Today is our first port stop on the island of Curacao, the “C” in the ABC Islands chain. We had reserved an excursion with a private tour company called Irie Tours before we left home.
The ship was scheduled to arrive at 8:00 AM, but we did not have to meet for the tour until 8:45 AM. Stephanie and I had our usual breakfast in the room as we were getting ready for the excursion. The excursion is eight hours long, and we were scheduled to visit several beaches and other sights on the Western end of the island. We were planning to take all of our snorkel gear since there had been mention of snorkeling at the beaches in the tour description.
We were all scheduled to meet at 8:35 AM on Deck 5 near the Vines Bar before heading off the ship and walking to the tour pick up point, which had been described in an email and also shown on a YouTube video. It was about a 10 minute walk out of the port and past some stores in an old fort before we arrived at the designated pick up point.
The Adams’ were just a few minutes late getting to Vines, apparently Ryan had overslept a little, or in reality, according to Beth, she could just not get him to get up out of the bed!
We knew where to meet from the email directions, but on the way out of the port, we saw some of the Irie Tour buses in the same area as the ship’s tours, so I headed over to ask if we still needed to go to the other pickup location. Apparently, Irie Tours was also involved with some shore excursions through Princess, and these were those buses, and we were informed we still needed to go to the other pick up location. We had just wanted to make sure before we headed that far since we were already running slightly late.
We arrived at the designated pick up point, and saw our brightly painted open air bus, similar to a school bus. There were only two other ladies from our ship going on the tour, so we had this large bus for just the six of us. We met our guider, Eddie, and our driver, whose name we could just never quite understand.
Our Tour Guide Eddie
We certainly had plenty of room on the bus, so we all got to sit in separate seats by the open frame “windows”, and had plenty of room for our gear.
We headed out and received a lot of information on Curacao from Eddie as we headed to the first stop. During the drive, Stephanie had a small issue with on of her flip flops, the tow strap broke.
They had some tape on the bus, but we were not able to make anything work to repair the flip flop. By the time this happened, we were already out of town past any stores, and the western end of the island is not very inhabited. There were only a couple of places where the guide even thought we may find any replacement shoes. We stopped at one location, and no luck, they did not sell shoes.
Luckily, one of the other lades on our tour had a spare pair of bright pink water shoes that she was not planning to wear, so she lent them to Stephanie until we tried to find something to replace them with during the tour. They were a little large, but not overly so, and much better than a useless broken flip flop. Of course, I had a conversation with Stephanie about proper footwear for excursions, and flip flops was not in my list of approved shoes for this type of trip. Unfortunately, even I had not thought to make sure she had brought here Keene sandals before we left home, but I had mine on today!
Lonely Flamingos at St. Wilibrodus
The first stop was at the lake at St. Wilibrodus to see some flamingos. It seemed like more of a slat flats marsh than a lake. Unfortunately, the flamingos had either not yet arrived for the morning, or were not yet there in general for the breeding season We only saw about five flamingos total, and they were quite a distance away. I don’t think we ever got a good explanation from our guide Eddie on why there were so few there, maybe this was not the right time of year for them to have migrated to the island.
Smallest Catholic Church
As we headed to our second stop, we passed by what was described as the smallest Catholic Church on the island. It had originally been built as a private chapel by one of the plantation owners.
Catholic Church
We then passed by a much larger Catholic Church which also had a cemetery. Everyone in Curacao is buried above ground in crypts because the ground is so hard, being comprised of mostly volcanic rock and limestone. We did learn that most of the inhabitants of Curacao are Catholic.
We rode quite a way on some fairly good condition roadways before heading onto some severely pot holed dirt roads to access our first beach, Porto Marie.
Porto Marie Beach
Apparently, this is a private beach and normally charges an admission if you are not on a tour, as we passed by a ticket booth at the entrance to the beach. It was quite a long drive from the entrance to the actual beach, and the road was mostly one lane with periodic passing areas for oncoming traffic. Some of the roads were good, and other were not, so it took quite a while to get to the beach in our rough riding bus. After getting dropped off, we were told we had one hour to explore the beach before needing to be back on the bus.
Relaxing at Porto Marie Beach
The beach was nice, but unfortunately, it started to rain about the time we got off of the bus. There were covered areas, a dive shop and a few stores there, but most everything was still closed. We camped out under a large umbrella while we waited for the rain shower to pass. The beach was very pretty, but the “sand” was filled with a lot broken pieces of coral. Eventually, the sun came back, out but since we only had an hour there, we never really spent much time out on the beach, mostly sitting in some chairs on the deck.
