DAY 5 ARUBA 2-11:30pm April 19

I promised myself I would sleep in today, since we weren't going to be in port until 2pm. But...it never works out for me since I have been getting up at the crack of dawn every other day. It was 8am and I was wide awake due to every time I turned in bed, I felt my slight sun burn ache and create another crease in my skin.

I headed outside to check on the weather (the only thing I hate about being in an inside room is having to go upstairs to check the weather and sunlight situation). It was a little cloudy outside and it appeared "foggy" in the distance.

Now according to some "facts" I read about Aruba...this just couldn't turn out to be anything but a good day!

Aruba Facts (according to an article I read prior to the cruise):

1) Aruba has one of the most ethnically diverse populations in the world. Most speak English, Dutch, Spanish, Creole and Papiamento. Population consist of over 90+ nationalities and ethnic groups.

2) Aruba's diet is strongly influenced by Indonesia with Indonesian food.

3) On a clear day, you can see Venezuela, which is 90 miles away.

4) Aruba is the wreck diving capital of the Caribbean.

5) The white sand beaches are barefoot-friendly due to the unique crushed coral shell composition, which keeps the sand cool on your feet.

6) Aruba is the pioneer of purified water for over 80 years.

7) Breeze from the northeast cause the divi-divi trees, that look like bonsai trees, to bend and grow that way.

8) It is common practice to let the goats, donkeys and ostrich out during the day to feed and you can sometimes see them on the hillside grazing.

9) Gambling winnings don't get taxed here! You keep it all. (Some will keep the winnings and invest in property here so that they don't have to pay taxes when returning to the US). <---sounds like a plan to me...if only I could win that kind of money!

10) 20% of the island is a national park.

11) ARUBA HAS THE MOST SUNNY DAYS OF ANY ISLAND IN THE CARIBBEAN!!! They have the least amount of rainfall, with about 15" for the year! You are almost guaranteed a sunny day in Aruba. ALSO...Aruba lays on the outside of the hurricane belt, so hurricanes rarely touch Arbua shores!

YES! Hardly any rain...with my luck and the clouds in the sky, I will probably have a rainy day in Aruba. I guess that would be something to write home about! lol

Since I was the only one up, I headed to the gift shop for a little quick shopping and on the way back to the room...I just happen to pass the casino...well....I knew the casino's would not be open all day or tonight, due to being in port late, and we sure wasn't about to stay up late just to play, I figured I'd throw $20 in and see what happens real quick.

I headed to my favorite game on this ship...Alice. I put in $20 from my key card and within 2 minutes and a few spins, I won $48. Whelp, good enough for me. Time to head back to the room to get the fam up. Like I always say, if I'm up, they might as well be too!

When I returned to the room, everyone was already up and dressed and daddy already had Sakari in a bathing suit. Shocker! We headed for breakfast and got our usual. Only this time, Sakari would decide she wanted an omelet as well and daddy decided he wanted the all white omelet. I was shocked they changed things up a bit. Of course "Mo" the parrot was hungry too, so she just had to bring him along.

I got my normal omelet and slab of pig and then of course my new found pastry.

After breakfast, we headed outside and decided we would try to find the putt putt area (since we haven't managed to run into it yet). We felt a little sprinkle...seriously? This couldn't be happening to me. But the more I thought about it, the more I figured...well, we aren't really IN Aruba YET, so maybe that's the problem.

We headed up on the back decks, toward the whale tail, and circled the area of the putt putt, trying to figure out how to get in. After a complete circle, I finally figured out that you had to go INSIDE the "basketball/soccer" court (usually that term lightly) and cut across to another set of stairs to go up.

We finally made it and located our putters and balls.

There really wasn't anything spectacular about the putt putt area, like some of the other ships, but it was still fun and interestingly challenging at times.

It did make for a challenging game due to the wind on that high of a deck. I blame anything over 3 putts on the wind moving my ball because I know that it would have been a hole in one otherwise. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

After putt putt, Sakari insisted on trying to play ping pong again. There were people on both sides, so it was a bust. I honestly don't know how they were playing with the wind. It's more like a chase the ball game.

We headed back to the room to pack our things for our day in Aruba and we already had our towel animal of course. (This is still just really weird to me to have a towel animal during the morning cleaning).

