Day 27: Aruba

We have been sleeping so well on the Emerald Princess, but, unlike with our cabin on the Royal Princess, there is no sleeping in upon arrival in certain ports, and Aruba is one of them. We were already awake when the announcement was made about 7am that the ship was secured along side her berth and had been cleared by the local authorities (and that is almost, word for word, what the announcement is in each port, and it's no wonder I nearly have it memorized). We made our IC stop for morning cheeriness and brewed coffees and then made our way up one deck to the DaVinci Dining Room for breakfast. We were once again seated with our dinner waiter Corn and Sara (so sweet) from Mexico provided our breakfast service. 

Deep sigh of contentment injected here. 

Frankly, I was ready for a full beach day today. I know that we have other plans already for our next port of Princess Cays on Saturday, and I thought we were way overdue to be slugs on a beach, but G had other ideas and I was game for at least part of them.

First, I must mention here that Aruba appears to have made an effort to clean up their waterfront area. As I mentioned at least once last year, it was just getting trashy looking, and looked very shabby in comparison to neighboring Curaçao. Well, the condos right there are still unfinished (ceramic tiles for roofing have been delivered, and a crane is parked there, in a raised position. Let's see if anything at all changes over the course of the next month or so), and cruise ship passengers are routed out of the secured area on about a six foot wide sidewalk with a palm tree planted in the middle, but it all looks nicer, as if they've picked up the trash and spruced up what little landscaping there is. 

We left the ship about 10am and turned right to the Starbucks at the Renaissance Resort, where we enjoyed the free wifi for about an hour and I got caught up with friends at home. As we left there, we continued to walk down the waterfront and were thrilled to find a newly constructed sidewalk, wide enough for bicycles, that ran along the main street for over a mile to a nice beach area at its end. There we enjoyed the loungers and unbrellas and gentle waves and friendly service and, oh yeah...the $3 beers until it was after 3:30pm and time for us to start walking back to the ship. So, in the end, we had both a beach day and a walking day and we were both most pleased. 

After a quick stop at the IC for salad (since we had had no lunch), we returned to our cabin. G immediately headed to a hot tub but I chose to get cleaned up for the evening. We were in the DaVinci Dining Room shortly after it opened at 5:30pm and watched a beautiful sunset at sailaway from our port side table. No entertainment for us tonight...at 7:30pm we had this cruise's cocktail party for the 40 Most Traveled Passengers (MTPs) on this cruise (for those interested, the cutoff for the party was a high 460 days sailed on Princess). They have really stepped up the hors doerves at the party, and we easily could have skipped dinner (we'll remember that for next time, though we don't often miss dinner!). We were seated next to another couple of about our ages (most of the MTPs are a bit older than us) who, coincidentally live only about 15 miles from us. Both guys are retired military and there was a lot to talk about. As always, we were the last to leave the party over two hours after it started. 

We now have two days at sea. Captain Nick said we are in for some rough seas, so it will be nice to have the option of sleeping in if the nights get too bouncy.