Sea Turtle at Porto Marie Beach
Our fellow tour participants were from Vancouver, Canada, so of course they thought the water was warm, but our opinion was much different. There was a dock extending out into the water, and Stephanie and Beth did see a sea turtle swim by. It did not look like a great spot to snorkel, and with the cloudy weather and initial rain, we never got motivated to out into the cool water to check it out. There was one ladies clothing store there so Stephanie was hoping they would open before we left to check if they had any shoes, but they did not open, even though the sign said they were scheduled to open before our departure time. I guess it was on “island time”.
Beach Bum At Porto Marie Beach
We were quite surprised at the number of people who arrived at the beach by the time we left, most of them arriving by car. This end of the island is pretty remote, we did not see a lot of places to stay as we drove out to the beach.
We boarded the bus to head to our next beach destination, Cas Abao. This was also a “private” beach. We headed down a nice paved road before it ended and we were on a very bumpy dirt road. The bus had to go really slowly, it just was not a smooth riding vehicle at all. However, when we arrived at the beach, we were once again surprised by the number of cars already parked here.
Cas Abao Beach
This beach was much larger, and in our opinion, nicer than Porto Marie. We headed over to some beach loungers and set our our towels. The weather had improved dramatically, and it was now mostly sunny and warmer than it had been earlier at Porto Marie Beach. We actually ventured into the water, and although it was rather cool at first, once you got in and got used to the temperature, it seemed better. I saw several people snorkeling, so I went and got my mask to see if it was worth the effort. There were a few fish, but it was mostly a sandy bottom so there was not much to really see unless you ventured pretty far out.
Beth and Ryan Relaxing On Cas Abao Beach
We did get our first exposure to topless sunbathing at this beach. Since Curacao is part of the Netherlands Antilles, there are a lot of European visitors. There were only a few ladies sans tops, and they were definitely in the minority.
Dokterstuin Plantation House For Lunch
We really enjoyed our stay here, but our hour was up and it was time to board our bus to head for some lunch at the Dokterstuin Plantation House. We arrived at a nice building on the top of a hill that had been used as a real plantation house at the end of the 18th Century. We were given menus with items identified that were available for ordering as part of our tour cost.
Our Tour Group Eating Lunch – Dokterstuin Plantation House
The food was really good. Some of us had the marinated chicken and some had the fired fish. It was served with sides, a beer and a bottled water, with a dessert at the end. The area we sat in to eat was a large open air covered seating area, and there were quite a few other people there for lunch.
After lunch we drove to the Shete Boka National Park to see the Boca Tabla. The park was located on the northern shore of the island, which is very rocky.
Boca Tabla
Boca Tabla is a cave where the water rushes in and makes thunderous noise as it crashes inside. You could actually walk down into the cave and see the waves crashing in. There was also a platform that extended out over the shoreline so you could see the waves crashing into the rocky cliffs.
Boca Tabla Cave
There were a lot of other tour groups here, so it got pretty crowded. Luckily, we got there just ahead of them and were able to get a few pictures without a lot of other “friends” in them.
We got back on our bus and then headed to an area called Playa Forti. On the way there, we stopped at a fishing village and walked out onto a dock in the hopes of seeing some sea turtles.
Coastline at Boca Tabla
The turtles will sometimes come to the dock to eat some of the remains from the fishermen cleaning their fish. There were already several people on the dock, and some were jumping into the water to swim, so of course, there were no sea turtles to be seen. We got back onto the bus to head to Playa Forti, which was an area along the coast where a fort once stood.
Playa Forti
We stopped in a parking area overlooking the coast and the view was really beautiful. There was a spot to jump off the cliff into the water, about 40 feet below. None of our group was adventurous, especially when we found out that the water was only about 10-12 feet deep where you jumped in. Nothing like breaking a leg or an ankle in a remote part of Curacao while on a cruise vacation.
Next, we were off to our final stop at Kenepa Beach. This was supposed to be one of the prettiest beaches in Curacao, and it was nice to look at from the elevated parking area. However, the beach was “public” and there were a lot of locals there, some of which were topless, and really should not have been. At all of the previous beaches, we were told we could get beach chairs for free as part of out tour, but we were not told that when we arrived at this beach.
Kenepa Beach
When we tried to use some chairs, thinking it was the same set up at the other beaches, we were told it was $3.00 per person. We explained about the tour, but apparently that was not part of the agreement here, and since we were only here for an hour, we opted out of chair rentals and set our gear on the concrete walkway. We ventured into the water for a swim, and had to get used to the cool temperature once again. Before heading back to the bus, we tried to find the restroom, but found out it was locked and cost $1.00 to use, so we did not bother to try and find the attendant.
