The second port we are visiting is the “A” in the ABC Islands chain, Aruba. Stephanie and I stayed out late last night knowing we had no real plans for our time here in port. We had thought about taking the city bus again, like we did last time we visited here, but the bus schedule did not really compliment our newer plans to sleep in. If we did not get up early enough, we would miss the best bus to get to Arashi beach before the wind picked up and the tourist boats arrived, making the water clarity worse.
Morning Beverages at the Tradewinds Bar
Of course, not wanting to break tradition, we had our usual breakfast sandwiches from the International Cafe in the room along with a coffee for me and diet coke for Stephanie.
After getting ready, we headed out to see what was going on on the ship. Of course, most of the passengers had already gotten off for tours, but there were quite a few remaining aboard. We headed to the Tradewinds bar for our favorite morning drinks and then went back to the room to put on sunscreen so we could sit out by the pool and enjoy the beautiful weather and mostly empty ship.
Playing With Paulaner Souvenir Glasses
We met up with Beth on the pool deck, but Ryan was still downstairs doing some of his work. We put together a plan for all four of us to get off the ship later in the afternoon and walk around and visit some of the shops nearby the port.
Ryan actually met us for a late lunch, and after our lunch, we all got ready to go ashore. We spent about the next two to three hours wandering around the shopping area near to the port. There were quite a few vendors set up in temporary buildings near the harbor front and also near the bus station. It was almost like a flea market. We visited several regular stores, all of which seemed to be selling the same wares. We then headed over to the strip of wooden kiosk like stores by the harbor, and almost to a tee, they were all selling the same shirts, hats, and other Aruba souvenirs There were a couple of specialty vendors selling what appeared to be handmade items, but not many.
Having Fun In Aruba
We wandered across the street to a sort of outdoor multi level shopping mall. We looked around a bit and then decided to go into a restaurant/bar called Mojito’s Cuban Cuisine Restaurant Aruba. They were having a two for one special on Presidente Beers, so we stopped in for two split rounds, one beer each. There was not any information about the special and after drinking our mini-beers, probably only about 8 ounces each, we got the bill. It was not too bad, but since the beers were already small compared to normal size beers, we felt like it was more like a buy two, get one full size beer special. They did have free wi-fi, but by the time we asked about the password, we were about ready to leave. Stephanie and I did have our phones with us so we sent out a couple of text messages to home.
We all wandered around a few more stores, but it was getting hot, and there was not much breeze walking around the shopping area, so we headed back to the ship, stopping to look in the air conditioned stores inside of the terminal.
We got back on the ship and headed up to the pool deck to get a snack at the pizzeria. Stephanie had been waiting all trip for her favorite specialty pizza, Hawaiian. This just turned into our dinner for the night, we were too lazy to change, even for the buffet.
Afterward, we headed out to Crooner’s for one more refreshment before retiring for the night. We did make a late night stop at the International Cafe to pick up some sandwiches for our day trip to Klein Bonaire for snorkeling. It is a nature preserve, and there are no facilities on the island, so we needed to take all of our food and water with us. Stephanie and I had brought a small collapsible cooler and sandwich bags with us on the cruise just for this purpose. We then headed back to our cabins since we wanted to get a relatively early start tomorrow for a water taxi ride to Klein Bonaire for some snorkeling.