MITSUGIRLY sails off into the HORIZON-review & pictorial

[mitsugirly]

We walked all over that little town and my feet and legs were starting to hurt. We kinda went "off the path" for a while and got turned around. But all we had to do was look for the bridge and lights.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to the fort and I knew we were getting closer.

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

 

 

 

 

Deers gone wild...

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had finally made it back to the port area. It was time for a little bit of shopping.

 

 

 

After we finished shopping, it was time to head back on the ship.

 

Kendra went running when she saw the towel animal. We asked about how long they would be out there (with the intentions of getting on the ship and grabbing the munchkins and bringing them back out for a pic) but they said they would be leaving within a few minutes. Darn!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

We were back on the ship by 8:45pm and checked in with the kids. Sakari was in the room drawing on her phone

 

 

 

She said she really didn't want to go out or do anything (I'm not sure why all of a sudden hanging out in the room is more fun than doing activities on the ship) and we decided to head out for a show.

 

 

 

It was back to getting up early in the morning for a "normal" day in Aruba. We headed back to the room and watched a little English t.v with Spanish commercials and headed to bed after seeing our rabbit towel animal for the night. 

 

 

 

 

 

[CoasterGuy]

Looking forward to Aruba

[billfish]

We have Curacao and Aruba on our cruise next month.  Two of our favorite ports.  Despite having been to Curacao several times have not made across the bridge . Gonna have to do it this year..  GREAT PICS

[Jenjer]

Thank You Thank You Thank you. I know doing this is so much work and its such a joy. Your right the Christmas décor is amazing.  I love the towel animals will look out for them. Did they have "handlers"  you tip or a charge?

[TMW67]

17 hours ago, mitsugirly said:

 

 

17 hours ago, mitsugirly said:

Goodness! Hope there's still room on there for our lock when we go in April! I've always wanted to put a lock on one of these things.😊

 

This is a great idea, I don't know why someone hasn't already done this!👇

"I think vendors could make a lot of money off this if they were to have a booth beside this and sold only locks. I looked everywhere and found nothing. Maybe I should move there and sell locks to those people passing by looking for a place to buy one."

 

Curacao really does go all out on the decorations! Can't wait to see your next review on Aruba & where/what you're doing this time, I'll be going there as well!🌴

 

 

Edited January 9, 2019 by TMW67

[mitsugirly]

16 hours ago, CoasterGuy said:

Looking forward to Aruba

 

Thanks. I still have to get the pictures together and will try to work on that tonight after work.

 

5 hours ago, billfish said:

We have Curacao and Aruba on our cruise next month.  Two of our favorite ports.  Despite having been to Curacao several times have not made across the bridge . Gonna have to do it this year..  GREAT PICS

 

Two of my favorites as well. The bridge and the area on the other side is just gorgeous (at least at Christmas). I would definitely like to go back for a land vacation there.

 

3 hours ago, Jenjer said:

Thank You Thank You Thank you. I know doing this is so much work and its such a joy. Your right the Christmas décor is amazing.  I love the towel animals will look out for them. Did they have "handlers"  you tip or a charge?

 

You are very welcome and glad you are liking it.

 

What do you mean about the handlers tip/charge? For the towel animals? The room stewards do it daily for everyone.

 

41 minutes ago, TMW67 said:

 

 

 

There were definitely a lot of locks on the heart, but there's a lot of room for more as well. 🙂

[Jenjer]

The people dressed up like towel animals. I assume they are locals.....do you tip them and if so how much is expected.

 

[chipis]

1 hour ago, Jenjer said:

The people dressed up like towel animals. I assume they are locals.....do you tip them and if so how much is expected.

 

I don't think they are locals, they are cruise staff welcoming back the travelers to the ship; you don't tip them, as you probably were already charged the tips for the whole duration of your trip already.

[mitsugirly]

4 hours ago, Jenjer said:

The people dressed up like towel animals. I assume they are locals.....do you tip them and if so how much is expected.

