Carnival Vista- 11/9 Thursday, Curacao- Post One
Thursday, November 9th, Curacao
What better way to wake up on my birthday than being on a cruise ship that’s pulling into Curacao?! Sure beats the 2015 birthday that was embarkation day, although that was also pretty cool. We started the day with Blue Iguana breakfast (we like that we’re consistent, albeit sometimes boring) and check our folio charges on the Carnival Hub app. Quick plug, get the app! The app itself is free and lets you look at deck plans, Fun Times, food and bar times, and your account charges. You can buy a one-time $5 charge to use the messaging part of the app, that allows you to message other Hub users, as long as that person pays the $5 charge as well. I’ve used the Hub app on both cruises in 2017 and really enjoy it. While checking the app, I noticed that we had two drink charges from the previous day that were certainly not ours. One was a drink at like 2am when we were sleeping, and the other was at a bar when we weren’t in there. I’m not sure how that happens, but I’m glad we checked it. We headed to guest services and the woman said she’d temporarily remove them and email the two bars to check if these were valid charges or accidents, and if they said they were accidents, the charges would stay off the account. I thanked her for her help, but really, how would a bartender remember if he saw me at a bar 18 hours ago or not?
After guest services, we walked over to the Reflections restaurant to meet for our shore excursion, Discover Curacao Island Tour from 8:30-12. I think the Vista docked early so people were let off at 8 instead of 8:15, which is cool except for our shore excursion was supposed to meet at 8:10 in the MDR, so when we got there we were ushered outside. We had to stand outside on the pier while waiting for our group to gather and leave instead of inside, which was a little inconvenient. We walked to the bus at 8:30 and met our tour guide (John Paul) and our bus driver (Tony). John Paul was very knowledgeable and shared a lot of good info with us (no I haven't fact checked it but I'm going to trust it's true):
-Curacao is 70 miles away from Venezuela & Colombia.
-Curacao is Dutch, is 38 miles long, and holds 150k people from 139 different countries.
-6 months of the year sees an average of 122 inches of rain, then the other 6 sees only 12 inches. Wow!
-Children born in Curacao learn four languages by the age of 12 (including English, Dutch, and Spanish). [Side note, I wish that more American elementary schools taught languages, instead of waiting until middle/high school. Scientific proof says that kids learn a second language better than older children/adults.]
Our first stop was the museum and it was cool to see the immense amount of mahogany that was used to build homes and furnishings, but I didn’t get too much out of the stop. We took a detour to the salt flats to see super pink flamingoes hanging out in large groups. The homes across the country were so colorful, just as the downtown area of Willemstad is, and I started dreaming of what tropical color I would paint our house in Iowa 😉. During the drive we were warned about these manzanilla fruit trees, that are basically super poisonous apples. So dangerous to the point that you can’t even touch them. So of course, that scary news really just terrified me; what happens if one falls on me?! Thankfully I never found out. Heads up if you ever get the chance to visit Curacao, though.
The Curacao Museum
That's our tour guide, John Paul, who provided a tour of the museum. This is an awesome piece of glass artwork with a map of the Caribbean.
The flamingo drive-by we participated in (only shooting photos, of course). You can see a whole lot more in the distance.
Our next stop was Hato Caves, above-ground caves that are reportedly very warm and full of bats. I was very hesitant about the bats but I can proudly say that I survived and the bats weren’t anything like I imagined. They stayed on the ceiling of the cave and didn’t fly around us or swarm the invaders of their caves. I may have gotten pooped on, which was a little gross, but maybe it’s good luck just like a bird’s is? We couldn’t take pictures in the caves except for one room where we were told to snap away, so we did just that. We proudly represented the Iowa Hawkeyes yet again! The caves were so hot, so our sweaty goodness was captured in the photo as well. There are very large fans throughout the caves, but it didn’t do much to cool things down. Overall, we had a great time exploring these historically important caves. Our tour guide was funny, friendly, and full of information, and that all added to the experience.
Entrance to the cave property:
We're definitely glistening with dew in the warm caves, but had to show off our Hawkeye pride down in Curacao!