Our Gang and the Tour Bus at Kenepa Beach
We got the bus driver to take our picture of us and the bus, and our guide, Eddie when we got to the parking area. Once on board, we had about a 45 minute bumpy drive back to the ship. The tour had included free beer, a local beer called Polar, cokes and water, which we had consumed during the day. However, none of us really wanted to drink much on the way back knowing that we would not stop for 45 minutes for any restroom breaks. Stephanie and Beth had one beer each, but Ryan and I declined.
They dropped us off right at the ship, which was nice, we did not have to walk as far as we had this morning. We payed for the tour and provided a tip to the driver and our guide, Eddie. Ryan had wanted to try and find some Conch Fritters, but our guide Eddie, was not understanding what Conch was, so he could not recommend anywhere close to the ship to go other than some of the restaurants out near the waterfront, several blocks away.
There were a few vendors set up near the ship that Stephanie and Beth wanted to visit, but our immediate plan was go back aboard and drop off our gear, change and then head back out to visit the vendors. In addition, we wanted to see if we could find a store with some flip flops for Stephanie to replace her broken pair. We had been so thankful that our fellow tour person had the extra shoes, it would have been almost impossible for Stephanie to walk to some of the beaches and especially to see the caves and shoreline at Boca Tabla, where it was extremely rocky. We were also on a mission to find the Conch Fritters for Ryan. We were not scheduled to leave port until 9:30 PM, so we had plenty of time to explore.
Willemstad, Curacao From The Pier
We headed back out about 5:45 PM, and stopped at some of the local vendor kiosks near the pier where Stephanie and Beth both bought Christmas Ornaments. Next, walked to the area of stores and restaurants we had passed through this morning on the way to the tour bus. We actually found a nice store for flip flops and Stephanie was able to find an exact replacement pair for her Reef’s flip flops that had broken.
Floating Bridge in Willemstad, Curacao
The next mission was to find the Conch Fritters for Ryan. We stopped at several restaurants and asked, but got blank expressions and a reply of “No” at all of them. We started to walk out to the area by the port where all of the hotels are located, which is across the floating, moveable pontoon bridge. It was starting to get dark, and it looked like a long walk over there and back, so we abandoned that plan. We were too tired to walk that far, and most likely, conch fritters were not part of the cuisine of Curacao, based on the responses we had gotten so far from the restaurants we asked.
The Caribbean Princess at Willemstad, Curacao
We headed back to the ship to get a bit to eat in the buffet. Afterward, there was a Movies Under the Stars already playing outside so we all got lounge chairs and watched the movie Tarzan. After about 40 minutes, Stephanie and I decided to leave, the movie was good, but we were too tired to sit that long. Beth and Ryan stayed to watch the movie. Stephanie and I wanted to see the sail away at 9:30 PM, so we headed up to Deck 16 and got a couple of glasses of wine. We still had to wait about 30 minutes before we left, so we headed up to the observation deck, Deck 18, and sat out on some benches looking at the stars. There was a deck party going on for the Concerts at Sea group, which was not very heavily attended, but we did not want to be intruding, which was why we headed up to Deck 18.
We watched the sail away from the stern of the ship, there were less people there, and it was protected from the wind. The ship was barely moving, we did not have far to go overnight to get to Aruba
On the way back to our cabin, Stephanie wanted to go to the international Cafe to see of they had any of their small cheesecakes for desert. We stopped in for one drink at the bar nearby and ate some desserts. We found out that the stores were open late tonight since we had left late, so Stephanie took her cruise card and disappeared upstairs. I had no idea where she was going, other than it was a store destination. About 15 minutes later, she came back with another new pair of flip flops. I guess it was a “two for one” deal, break one pair, buy two new pairs. They were actually a pretty good price, and she had seen them previously, but since the ship’s stores were not open while we were in port, we had to try and find another pair in Curacao in case the ship’s store did not have her size.
After finishing our drink at the International Cafe bar, we headed upstairs to Crooners to have a beverage there. We really liked the bar staff there, Kelvin and Alona. We already knew we did not have much of a plan for our port stop in Aruba tomorrow. Beth and Ryan had been to Aruba and stayed in hotels there several time before, and Ryan had some work he needed to finish up, so we had already abandoned the plan to head to Arashi Beach by city bus. With no reason to get up early, Stephanie and I stayed at Crooners enjoying the piano music until they closed at midnight.
It had been a long day, but we all had a great time on the tour and in Curacao.