harryfat1

Thanks for the subway tip and MOMA suggestion. The reason we want to see the Guggenheim is not for the exhibits but more for the architecture as I am a fan of buildings/structures as evidenced by my cruise ship and building pictures of Curacao. I want to see the inside of the Guggenheim to see and appreciate the structure. I’m not an art person. Couldn’t tell the difference between any painting or any artist. My favorite artwork is the picture of the dogs playing poker so that tells you the depth of my art knowledge or lack thereof. The closest thing I have to actual art appreciation is Escher's artwork. Let me show a few Internet pictures of the buildings we hope to visit for folks who are not familiar with what interests us. Guggenhiem museum structure: Oculus Center The Vessel (It has the Escher feel to it but I believe they don't allow people to go inside anymore due to the high number of suicides with people jumping off the top) Here's Grand Central Terminal. More classic structure. Seen in many movies NYC Public Library

As I mentioned previously, you must make a reservation for the NorthStar after you board the ship. Depending on your luck, you may or may not be getting the complimentary session. Only port days are free. Sea days cost extra. At around 15 minutes before your appointment, you need to check in at the podium to let them know you are here. Then they will ask you to stick around the area for the next 10 minutes. So we just hung around the area and took a couple more photos of the area

Everyone’s favorite photography trick is where you pretend to touch the big object behind you. The classic one is the leaning Tower of Pisa in many pictures – yeah, I’ve been there.

It must be a port day as there’s nobody by the elevator at 3:30 with many people still off the ship as we are docked until 8 PM with all boarding at 7:30. People at the pool area Looking at the Curaaco “cruise terminal” – well, technically it’s a cruise terminal but no real physical building. Just some tents and kiosks. Zooming in to see the HAL ship from earlier

Onward with the trip report: +++++++++++ Elevator ride. There’s a weight and people limit for the elevator to safely operate. If everyone gains weight on the cruise, by the end of the cruise, would the people limit decrease by one with everyone feeling heavier? Oh, wait, what am I saying? With the cost-cutting on the RCI food budget, nobody gains weight anymore from cruises. Silly me as I was thinking of the old cruising days…🤪

Happy Valentine’s Day to All. Hope y’all had a pleasant evening with your loved ones. I don’t know about you guys, but I kept getting notifications today from CC on all the old posts from these couple of weeks. I think ever since their server had issues, they stopped having notifications until today when all the old notification that was hung up in the queue was realized all at once. The notification bell on my cell phone was having spastic attacks from all the old posts. It’s been over a month since I started this trip report. I appreciate whoever is still left to read this.

No, Not likely. I don’t have a forum to post the info on. Not like I can start a new thread “Cheapo Dad’s land saga to NYC” here at the RCI boards. I guess I can drop in a few pictures on @dani negreanu mega thread as I saw @bobmaclibertyhad posted some pictures of his trip to NYC with pictures of the US Intrepid last month when he uploaded some mooring line pictures. Here’s my draft itinerary version 1. There will be many changes as I firm up my plans next few months but here is what we hope to see in NYC as it's heavy on the "tourist things to do": Day 1 – Arrive in NYC Day 2 - “Free” Walking tour of the Financial District in the morning 9/11 Memorial Museum/One World Observatory Oculus Staten Island Ferry Day 3 - High Line/The Vessel at Hudson Yard USS Intrepid or some sort of museum if weather is too hot Day 4 – Statue of Liberty Time Square Rise NY Day 5 – “Free” Brooklyn Bridge Walking Tour in the morning DUMBO (this should be part of the walking tour) Brooklyn Bridge Park Subway back to Manhatten Either K-Town or a Broadway Musical Day 6 – “Free” Walking Tour of Central Park in the morning Guggenheim Museum Day 7 – NY Public Library Grand Central Station Rockefeller Center Top of the Rock Observatory Day 8 – Homeward Bound This schedule assumes we will get the multi-event NYC Explorer pass to save a few dollars on the various admission fees as well as a 7-day NY Subway. Still need to shove in a few other items like Chinatown in there somewhere. Part of it will be dependent on the weather. If it’s miserably hot, we will opt for more indoor activities. Will have more time to plan things out once I am done with this trip report by next month.

Yeah, they have security at the gates either at the regular streets or at the kiosk area (yellow and red arrows) to prevent vendors from getting anywhere near the ship as the area is technically “Curaaco Cruise Terminal” although there’s no terminal building like they have in Cozumel or Aruba. It’s just a few tents and kiosks in the area. So either you used the golf cart transportation or walked it like we did.

Oh, I didn’t realize this was a rare event. They did it back in 2017 so I assumed it’s part of the RCI shoreside service. We didn’t get any cooling towels. We only got cold water. The cooling towel photo was from 2017 when Celebrity Cruises handed them out to their passengers. We didn’t get any on the RCI side. Just the more basic iced water with lemons.

Modesty prevents me from calling my pictures great but I will say our various Cuaraco photos are my favorites from this cruise. My cover picture from way back on post #1 is from Curacao so that tells you how much I like the Curacao pictures.