After a quick bathroom and refreshment break, we all loaded back on to the air-conditioned bus (ahhh, relief) and drove over to the Landhuis Chobolobo Curacao liqueur factory. WooHoo! When we arrived at the Curacao factory, it was instantly clear that the operations of the drink are very small. Very, very small. So small that our tour guide gave us a tour of the process of where Curacao began and found its inspiration, all the way through the bottling process. I'll be honest, it's not like any brewery or distillery factory I've ever been to, and I wish it was more in-depth and interactive. At the end of the tour, there was a worker at the factory/shop preparing little shots of three different flavors- tamarind, orange-colored Curacao, and coffee. Tamarind is a flavor I've heard of through Food Network shows but I don't think have ever tasted. I can now say I have- and it's awesome! That was easily our favorite of the three.
The famous floating bridge:
We're so tiny, hopefully you can spy that Hawkeye flag!
What better way to wake up on my birthday than being on a cruise ship that’s pulling into Curacao?! Sure beats the 2015 birthday that was embarkation day, although that was also pretty cool. We started the day with Blue Iguana breakfast (we like that we’re consistent, albeit sometimes boring) and check our folio charges on the Carnival Hub app. Quick plug, get the app! The app itself is free and lets you look at deck plans, Fun Times, food and bar times, and your account charges. You can buy a one-time $5 charge to use the messaging part of the app, that allows you to message other Hub users, as long as that person pays the $5 charge as well. I’ve used the Hub app on both cruises in 2017 and really enjoy it. While checking the app, I noticed that we had two drink charges from the previous day that were certainly not ours. One was a drink at like 2am when we were sleeping, and the other was at a bar when we weren’t in there. I’m not sure how that happens, but I’m glad we checked it. We headed to guest services and the woman said she’d temporarily remove them and email the two bars to check if these were valid charges or accidents, and if they said they were accidents, the charges would stay off the account. I thanked her for her help, but really, how would a bartender remember if he saw me at a bar 18 hours ago or not?
After guest services, we walked over to the Reflections restaurant to meet for our shore excursion, Discover Curacao Island Tour from 8:30-12. I think the Vista docked early so people were let off at 8 instead of 8:15, which is cool except for our shore excursion was supposed to meet at 8:10 in the MDR, so when we got there we were ushered outside. We had to stand outside on the pier while waiting for our group to gather and leave instead of inside, which was a little inconvenient. We walked to the bus at 8:30 and met our tour guide (John Paul) and our bus driver (Tony). John Paul was very knowledgeable and shared a lot of good info with us (no I haven't fact checked it but I'm going to trust it's true):
-Curacao is 70 miles away from Venezuela & Colombia.
-Curacao is Dutch, is 38 miles long, and holds 150k people from 139 different countries.
-6 months of the year sees an average of 122 inches of rain, then the other 6 sees only 12 inches. Wow!
-Children born in Curacao learn four languages by the age of 12 (including English, Dutch, and Spanish). [Side note, I wish that more American elementary schools taught languages, instead of waiting until middle/high school. Scientific proof says that kids learn a second language better than older children/adults.]
Our first stop was the museum and it was cool to see the immense amount of mahogany that was used to build homes and furnishings, but I didn’t get too much out of the stop. We took a detour to the salt flats to see super pink flamingoes hanging out in large groups. The homes across the country were so colorful, just as the downtown area of Willemstad is, and I started dreaming of what tropical color I would paint our house in Iowa 😉. During the drive we were warned about these manzanilla fruit trees, that are basically super poisonous apples. So dangerous to the point that you can’t even touch them. So of course, that scary news really just terrified me; what happens if one falls on me?! Thankfully I never found out. Heads up if you ever get the chance to visit Curacao, though.
The Curacao Museum
That's our tour guide, John Paul, who provided a tour of the museum. This is an awesome piece of glass artwork with a map of the Caribbean.
The flamingo drive-by we participated in (only shooting photos, of course). You can see a whole lot more in the distance.
