Welcome to Curacao: Another New Port (Southern Caribbean - July 17, 2014)

Our third port was Curacao (pronounced ku̇r-ə-ˈsau̇).  Curacao is an internally self governed Dutch island.  It is only about 15 miles from the Venezuelan coast.   It is a very pretty port due to all of the brightly colored buildings.  Apparently, there was a government leader who struggled with headaches who said the buildings when painted white hurt his head.  So, he declared that all of the buildings had to be painted these pastel colors.  



The dock is a very nice area.  There was a different feel to this island right away.  It was much more clean and affluent (comparatively speaking).  The buildings were all well kept as were all of the areas we walked.












We didn't have a set plan again at this island.  We wanted to get a sense of the island because we had not been there before, and we wanted to do a little shopping.  We found a taxi and hired the driver for a couple hours of touring the island.  
 
 I am always amazed at the size of the ship, especially when compared to the buildings at the ports.  The picture of the town in the foreground and the ship in the background shows just how big the ship is.  These are multilevel buildings that are dwarfed by the ship. 

The itinerary was a little different for this stop.  We were not able to get off the ship until 1:00 pm, but we didn't have to be on board until 11:00 pm.  We are pretty, shall we say, frugal.  So, we hate to miss a cruise dinner.  In order to take advantage of the dinner, we had to get back on board and clean up for dinner.  It is a little blurry, but my selfie is being photo-bombed by one of our waiters.   

 After dinner, we had more time before we had to be back on the ship.  We really have never been in a port at night.  There was a baseball game going on right next to the ship.  The kids and I decided to get off the ship and see if we could get into the game.  Getting off the ship in the dark was a new experience.  We tried to get into the baseball game but it would have cost a little more than we wanted to pay.  In hind sight, we probably should have done it just for the experience, but we knew we couldn't stay very long.

 Once back on board that night, we did our normal games and snack.  This time that included putt-putt and cards.

The Evening Routine (Southern Caribbean - July 16, 2014)

We were always back on board to get ready for our dinner.  Some don't like the formal dinner, but we really enjoy it.  We like to get to know our wait staff and choose from the great options.  I always take the camera just in case, but I think Adri was getting tired of my attempts at capturing the moment.  I think the dinner was Alex's favorite part of the cruise.  He would often try a couple of appetizers, a few times he ordered two entrees, and he most definitely ordered multiple desserts.  It is hard to choose sometimes, so protocol is to order multiples.

While at dinner, we often look over the activities from the evening.  Alex and I did a lot of the shows, but we also just played games.  Adri and I played shuffle board a couple of times.  Alex wanted to get a picture that showed the perspective of how big the ship was by showing how small we are compared to the fins.


It was pretty common to play some cards and have a late night snack.  Alex preferred the Caesar salad, but we also liked the sandwich station and the pizza.

Dominican Republic: A New and Interesting Port (Southern Caribbean - July 16, 2014)

The La Romana port in the Dominican Republic is not a very picturesque port.  This first picture shows the dock where we unloaded.  The amazing thing here was that the captain backed this huge ship up to this dock!  Just left of the dock was a very nice and large house.  This house had a green, sand traps an;d short fairway in the back yard.  The Dominican Republic has a large sugar cane refinery.  This house belonged to one of the higher ups with that company.  You can see the refinery in the background. 

We did not have a set excursion, but we thought we would try and get a taxi to Cueva De La Maravillas, which is a beautiful cave labyrinth.   This site is privately owned so there are no excursions that include this site.  There is a $10 charge per person.  We found a taxi that would take us out there and give us a little tour after that.  Visitors are not permitted to take pictures in the caves,  but there are some good shots at this link:  Cave Pictures. This was a place where an ancient native tribe lived.  There were drawings on the walls in the caves. The natives represented in the painting behind us were completely wiped out by disease after the Europeans arrived. 

The little cutie was one of many iguanas on the site.  From Cueva De Las Maravillas, we relied on our taxi driver, Tony King, to show us more of the area since we had not been to the Dominican Republic before.

There were two things that we noticed right away.  One was baseball!  Baseball is the national sport.  There were fields all over the place.  We arrived early and on our way to Cueva De Las Maravillas, we saw probably six baseball fields all full of kids.  Their fields were not like the nicely groomed fields in our area.  They were dirt with rocks all over, but it didn't seem to bother the kids.  The other thing we noticed was all of the motorcycles and mopeds.  One guy was carrying an eight foot ladder on his moped as he traveled down the road!  We stopped at a local shop for some souvenirs.  They were very pushy and we didn't end up getting anything there. 






One place that our driver really wanted to show us was Casa De Campo.  This is a really, really ritzy development.  People from around the word have places here.  It is a separate community that is nothing like the "locals" living conditions.  The places in this community were multi-million dollar places. They were truly amazing.  Some of them stretched for what looked like blocks.  There was every design you could imagine.  There were ones that had the distinct look of a Prince from India.  Others looked like a castle from Italy.

The large house on the cliff is a rich Russian's, and yes, that is just a single family dwelling.  It is not an apartment complex or condos.  There are world famous golf courses in this community.  It is truly a dichotomy.  The locals struggle to make ends meet and there is some wealth right there beside them.  We were told that the average house in this community employed twelve people to maintain the property.  So, the locals do benefit from these places.

One of our stops was a local favorite beach.  We hung out there just a short time before heading back to the ship.

First Stop - Grand Turk (Southern Caribbean - July 15, 2014)

Our first port on this cruise was Grand Turk.  We had been to this port before.  It is a small and flat island.  It has some nice beaches.  We had snorkeled down by the boat you can barely see in upper left-hand corner of the picture beyond the pier.  We had to take a taxi there, and this year we didn't really have a plan to go anywhere.  We decided to disembark and see if anything struck us.

The port is a very pretty.  There are many shops just down the pier.  There are always taxis and people trying to sell excursions.  Nothing really did strike anyone, but we noticed a huge pool right behind the shops.  It didn't look like it was associated with any particular business.  It wasn't enclosed at all.  So, we decided to just see if we could find a chair so we could hang out for a while.  Fortunately, we found a couple of chairs and just stayed at this pool for a while.  It was really nice and was just free.  There were bars around it and some events that could be done for a fee, but the pool area and chairs were free!  This area was just down the pier and behind the shops but close to the ships.  As you can see from the picture of the pool with Adri and me, there was another Carnival ship in port at the same time.

The panoramic picture show just how huge this pool was There was a pool just as big behind Alex who was taking the picture.  There was an island in the middle of all this with walking bridges all around.

After some time at the pool and walking though the shops, the girls decided to head back to the ship.  Alex and I wanted to at least cool off a little and get in the water from the beach.  There are beach areas on both sides of the pier.  Heading to the left, there is a better beach area, but that can get a little crowded.  Turning to the right was not as busy but it was a little rocky, which was fine for Alex and me.  We took the picture of the ships with the girls on the pier.  It is always amazing to see how huge these ships are.