Nov 8^th, 2017

Another warm and windy morning after a night of amazing thunderstorms. The sky was lit up from horizon to horizon.

We watched the sea birds gliding alongside the boat in the slip stream. I guess that means birds can fly at least 20 miles an hour as that appears to be our average ship speed.

We lazed around until noonish – I watched Mary Poppins on deck while Jim read and napped. We pulled into Aruba to disembark around 1:30pm.

Aruba is a high-rise covered, low lying island. There are white sand beaches and the multi-blue-blue layers of ocean, but it is big tourist business for sure. Diamond boutiques and high-end store line one side of the street, lean-to shacks with made-in-china junk, ah, souvenirs, line the other.

We left around 2pm and wandered along the water front, just taking in the sights and sounds. It reminds us of Sausalito on a busy summer day. So many gawking tourists, so much noise. There were 3 other tour boats in the docks with us, so it was crowded. The Royal Princess was docked next to us. It’s the latest and greatest of the Princess fleet. It holds 3500 passengers and had to have been 15-20 stories high. Our boat, the Coral Princess only holds 2000 passengers and was dwarfed next to it.

Along the waterfront, we saw crabs and iguanas. A whole herd of iguanas in every shade of green, blue, gold, brown and gray were munching on the lawn.

We also stood on the wharf to get splashed by the Caribbean. My cold (yes, I caught a cold yesterday) was wearing me out and neither of us felt like shopping so we headed back to the ship after an hour. Again, it was so hot and humid, we felt like we’d been out for hours. A quick mojito, once back on board, picked us right up, though.

 Dined at the Horizon, Octoberfest! Had an after dinner sambucca at the Wheelhouse Bar and then watched The Mummy with Tom Cruise back in the room. (not a very good movie, BTW – Mary Poppins is better).