ralegh (now called the Lost Colony) original site.

The Elizabethan Gardens and the Lost Colony of Roanoke

We headed out early and arrived at the Elizabethan Gardens right around 9 am (remember: no children). The Elizabethan Gardens are absolutely stunning. You should know that I’m a huge Tudor and Elizabethan history buff, and Thursday was pretty much epic for me. Mac, not a history fan. We also decided that our future backyard should look like this. Another piece of advice: invest in bug spray. The gift shop sold bug spray wipes, but we didn’t get them. We should have. But I did snag a sweet Elizabethan Gardens hoodie because it was genuinely cold.

We suffered a few more bug bites and drove over to the Lost Colony site. This is another National Park Service property and has a really interesting museum. They don’t have a rebuilt historical site like Plymouth or Jamestown, so the main part outside is a fence approximately the size of the original settlement.

We headed to the town of Manteo to the Festival Island Park. Our admission was good for two days, but my main objective was to see the ship Elizabeth I. For those of you who have been to Plymouth, Massachusetts, it’s very similar to the rebuilt Mayflower II. We decided to eat lunch in the downtown area of Manteo and happened across Ortegaz. Manteo really has no parking whatsoever, so we grabbed a spot where we found one. While the food was good, the service was atrocious. Given that I was grumpy and my feet hurt, I was not in a pleasant mood.

From lunch, we drove back to the North Carolina Aquarium. We had high expectations from our previous experiences at the Seattle Aquarium and the Georgia Aquarium. The aquarium itself wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t quite what we expected. The exhibits weren’t that large and were poorly laid out. We also had to deal with hoards of children and hoards of parents ignoring their children.

Manteo

Part of the reason why I so tightly scheduled our day was to give us loads of time (about four hours) at the Aquarium. Even waiting out the crowds to see exhibits, we only spent an hour or so inside and then had hours to burn. We drove back to downtown Manteo, walked around a bit, and happened across the Carolina Cupcakery. I sampled a cherry limeade treat while Mac ate a Reese’s peanut butter cake. Yummy.

We wandered in and out of the various shops and acquired lots of stuff we didn’t need, including  this sweet pirate kitteh print (purchased from the artist’s shop!). For dinner, I found a Restaurant.com offer for Adrianna’s in Manteo. I made a dinner reservation for 5 (to make it to the theater with time to spare), but we showed up around 3:30. Our early arrival took us to the bar. We ordered some drinks, and Mac ordered the daily appetizer special. And check out our view.

Awkward / embarrassing moment: I picked up my water glass for a drink. It slipped out of my hand and went crashing in to the table, shattering everywhere. As Mac put it, I broke the glass and made it count. I was mortified. The wait staff were very kind and concerned and cleaned everything up without laughing. Our food was great, and we had fantastic service. Our bill was a bit high, even after the $25 credit, since we had several drinks and an appetizer between us. After dinner, we spied an ice cream shop and got waffle cones. 

The Lost Colony

We then drove over to the theater. Since we arrived early, I picked up our tickets, and we hung out in the car until the backstage tour started at 7:30. Two of the cast members led the tour and skillfully blended the history of the colony with the history of the production. If you choose to see “The Lost Colony,” I highly recommend the backstage tour and thought it was really cool to see the costumes and props and all the behind-the-scenes activity. The production also allows non-flash photography during the play, so I snapped a few photos with my low-light setting. My camera isn’t super-high quality, so they aren’t fantastic.

Overall, I LOVED “The Lost Colony.” It was a great mix of humor, history, drama, and action. Please note that the play does use some historical license with the colonists’ life in Virginia because we don’t really know what happened to them. I think it’s done very well. I also got an awesome t-shirt that says, “Don’t ask the locals for directions. They already lost one colony.” I laugh every time I think about it. I choose to think that the colonists assimilated into the local friendly Indian tribes, and everyone lived happily ever after.

After a very long day, we headed back to Kill Devil Hills and went to sleep.