Tropical Contact Highs: Eight Breeze-y Nights in the Southern Caribbean (Part 6)featured

by Nicole on May 2, 2014

Posted in Caribbean, Cruise Reviews, Ports of Call

Our Wednesday started with blue skies and bluer waters. It was my favorite kind of day: sea day morning, afternoon and evening in port. It’s the best of all worlds – I can sleep in, lay out in the sun and relax, and then explore a port in the afternoon. It’s a pretty rare combo and I think we’ve only done it twice (Curacao in this instance, San Juan a handful of years ago). But it’s my favorite kind of day.

We grabbed a quick breakfast up on the Lido deck. They put out eggs benedict a few times each cruise and they’re actually quite tasty (moreso if you swap out the ham steak for bacon!).

Since we had a beach excursion planned for the afternoon, we didn’t really want to swim, but it was too nice out to be inside. The compromise was the Serenity deck.

If you haven’t been on a Carnival ship (or don’t know they’re there), the Serenity deck is a decently sized adults-only area two or three decks above the pool area. You have to be 21 or over to get in and it’s generally very, well, serene. It’s quiet and peaceful, with oversized outdoor spa furniture lining the decks. The lounge chairs are more plush, there are hammocks and these little cove beds and a couple of whirlpools. It’s nice.

There’s an old say that goes along the lines of “That which sounds too good to be true probably is.” And as idyllic as Serenity is, it’s also constantly (and frustratingly) filled with chair hogs. Well, the belongings of chair hogs, anyways. The deck was pretty empty when we went up there, but the cove beds and many of the chairs were littered with an errant flip flop here, an old and worn paperback there. We grabbed one of the beds and sat out for a bit.

The sun was intense and it wasn’t more than an hour before we headed inside to do some shopping and play some trivia in Ocean Plaza (spoiler alert: we lost. Again).

We rested in the room for a bit, catching up on our Nancy Grace and packing our bags up for our excursion. We looked out the window, and, well, Mr. Golden Sun wasn’t shining down on us anymore.

On one hand, you don’t need to be a platinum cruiser to know that the weather in the Caribbean at any given time of year can change at a moment’s notice. A burst of intense, hot sun can be followed by a strong rainstorm moments later. The darkest, most intrusive clouds can make way to clear blue skies within a breath. On the other hand, I’m not a huge beach person and I hate hate hate rain and getting wet. We gave up on debating whether or not we wanted to go on our excursion and headed for lunch.

We decided on lunch on the Lido deck because, well, Blue Iguana. That’s it. That’s the reason. The Blue Iguana Cantina was a memorable highlight of this trip. The only note I made about this lunch was “Like El Famos good.” (El Famos Burrito is a local chain of authentic Mexican restaurants in the North suburbs of Chicago). What I appreciated about the fare at the Blue Iguana was that it was simple. A tortilla loaded with meat, a sprinkle of cheese and a squeeze of fresh lime juice was so simple in comparison to the elaborate dishes they’d serve in the MDR, but it was just so good.

They had a cupcake bar at the dessert area with a bunch of different kinds of cupcakes. Nothing was amazing or noteworthy, but I thought it was a fun addition to the offerings that day.

The ship docked as we were finishing lunch (right around 2:00 pm). We grabbed our stuff from the room and headed off the ship in search of some shops to grab some souvvie’s at before our excursion.

Curacao is a decently industrialized island. Tourism isn’t the main industry in Curacao and that’s evident from the moment you clear the dock area. As with any Caribbean island, there are tour operators and hair braiders sitting outside the gates, but they’re fewer and far between and much less pushy.

The other thing we noticed within moments of stepping off the ship was that everything was so colorful. Bright hues coated every hotel, building, shop and hut.

We didn’t find many souvenir places on our stroll. The shopping area closest to the port is at the Renaissance Mall, and the shopping there is pretty upscale (including my favorite, Tiffany & Co!).

And then, out of nowhere…it started pouring. Not, like, April showers kind of rain. Like, raining-cats-and-dogs-I’m-going-to-slip-out-of-my-flip-flops kind of rain. There was a Starbucks nearby and I know that when I’m out of AT&T’s data range, Starbucks = free wifi (except in Nassau, where it’s a couple bucks an hour, regardless of if you buy a drink or not). So to Starbucks we went.

I had, I kid you not, over 300 work emails. Mom and Stephanie weren’t amused by my inability to remain disconnected. So they settled in with some passion fruit iced teas and we began weighing the pros and cons of our beach excursion. I wanted to attempt refunds and go crawl back into bed until the rain went far far away to come again on a non-cruise day and Stephanie wanted to go on the excursion if it was still being offered. Our verbal tug of war persisted long past when we left Starbucks and as we continued walking towards the ship. The rain was letting up and the boat that would take us to the beach was docked alongside the ship. A few people were boarding, so we decided to just go to the beach and hope the rain was over for the day.

I have to say, I’ve never been so happy to eat my words than I was with this excursion. Not only did the rain make way for more late afternoon sun, this was probably one of my favorite excursions we’ve ever done. There was a nice, scenic 30 minute boat ride to the Seaquarium beach, where our guides stopped for us to see some dolphins.

Before we disembarked, the boat captain told us there was a contingency plan in place in case it stormed that evening – that they had tour busses on standby to drive us back to the ship if we couldn’t motor back on the boat.

We docked at Seaquarium beach, where our tour provided us a beach chair at Cabanas and a drink. Mom and Stephanie fell in love with the beach. I fell in love with the fact that there was free wifi on the beach. Okay, I liked the beach, too. The water was clear, the beach was clean and I was a happy visitor.

There were a few bars and restaurants on the beach and some shopping a little further up. We swam for a bit (well…Stephanie swam and I went in ankle deep) while Mom read under a palapa. We did a little shopping and then headed back to the dock to watch the sunset from the pier before boarding the boat to go back to the ship.

Watching the sunset from the pier was something truly special. It was stunning. Picturesque. Gorgeous. Memorable. Everything.

We sat out on the front of the boat on the way back, which gave us a nice view of the lights on the island. The stars were like little pinholes of light shining brightly against the black velvet sky. The boat captain took us for a photo stop at the bridge before driving the boat back to the ship.

We dropped our bags off in the room, showered and changed before heading out to the dining room for dinner.

Since we were docked for a few more hours, the dining room was pretty bare, which made service incredibly prompt. Dinner was okay. There were too many strong flavors from the onions that were overpowering the beef carpaccio and the entrees were just average, but the desserts (particularly the phyllo sticks) were outstanding.

Potage Saint Germain

Shrimp Cocktail

Crepes Filled with Spinach and Ricotta Cheese

Caesar Salad

Beef Carpaccio

Chicken Pot Pie

Grilled New York Strip Steak from Aged American Beef

Almond Phyllo Sticks

White Chocolate Bread Pudding

We went back to the room to change (again) and we spent some time on the balcony, looking out at the island lights.

After a quick stop at the shopping desk and another stop for me to the casino bar to check the score of the Red Sox game (just about the only place on the ship to watch sports this week – there were no World Series viewings or events), we headed to the theater for the Hasbro Game Show. And I hate to say it, but it was super lame. I was expecting more. I was hoping for more. I’m sure it’s a ton of fun to participate in, but it’s not overwhelmingly fun to watch.

We left a little early and headed up to the Lido deck for the Blue Iguana Cantina Fiesta. This wasn’t anything like the Mexican fiesta nights on our previous cruises. The energy was much lower (no one really did anything until the dancers came out, and even then, most people sat on the sidelines). There was no buffet, but they did put out chips and salsa.