Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas Repositioning Cruise - Curacao Photos And Journal - November 26, 2007

Curacao

Sunday, November 26, 2006

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This ended up being one of the coolest port days I’ve ever done in the Caribbean. I really like Curacao a lot but I wish I could have seen a beach. People I talked to who went to beaches liked them. I will definitely recommend Curacao to people in the future though.

I woke up at 6:30 AM and got ready for the day. I was already booked on the Sea Lion Swim at the Curacao Sea Aquarium at 12:30 PM. I wanted to get mom and dad off the ship today so the shore excursion desk was going to try to get us on the Willemstad Trolley Tour. I don’t think they ever checked like they said they were going to because they were going to call us if the could get us on the tour. The excursion desk opened at 7:00 AM so I was there when they opened. They had room for three people so I booked it immediately.

Unfortunately the tour they had available was the 8:30 AM which we were supposed to meet outside at 8:15 AM. I quickly made my way to mom and dad’s cabin and woke them up. I set some sort of record getting mom ready for the day. We actually could have gone to the Windjammer Café if we wanted something quick but we just headed outside. While we were waiting I talked to the girl who was waiting for the Morning Sea Lion Swim tour and asked if mom and dad could go to just watch. After consulting with her supervisor she told me that would be no problem, they would just have to pay the admission fee. We also weren’t committed to them going at this point. They told me to buy an admission ticket from the afternoon people, so if mom and dad were tired they didn’t have to go if they didn’t feel like going.

To go on the Willemstad Trolley Tour we had to take a cab to downtown Willemstad to catch the trolley. They have a fairly modern bridge going over the St. Anna Bay to get from the cruise terminal to downtown Willemstad. The easier way was to walk from the ship over the Emma Floating Bridge. The drive over the bigger bridge had a roller coaster type ride off the on/off ramps. To be fair though it was the nicest road system I’ve seen in the Caribbean and a taxi driver told me the bridge was over 30 years old.

We almost started a fight between two taxi drivers on the ride to Willemstad though. The guy we were told to go to didn’t want to take us because of mom’s wheelchair. I guess they were paid by the person and the wheelchair would take up a spot for a person. The two taxi drivers started yelling at each other in the weird combo language that is used in Curacao – Papiamento. The second guy finally relented, deciding it wasn’t worth the fight over a five minute ride.

We finally got to the tram and met our guide Jennifer and driver Jose. The tram is a bright pink color which is perfect for this city since all of the buildings are painted in bright, bold colors. Jennifer was a very good guide and Jose really couldn’t help but be a good driver since we were driving at about 5 miles per hour and there was no traffic on a Sunday morning.

We started out and Jennifer told us about the Emma Floating Bridge which was basically where we started. The bridge is on 15 pontoons over St. Anna Bay and actually swings to open up the way out of the bay into the Caribbean. It used to take vehicles but now only does for emergencies or the Governor.

We took a quick right and drove past the floating markets. The markets are run by Venezuelan fisherman who make the 80 mile ride from Venezuela to Curacao and sell the fish the catch. They are allowed to stay for up to two months. There is also a lot of fresh produce sold here also.

We took a left and crossed water again via the Queen Wilhelmina draw bridge. This bridge was actually just brought over from The Netherlands to replace an older bridge. This brought us to a long road of old houses being refurbished. The houses were originally Jewish merchant’s homes. A big problem with the homes is because they were made out of stone and coral the salt from these destroys the paint quickly. They actually have to paint the houses every 7 months and also have to frequently re-plaster them also.

The houses are now on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list and the government and local business are refurbishing them and using them as office space now. They are really beautiful. When they finish it’s going to be a great location. Dad then reminded me that if they have to repaint them every seven months they may never really be done.

The houses are all painted these great colors. Jennifer told us this story as to why. A former governor of Curacao complained that all of the white houses in the bright sun were frequently giving him headaches. He got people to agree with him and to enact a law to paint the houses all these great vibrant colors. Well years passed and the governor passed away. It was only at this point that it was revealed that the governor actually was the owner of the main paint distributor on the island.

During the tour we also passed a few statues like ones for Simon Bolivar and Queen Juliana. The most impressive one was World War II Memorial. It wasn’t as much the memorial as the story behind the memorial. During World War II the men of Curacao joined the war buy joining The Netherlands army. Amazingly 80% of these soldiers were killed during the war. This is probably one of the reasons that there is a 65% - 35% ratio of women over men.