After lunch, we made it back to the cabins to rest to cool off from the heat outside. Curacao blue skies at 2:45 PM from our cabin's balcony. So we rested inside the cabins until 3:30 as we needed to be up on the pool deck by 4 PM for the highly anticipated North Star appointment.

As it was a warm day, I had some ice cream after lunch. Or what RCI calls ice cream. More like ice milk as there’s not much of the fat and creamy content you would find in an average ice cream shop back home. The RCI ice cream is just a cold flavored milk product but at least it’s cold as that’s the only cold dessert they have in the windjammer.

Anyway, just be happy you have iced cold water at the pier and do not have to wait until Windjammer to feel refreshed. It’s always humours to me that we can’t wait to get off the ship to see a new island in the Caribbean so we rush off the ship and then after a few hours of wilting in the heat, we rush back to the ship ASAP as we needed a break from the heat. Similar to the famous Monty Python’s famous “Run Away, Run Away” meme. If you are too young to understand that reference, Google it. Made it back to the ship and went up to our cabin to drop off our backpacks and freshen up before heading to Windjammer for lunch at 1:40 PM. Tip: Before leaving the cabin for the day, turn down the thermometer a few degrees to 70 or lower. You will appreciate the cool air when you first get back to the cabin after walking around for a few hours outside. Obviously this only works if you are on the hot weather cruise. Do the opposite in Alaaks or Norway cruise. Room already cleaned

We made it back to the pier where RCI has set up a little tent area to provide iced water for all the returning cruisers. At this point, my BFFs are the 2 guys working at the tent area as you never appreciate how good iced water tastes until you have been walking around in the heat/humidity for 3 plus hours. This reminds me of back in 2017 on our Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Independence of the Seas where we were docked next to a Celebrity cruise ship. I assume everyone knows that RCCL owns both RCI and Celebrity and Celebrity is marketed to be a higher-end experience than RCI. Anyway, one difference you can tell between the 2 lines is the welcome back area. For RCI, we had the more basic iced water but Celebrity has better water with more fruits inside of their water dispensers. In addition, they had much better seats underneath their tent versus the harder back ones for RCI. RCI basic water and harder chairs Celebrity with better water options And better seats You get what you paid for in life…

If the bridge is closed for a long period with lots of marine traffic going by, they run a ferry system whereby they load the pedestrians onto the ferry and shuttle them across. Back to Rif Fort where we started the tour. Northstar is up and running

Back on the bridge and retracing our steps back to the ship.

Ok. It’s been miserably hot and humid all morning and we’ve been walking for 3 hours now. Time to head back to the ship and rest and chill out (literally). Few more pictures of the Punda side before we are done

Interesting tour. Thanks for the info. I will take a look at the details later. We are only going to be in NYC for a week so the list of things to see will be longer than we have time for. NYC has more than enough things to do for 2 weeks so it's more of a question of how many places we leave off the list than what we can do. Especially in the summer when it'll be hot and icky. Not looking forward to the heat.

Yeah, the cheapo lock was bought online as CFKACD was trying to save a few bucks in getting a small lock. But, hey, it's red, right? 🤪 My wife finally found a spot in the side somewhere near the bottom to squeeze it in So we are part of the love heart

OK. Locks. Like in Paris where they have a bridge full of locks, Curaaco has a lock display area by the bridge. Wanting to join the process, cheapo me bought a cheap ass lock online to try to put it on the display along with thousands of other locks. The thing is that the display was so full that it took a while to finally find an opening for a small lock. So if you plan to add a lock to the collection, don’t be cheap like me. Bring a very long neck lock so you can put it on easily...🤪

Onward with the trip report ++++++++++++ Dushi and Curacao signs. Obligatory tourist picture spots.

You are welcome. Thanks for the kind words. I am just a volume shooter. When in doubt, take a picture as if you take enough of them, some might be decent enough to be uploaded online. Like you, by the end of the tour, I was pretty tired and hot walking in the heat/humidity that day. The brain/memory shut down after a while and I just let the pictures do the talking in the trip report as by then I don't remember which artist painted what and why. It's just easier to post the pictures and less editorial on my part since I don't remember what was what almost 2 months later. Maybe some people actually prefer it this way…🙂

Yeah, the tour guide mentioned the background of the Synagogue during the tour but by then my brain had melted from the heat/exhaustion that I forgot which building was what. At the risk of pointing out the wrong building, if I don’t know for sure, it’s best not to give out any info if I’m uncertain.

There are various free walking tours at different cities/islands. Per this website, there are over 85 cities in this community: https://freetourcommunity.com/ Every time you go to a new place, Google a free walking tour for that city to see if they have free tours there. On a side note, we are thinking about going to NYC this summer, and from my initial research, I have found a few walking tour operators for various parts of NYC so will likely book a couple of those. Personally speaking, I would rather pay someone a tip to show me some sites I would never have found on my own. Just walking around aimlessly and taking a few pictures without much insight is less interesting in my opinion.

Very nice. I was hoping for a free ride for some photos/video of the event but it wasn’t meant to be. Oh, well, guess it’ll have to be the next visit when I see the rest of the island as well as Bonaire as I need to complete the ABC island set. Just note the walking tour can be hot and tiring. Hopefully, you will get the wind to cool you off which was absent during our visit.