Day 4: Curacao..Bon Dia!

We are still here and so behind in our blog posts.  I forgot to mention that once we arrive at the first port, we would be blog silent for a day or two.  It’s part of cruising and the long port days and how much we want to do.  In our case we did a lot!  I’ll try to cover as much stuff and pictures in sequence.  You may just see text only as I’m way behind in reviewing the pictures.  Yes...at one time between Hubby and myself we had four cameras going.  So back to covering Curacao.

Curacao:  Located in the southern Caribbean Sea, Curacao is an independent country and the largest of the three ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao).  Dutch is Curacao’s official language, but English and Spanish are also widely spoken.  Many speak Papiamento - a Creole mixture of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, English, and Arawak Indian.  Currency is Netherlands Antillean guilder, also called the florin (ANG).  The US Dollar (USD) and credit cards are widely accepted.  Willemstad, the capital city, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Bon dia!  Good Morning!  I wake up early to find the ship gliding in the water.  Calm water.  We must be near land.  We are docking in Willemstad at the Mega Pier.  You could say that Willemstad is divided into two districts:  Punda and Otrabanda.  The pier is located in Otrabanda.  Punda has the main shopping dining venues.  The two districts are connected via the Queen Emma Pontoon Bridge which was constructed in 1888.  It’s basically a swinging bridge that allows ships to access the bay.  Cool, huh?



The pilot is already on our ship helping to guide the ship into port.  The pilot boat is escorting us in:



Our cabin is all the forward, about 9 cabins from the front of the ship.  Here you can see the bridge above us:



We are going to have a few “firsts” in our cruising experience.  Today we are in Curacao for 14 hours (8am-10pm)…a first, since we normally spend 7 hours here.  We are not doing a ship’s excursion…another “first”.  We are going to spend a few hours at the beach today and then walk around Punda.  Not sure in which order.  The beach part is another first for us here.

We do our normal breakfast thing, skip the coffee routine, and head off the ship around 9am.  We walk around through the RIF Fort area where there are high end shops and some dining venues with outdoor seating.  It’s quiet here, but later in the day this will be a hopping place.

Along our walk towards the RIF fort we come across our new friend, waiting in the bushes to welcome us to Curacao:


Looking back to see the beautiful Caribbean Princess:



Inside the RIF Fort with many dining venues and plenty of outdoor seatings:



Enjoy seeing these stately palm trees reaching towards the sky:








Looking back at RIF Fort and the surrounding water:



You can see behind RIF Fort, the top of our cruise ship:



We continue walking out of the fort and head over to the Queen Emma Pontoon Bridge.  Did I mention it’s sunny and hot this morning?  Yes, I’m getting lots of vitamin D today.  Just what my doctor ordered.  Here’s a picture of the pontoon bridge and the bright colorful buildings in Punda:



Our view of the pontoon bridge:





We spend time walking around Punda and enjoying the beautiful and colorful buildings.  We end up at an outdoor market with lots of colorful fruits:  pineapples, kiwi, bags of key limes, bananas, large mangos, and papayas.  The small boats come from Venezuela and dock in this market area.  The stalls sit right along side of the market pier.  All they have the do is offload from the boat to the stalls in front of them.  We head back in towards the center of Punda enjoying the architecture.  













We decide to head back to the ship and get ready for our beach adventure.  We slather ourself with suntan lotion:  30 for me and 50 for Hubby.  Grab our snorkel bags (which I prepped the night before) and beach bags and head off the ship by 11am.  We grab a taxi ($30) and head out to Blue Bay Resort & Golf about a 20 minute drive from the Mega Pier.