Our last stop was Fort Amsterdam that was the beginning point of our tour and ending point. The most interesting part of the fort was an English cannonball that was embedded in a church at the back of the courtyard of the fort. Apparently the British overshot the governors building which was in front of the complex and hit the church. They decided to leave the cannonball in the wall because removing it would cause more damage.

The amusing story about this now is there are two columns on both sides of the cannonball. The people of the island say that they were added afterwards to make it more noticeable and become a reminder of what the British did. The British side of the story is that the columns were there and it was an incredible shot that they planned to hit a bull’s-eye between the columns.

After the tour we had a few options but the easiest was taking our cab immediately back to the ship. We stopped at the souvenir stands outside the ship and talked to a very nice woman for awhile who hand painted all the items at her stand. She specialized in driftwood art. Mom really liked a driftwood angel that she wants to put on our Christmas trees (it’s way to big) and I liked a coconut that she had added driftwood to the back and painted to look like a fish. We got both and she even told us to come back later for the fish so she could perform some touch up paint to so areas that had been chipped.

We re-boarded the Grandeur of the Seas and had about 1.5 hours before leaving for the Sea Aquarium. I think dad could have slept the afternoon away but mom wanted to go watch me with the sea lions. We had breakfast in the Windjammer Café and I downloaded my morning pictures in the computer before heading out again.

I was talking to Maria Williams who was in charge of the Sea Aquarium’s cruise reservations and asked why the sea lion swim only cost $109 and the dolphin swim cost $209. I had never seen a sea lion swim and later found out there are only 5 in the world. I thought the whole supply and demand thing would make sea lions more expensive. The reason was that dolphins are a lot more expensive to insure. Dolphins are a far more delicate animal than the sea lion and you have lots of restrictions on how you handle them.

The Sea Lion Swim ended up moving into a top spot of the coolest things I’ve ever done. They are incredible animals and smart as can be. We had a land portion of the Sea Lion Swim and water portion. That’s a big difference between Dolphin swims and Sea Lion swims. Dolphins can’t jump up on land and play with you for awhile. I can’t remember our trainer’s name but he did a great job. One really great thing about this tour was there were only five of us so we got really personal treatment.

They had 6 female sea lions and 1 male sea lion that were brought to the Sea Aquarium from Uruguay. This is when were introduced to our land portion sea lion, Sarah with her big brown beautiful eyes. She actually came to us just when the trainer called her name.

We were first told about a bunch of differences between sea lions and seals which are often mistaken for each other. Some of the differences are:

Sarah was even smart enough to show us the difference between her cool little four flipper gallop and a seals belly crawl. Next we got to interact with Sarah.

First she came to each of us and we put a fist up that she put her nose up against then we got to pet her. We were told only to stroke her really because they didn’t like be patted. I was having a blast and knew I had one of the bigger smiles I’ve ever had on my big mug.

Next we got to shake Sarah’s flipper. We went to an area and knelt down and outreached out right hand. Sarah would come to us and put her flipper in our hand. You could tell by this how strong that sea lions are. The trainer told us they actually have to work with them to not throw us to the ground while shaking. They can swim up to 25 miles per hour and are just incredibly powerful.

Finally we got a kiss from our knew friend Sarah. We sat down on a stool and leaned towards her and she came up to each of us and planted a big old fishy smelling kiss on our cheeks. We all finished and it was time for Sarah to go back to her fenced off area and she couldn’t get back in because one of the other sea lions wanted to come out with us. She noticed that Sarah was getting a lot of fish, 20 pounds per day actually. Even when they bribed the other Sea Lion away from the entrance Sarah pretended to make a run for it away from the entrance. I swear it was just like she was screwing with the trainer. She went right back to the entrance after her little run away from the entrance.

Another really cool part of this program is that even though we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the land portion they took a whole lot of pictures not just one of the kiss. Overall for the whole time we were there the photographer took over 90 pictures, even one of mom and dad. I bought the CD of all the pictures for $45 which is more than I would usually pay for 1 or 2 pictures but a fair price for what they gave us.

It was now time for the swimming portion of the day. We got a full 30 minutes of swimming with three Sea Lions. I can only remember two of their names though, Camille and Pacino. Pacino had a good story behind his name. When they first got him he was beat up pretty bad and he has scars all over his face. So his original name was Scarface. After some thinking about the name they decided maybe Scarface wasn’t the best name for a Sea Lion that was going to be swimming with people. So they went with Pacino after the actor who played Scarface and now have a good story for him.