Our next stop was Hato Caves, above-ground caves that are reportedly very warm and full of bats. I was very hesitant about the bats but I can proudly say that I survived and the bats weren’t anything like I imagined. They stayed on the ceiling of the cave and didn’t fly around us or swarm the invaders of their caves. I may have gotten pooped on, which was a little gross, but maybe it’s good luck just like a bird’s is? We couldn’t take pictures in the caves except for one room where we were told to snap away, so we did just that. We proudly represented the Iowa Hawkeyes yet again! The caves were so hot, so our sweaty goodness was captured in the photo as well. There are very large fans throughout the caves, but it didn’t do much to cool things down. Overall, we had a great time exploring these historically important caves. Our tour guide was funny, friendly, and full of information, and that all added to the experience.
Entrance to the cave property:
We're definitely glistening with dew in the warm caves, but had to show off our Hawkeye pride down in Curacao!
After a quick bathroom and refreshment break, we all loaded back on to the air-conditioned bus (ahhh, relief) and drove over to the Landhuis Chobolobo Curacao liqueur factory. WooHoo! When we arrived at the Curacao factory, it was instantly clear that the operations of the drink are very small. Very, very small. So small that our tour guide gave us a tour of the process of where Curacao began and found its inspiration, all the way through the bottling process. I'll be honest, it's not like any brewery or distillery factory I've ever been to, and I wish it was more in-depth and interactive. At the end of the tour, there was a worker at the factory/shop preparing little shots of three different flavors- tamarind, orange-colored Curacao, and coffee. Tamarind is a flavor I've heard of through Food Network shows but I don't think have ever tasted. I can now say I have- and it's awesome! That was easily our favorite of the three.
We elected to buy two mixed drinks, the Tamarind Mule (tequila, tamarind Curacao, ginger ale, lime) and the Red Devil (orange juice, pineapple juice, rum, and red Curacao). Both of the drinks were $8 each, and they were strong and delicious and wow, I'll take another right now please! When we first arrived at Chobolobo, we were told that we wouldn't have a lot of time there, so unfortunately we didn't really have a chance to sit down and enjoy the drinks in the sun. After getting the drinks and taking a selfie, we headed into the gift shop to do a little shopping. Fun Fact: Curacao liqueurs are pretty hard to get in the USA, aside from the classic Blue option. I didn't know that while we were shopping, and if I had, I would've bought more than we did! We bought a medium-sized bottle of the Tamarind flavor (we're hooked!) and a little gift pack of a few other flavors. We checked out and headed back onto the bus so we weren't left behind, and took our time finishing our drinks there.
Chobolobo Curacao Factory
Bottling process:
Drink menu of the tasty bevs they were creating at the outside bar:
Happy Birthday (and painful sunburns) to me!
Chobolobo Curacao Factory
Bottling process:
Drink menu of the tasty bevs they were creating at the outside bar:
Happy Birthday (and painful sunburns) to me!
Once back on the bus, we had the option to be dropped in downtown Willemstad for shopping, or at the Vista port area. We had planned to shop and get ourselves back to the ship, so we opted for Willemstad. We were dropped off at 12:25 ship time, so the tour was extended by 25 minutes and that was totally fine with us! After being dropped off and walking across the floating bridge, we made our way to Cafe Plein and ate outside. The seating area felt very Parisian and I very much enjoyed it. My husband likes to go around saying it was Parisian, even though he's never been to Paris and is clearly just trusting my judgement. We took pictures with the big Curacao sign, which is so cool! The food at the restaurant was incredible and came in very large portion. I had the Croque Madam and had no clue what to expect but very much enjoyed it. Be aware that if you go, the water comes from bottles and you have to pay for it, unlike virtually everywhere in the U.S.
The Vista, downtown Curacao, and the Holland Zuiderdam:
I spy those famous colorful buildings!
The Vista, downtown Curacao, and the Holland Zuiderdam:
I spy those famous colorful buildings!
The famous floating bridge:
We're so tiny, hopefully you can spy that Hawkeye flag!
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