Curacao

 Tuesday, February 25, 2025

At the Captain's toast, Captain Eldering had mentioned that he had a special treat for all of the passengers. He said that the Eurodam would be docking right downtown in Willemstad, Curacao. He encouraged everyone to be up by 6:30 am to watch as the ship sailed in.

That sounded like a great idea, but even after going to bed at 9 pm I didn't stir until Bob's alarm went off at 7 am. We turned on the TV to the bow camera channel and sure enough...we were docked right in the center of town next to the floating Queen Emma Bridge. On our first visit to Curacao our ship was docked where the NCL ship in the following photo was located. We had no time after the tour we took on that visit so we had not gotten to see the main part of town.

The NCL ship in the distance is where I assumed we would be docked.
How fun to be right downtown instead!

Bob and Jon were going to scuba dive again and needed to leave by 8:15 so we had to hustle a bit to get to the buffet for breakfast. Today the poached egg special was "Forest Mushroom Benedict". It was an English muffin topped with spinach, mushrooms, a poached egg and hollandaise sauce. That didn't appeal to me so I just had a plain muffin with the poached egg on top. (I decided I needed to limit my intake of hollandaise sauce...eating it every morning for 3 weeks could be disastrous!!) Unfortunately the eggs were barely warm. My coffee was also cold so I can't give very high marks for the breakfast.

The guys had booked their dive through "The Dive Bus" and had been put in touch with another guy on the ship who was also diving. The three of them met and shared a taxi to the dive shop. Here is Bob with a report on his dive:

Our diving experience was quite fun and surprising. We had dived in Aruba the day before, so the jitters were past us. Jon and I had both settled in again to BCD, weights, tank, and all the correct procedures. We are good partners in the water. We did 2 shore dives, both right across the road from the shop. We literally walked across the road in all our gear to step into the water. The house reef was first, and we had lots of great sea life to enjoy. The second, called Car Pile, I was nervous about. It’s billed as a pile of junk dumped in the water to attract sea life. Really? We were quite surprised at how grown over it was, the fascinating structure of large steel wheels and beams, and lots of great sea life and coral. We came out really surprised how fun that was. I had dived in Aruba and Bonaire previously, so I’m glad to now have seen a little bit of Curacao.

Michelle and I took off on foot to find a Starbucks where she could hopefully find another collector's mug. Using Google maps we walked along the waterfront until we came to the Rif Fort which had been converted into a shopping center.

Michelle stopped in one of the shops and bought a Curacao t-shirt. Just outside the walls of the fort we found the Starbucks and SCORE...they  had the mug she was looking for. We each bought a coffee which we enjoyed inside in the air-conditioning. On the way back to the ship we stopped off and on in a few shops and also went down one of the side streets window shopping. My knee wasn't happy about the walk, but I managed by going slow.

We were back on the ship around 11:00. Crew guys were still grinding on the grates outside my cabin window so Michelle and I went down to the promenade deck and sat facing the main part of the city of Willemstad...so pretty! By noon we decided not to wait on the guys and ordered pizzas through the Navigator app. We went to our usual table in the buffet and waited to get an alert that the pizzas were ready. We finished eating and the guys still hadn't returned so we went back to our cabins. A nap was sounding nice, but the workers were making so much noise that any sleep was out of the question. 

I learned to keep the curtains closed when I was changing clothes because you never knew if someone was right outside the window!

Cabin #4060. Even with the occasional work being done outside our cabin,
I appreciated having the large window that let in lots of light.

I like that most of HAL's cabins have couches or loveseats.
I used the adjustable table as my "office space" when working on my blog.

It wasn't long until Bob did come back and I went to sit with him in the buffet while he ate. Jon also joined us. I didn't stick around long because a lady sitting nearby was coughing like crazy. Drinks were still being filled by the crew so I had them fill my large insulated mug with ice water and then added a sugar-free lemonade packet when I got back to the room.

Bob, Jon and Michelle got off the ship to do a little exploring but I decided the couple of miles I had walked in the morning was all my knee was going to take. I putzed around the cabin getting my backpack organized for tomorrow's snorkeling excursion, watched some news on TV and updated my blog notes. Bob texted me a few times while they were out and said it was very hot which convinced me I had made the right decision by not going.

Just beyond where the Eurodam was docked was the Queen Juliana bridge, 185 feet above the water.

Jon & Michelle crossing the Queen Emma floating bridge.

When they returned, Bob called and made dinner reservations for 5:30 pm and when it was time, we met Jon and Michelle in the dining room. Bob, Michelle and I all ordered the wiener schnitzel and the piece of meat was MASSIVE! None of us were able to finish. And anytime lamb is on the menu, that is what Jon orders...just as he did tonight.

So good...but so big! The rest of the meal is hiding under the piece of meat!

Between the main course and dessert, I had Bob run outside to the promenade deck to get a photo of the painted buildings along the waterfront being illuminated by the setting sun. After we finished we all went out and saw the floating bridge lit up and being opened as a large ship sailed by. 

When the bridge is open (as it is in this photo) a ferry was available to cross the river.

The evening entertainment was pianist Juan Pablo. His show combined his excellent piano playing with a little humor. With his heavy accent I missed a few of the jokes and I think I was getting tired enough that I didn't enjoy the show as much as I might have normally.

No mention was made of playing cards (I think everyone was tired!) and we parted ways with Jon and Michelle right after the show. Bob and I decided tomorrow would be a room service breakfast day so we got the menu filled out. We rarely order room service so we hoped we filled it out correctly before hanging it on our door handle in the hallway. After getting things organized that we would need for snorkeling tomorrow in Bonaire, we hit the hay.