I had my Sony with my waterproof bag and took about 100 pictures while I was in the water. The big problem was they were really fast. I really took that many pictures because I didn’t know if I was getting any good ones at all. I think a couple of the pictures are pretty good. They were just so much fun to be out in the water with. I could have stayed there all day. You can’t ride a dorsal fin or anything like a dolphin but they really hung out with us and played near us the whole 30 minutes.

Two or sometimes all three would get right beneath my feet and they would just swim circles around each other. It was really cool to watch. They also would get beneath you and would blow bubbles up at you. I really didn’t want to leave but 30 minutes came and went too fast. We finished up with our new friends and said good bye. If I ever get to Curacao again I will be back to play with them again.

Our taxi driver was going to meet us back at the Curacao Sea Aquarium at 3:30 PM which gave us about an hour to wander around. I wandered around while mom and dad got something to drink and a Snickers bar. The inside of the aquarium is really small. It’s more of an interactive aquarium with the sea lion and dolphin swims. You can also scuba dive with them and they have an area you can scuba or snorkel with stingrays and sharks. The sharks are separated by a Plexiglas wall that has holes in it so you can feed the sharks.

I hung out by the giant sea turtle for awhile then spent a lot of time at the flamingo area. Not as much for the flamingos they had but for the one lonely pelican. This poor guy looks like he had a stunted growth of his wings. He was trying to fly so bad that you really felt for him. He would go to one side of the pen and sort of rear his butt down and make a two foot jump like he was trying to take off. He could jump really well but his little wings were never going to get him airborne. Dad felt really bad for him also. He went over and talked to him for awhile.

3:30 PM came and our taxi driver was right there waiting. We headed back to the cruise ship and my Sea Lion Swim was over.

I could tell mom and dad were exhausted so I got mom’s wheelchair up the gangway so dad wouldn’t have to push it uphill. I left them and went to spend the next 1.5 hours before I had to be back to the ship walking around. The path from the cruise ship to Emma’s Bridge took me through Rif Fort which was the Fort opposite St. Anna Bay from Fort Amsterdam. They had converted this fort into a nice little outside mall with restaurants and shops.

I got to Emma’s Bridge and it had swung over to allow the cruise ship that was in St. Anna Bay to leave. When the bridge is swung they do have free ferry service to get you between sides. I just stayed on our side and did some shopping then stopped for a couple of beers at a little stand in Rif Fort. This is where I was told by some people from the ship that the beach they went to was pretty nice.

Next to Rif Fort they are building a new Renaissance Hotel and Casino that will be opening in 2007. Again when this area is completed it’s going to be really nice. One strange thing I saw on the way back to the ship was on the back of Rif Fort there was an area where the surf was crashing up on a ledge at the fort’s wall. There were hundreds of small crabs on this ledge. They looked like very small versions of blue crabs.

I actually got a lot done in the 30 minutes between when I got to my cabin and dinner. I got all my pictures loaded and that was a huge amount of downloads. Everyone at dinner seemed to have a great day but I have to be a little biased and say mine was the best. John and Carol had rented a car and drove completely around the building and toured a plantation in their car. They were given a map to the plantation with explanations of what they were seeing.

Dinner was Italian night. I had a Caprese Salad, Scallop Risotto, Lamb Shank and a raspberry custard on a cooking (which I can’t remember its official name). During Italian night all the dining room staff came out and sang us Solo Mio. The head waiter joked that they had 30 different nationalities working and not one Italian, so we should enjoy their version with 30 different accents.

After dinner I went to sign up for an all day tour in Aruba. The Off Road Adventure tour starts at 8:15 AM and is 7.5 hours long. Mom and dad need a break. They are good for one port then need a break. We might meet after my tour so dad can do some diamond shopping. I’m watching the Colts-Eagles Sunday night game and heard the good news that Jason Campbell got his first Redskins win today over Carolina. Go Skins.

Curacao Port Area	St. Anna Bay Waterfront		Curacao Sea Aquarium Sea Lion Swim Underwater
Willemstad Trolley Tour	Curacao Sea Aquarium Miscellaneous		Curacao Sea Aquarium Flamingos And Pelican
Trolley Tour Schaarlo Historic House District	Curacao Sea Aquarium Sarah The Sea Lion		Curacao Sea Aquarium Sea Turtles
Fort Amsterdam Area	Curacao Sea Aquarium Sea Lion Swim Above Water		Curacao Sea Aquarium Starfish Pool
Queen Emma Swinging Bridge		Willemstad Rif Fort Area