I think at some point we ran into Thrilled and we both had made plans to head to Arashi Beach for part of the day (prior to the cruise). I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do about transportation. I knew you could walk somewhere and catch the local bus to the beach for $2.60/pp. It definitely was enticing to think about how cheap that would be, but with arriving in Aruba so late, I also wanted to maximize my time at the beach. I knew that taking the bus would be a bit of a detour and we would have stops along the way, limiting some of our time. I had read that a taxi would range anywhere from $21-25 (different reports coming in) and although that's a lot more than paying around $8 total, I was willing to do it. However, I wanted to get Thrilled's opinion on the situation and if she was willing to take the bus, I'd do the same. It's always easier, I think, if you have a group or other people with you...that way if we screw up, it's a lot funner! LOL

She had told me that she had planned on taking the bus. So, I was fully prepared to do that as well.

Here we are finally pulling into Aruba.

The buses were all lined up and ready to tour the cruisers.

It seemed to be a very colorful city.

I don't know what those little buildings on the left in the center that look alike are, but at night, they lit up colors that changed constantly. It was really pretty.

All the pastel colors reminded me of Bermuda...and makes me want to go back to Bermuda.

Looks like a party bus ready to pick up the cruisers that are willing to crawl back to the ship either right before sailaway or after in some cases.

Just look at that color of blue! Amazing!

You better believe once that ship was "parked" I was in line getting off and headed for the taxi's.

Only...we just had to stop for our pictures of course.

Sakari had found a "peacock" and just had to have her picture taken with her. Absolutely stunning costumes they had there. I'm so glad that we stopped for her to get a picture here because they LOST our other family picture from that day and we have no family pictures from Aruba. (More on that later).

We headed into the building and was winding our way around to get out. It was hot outside and my lens would continue to fog a lot.

Sakari discovered all of these beaded costumes. She was amazed and insisted on getting pictures with them all...whether we were in a hurry or not.

I decided we had time for more pictures. It was actually a stall tactic to see if we might find Thrilled passing by and heading to the bus.

Still no thrilled or munchkins in site.

Ok, time to head out of the building and see if we might see her out there and to check out how things work out there.

To read about our day at Arashi Beach, click the following link:

We headed in to the terminal and on a hunt for a I <3 Aruba tee. I managed to fine one, for a decent price compared to other ports (just $14) and it also came with a "free sticker"

After I made my purchases, we came out of the store inside the building and noticed there were a lot of people in the hall. We would find out this was actually the line to get back to the ship. Yikes! Everyone decided this was the perfect time to go back? Come on people, you have another 3 1/2 hours of free time....go be free!

We decided to get in line and head to the ship and Sakari begged to go over and take her own pictures of the sparkly costumes again.

The line moved super quick and before you knew it, we were on the ship again and headed to our room for showers and a change of fresh clothes.

We headed up to the buffet, hoping it wasn't closed yet...and it wasn't...thank goodness because we hadn't ate since breakfast that morning.

We were done eating by 9:30pm and decided to head up on deck to get some pictures.

What is this castle looking thing in the picture below? The lights on it changed colors constantly as well. Aruba is such a colorful place...both night and day.

Here comes the party bus...they made it back in time...blowing horns and music blasting.

Tonight's buffet dinner was "ok", but they had the same noodles they had the previous night. Hmm

Also, some of the food was bland again. Blah

For the first time I tried bread pudding. I have always wondered what it was and gave it a shot. It was super yummy!

At this point, we really didn't feel like heading back off the ship for 1 1/2 hours and thrilled had told me about a hypnotist show that was going on that night. She explained that she tried this once and it just didn't work on her. I just knew I wanted to see the show and made the executive decision we would be staying on the ship.

We hung out on the deck until it was time to go to the hypnotist show at 10:15pm.

It was pretty funny and to my surprise...when they ask people from the audience to come up and take a chair if you wanted to participate...guess who shows up? THRILLED. I was "thrilled" to see her up there and shouted with joy! Sakari was excited too and jumped up and down.

The show was hilarious and there were some that it worked on and others that it didn't. When it wasn't working on some, they were removed from the stage and replaced with new people. I knew that Kia said it did not work on her in the past, but she sure looked like she was falling into a trance. Then after awhile, she stood up and walked off. DARNIT! After talking to her later, she said she was almost there and she spoke to the hypnotist after the show about why she was having a hard time....I'll let her chime in with the details.

I always wondered if this was a show and people were pre-selected to go up there and told what to do. We would later run in to a guy that was up there and he confirmed he had no memory of what happened. Later in the cruise, we would run into someone else that also said the same thing.

We pulled out at 11:30pm and were on our way to the next port. After the show, we decided to head back to the room and pack for our next exciting day in Curacao. We would have to get up bright and early so I knew we needed our rest.

Sakari said "but I need to draw"...so I told her she has 5 minutes and the light was going off. She scribbled something real quick and the lights went out.