Panama Cruise - Day 4: Aruba

December 11, 2008

Yay! The first day we are in port! As much as I like just being on the ship, it is fun getting off it too. Our first stop was Aruba.

We started the day with room service for breakfast. We had scrambled eggs, sausage and hashbrown as well as apple juice and assorted pastries. It was quite yummy, but that is pretty much the extent of the breakfast they offer for room service. And I always found it quite entertaining to see the eggs dished out by ice cream scoop!

As soon as we were dressed and fed, we left the ship for Aruba. We were there too early for most of the stores to be open, but we walked around the downtown/pier area to see what it was like. On our walk we found a museum that was open so we went in. That was a HUGE disappointment. It would have been okay if it were a free museum, but we paid to get in and were expecting military history and received general history.

When the stores opened we shopped for souvenirs, or more precisely, a t-shirt for Peter. We also found a nice gift to bring for a friend of mine who was watching our cats while we were away. In Miami I realised that my sandals were broken, but thought I could just walk around in my nicer sandals. By the time we had walked around Aruba for a couple hours I decided that I needed to find some sporty sandals for walking. If you can believe it, I actually saw running shoes with both the Yankees and Red Sox logo on them...Geesh, I can't even escape it when I am in the Caribbean!!

On our way back to the ship we stopped at Senor Frogs for a drink. We have always heard people talk about the bar while we have been away, but have never stopped for a drink until now. It is a pretty fun atmosphere, but you can tell it is strictly for the tourists that visit. They have signs that they move around and quietly put above the customers' heads. Michael had a 'horny' sign put above his head and didn't even know anyone did anything until I told him he had a sign!

Back on the ship we had our usual lunch at the Windjammer and then for a swim. One night at dinner one of the Atlanta people was talking about a drink she absolutely loves called a BBC - Banana Bailey's Colada - so we decided to try one while sunning ourselves on the pool deck. After the first sip I was hooked! They are fantastic, especially if made with a lot of baileys!

As you might expect by now, the mid-afternoon means nap time for Michael followed by the Schooner bar. However, this time we put a little detour in our usual plans. On the way to the Schooner bar we lost more money at the casino. Also, one of the waitresses at the bar, Claudia, had started to realize we were coming every day and spent some time with us. From our discussions over the trip we learned about lot about how the lifestyle of the staff while on board.

The show was another pre-dinner one. It started out quite promising. There was a single guy on stage just saying some funny things, but then he dragged out his duck puppet. The puppet was slightly entertaining, but he got old quickly. I imagine the children on the ship would have enjoyed the entire show though. We ended up leaving early because there was a Welcome Back party for the Crown and Anchor members (to be a member you just need to have cruised with RC before and sign up). The party is their way of saying 'thank you' and they give you some champagne, canapes and advertise future cruises (the Oasis being the 'hot item' this time). But like I said before, anytime there is free alcohol I am happy!

Dinner was once again another day of musical chairs. We had four new people! They were at the table for ten behind us and it was just the four of them so our tables merged. It was quite exciting as one of the couples was from Halifax! We also discovered that the ship must have gotten a discount on gelatin since all the desserts had some of that in them. I ordered a baileys cheesecake for dessert and it actually jiggled! I do have to give credit to Nihat here - he tried to steer us away from the cheesecake telling us that it wasn't very thick, but I saw cheesecake and didn't listen. It wasn't bad tasting, just very jello-like. Before the dessert was served, all the waiters, assistant waiters and head waiters had a little parade for us where they carried food on their heads. When they were back at the tables, we were all suppose to do the Macarena together, but most of our table, including us, didn't do it.

After dinner there was 70s music in the Vortex so we went up there for a bit, but they weren't playing the music that Michael likes and they mixed in some 80s with it so we didn't stay long.