 

 

 

Nope, they are the ships photographers that do this and their photographer comes along with it to take your pictures....expecting you to buy them of course. lol   There's no tipping. They are just like when you get off the ship in port, for instance in places like Aruba or Cozumel, they'll have Spanish dancers to take pictures with and they are from our ship and the photographers that you can later purchase the picture they took back on the ship.

 

 

 

[mjrcruiser]

OMG I love, love, love your reviews!!  I'm so glad I saw this today!  I can't wait to read everything!!  We are taking the same cruise in May! 😁 

[bunnyette]

Great review so far...so glad to see you.  Sounds like Sakari is trying to leave the nest, my niece is around the same age.  They want to assert their independence even though I think secretly they would like to come on activities.

[watermelonqueen99]

Loving your review as always! Can't believe how grown Sakari looks!

[Jenjer]

Thanks for the info its our first Carnival cruise so I have never seen them before and just thought they where locals dressed up to get tips. 

[mitsugirly]

22 hours ago, mjrcruiser said:

OMG I love, love, love your reviews!!  I'm so glad I saw this today!  I can't wait to read everything!!  We are taking the same cruise in May! 😁 

 

 

Thank you so much. I appreciate it and glad you are here. I hope you have a wonderful cruise in May.

 

21 hours ago, bunnyette said:

Great review so far...so glad to see you.  Sounds like Sakari is trying to leave the nest, my niece is around the same age.  They want to assert their independence even though I think secretly they would like to come on activities.

 

Aww, thanks! Yea, Sakari is growing up quickly and in that pre-teen stage now. She is starting to see the kids club as a "baby club". She can't wait to get to the "teen club". Ugh....

 

 

17 hours ago, watermelonqueen99 said:

Loving your review as always! Can't believe how grown Sakari looks!

 

 

Thanks and yep, she's getting big and growing so fast!

 

6 hours ago, Jenjer said:

Thanks for the info its our first Carnival cruise so I have never seen them before and just thought they where locals dressed up to get tips. 

 

No problem. I know some of the other cruise lines do the same thing as well...just a heads up.

🙂

[mitsugirly]

DECEMBER 20: THURSDAY: ARUBA!!

 

I had a hard time sleeping last night and didn't fall asleep until 4:30am only to swear that I had just laid my head down and the alarm went off at 6:30am. Port day consisted of a time from 8-4pm so it was time to rise and shine! Thank goodness it was going to be a lazy day at the beach...and by lazy for me, I mean lots of snorkeling and swimming of course.

 

We woke up to Trixie and Cookie hanging out on the t.v., which probably meant that I was being scolded for staying up too late last night.

 

 

We headed upstairs for breakfast and I jumped in line for the Blue Iguana Cantina breakfast burritos.

 

 

 

 

YUMMY! I really wish they had other options for the tortilla shell other than wheat or jalapeno. Some of us would prefer just a regular shell.

 

 

Everyone gathered their things in the room after breakfast and we were released onto the island a few minutes after 8am.

 

[mitsugirly]

Of course we stopped for pictures!

 

 

They always have the prettiest costumes here! Sakari loves them! Especially the "bird feathers"

 

 

 

Since we are sharing ship photographers pictures, I'm going to share one that came up on my phone of Kendra with the elephant towel animal the night before. I'm not sure if she purchased it or not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

So what did we have planned for today? I absolutely LOVE Aruba! We have been doing (almost) 2 week vacations here over the last 2 summers and pretty much have been everywhere and done everything. There's so many beaches and things to do and everything here is right up our alley! But what do you do when you've pretty much done it all? Well, we head back to one of our favorite beaches (that's fairly close to the port).

 

I personally love Boca Catalina, which is the next beach over from Arashi. Arashi is very beautiful. Think of white powdered sand, gorgeous water, decent snorkeling, and a beach restaurant with drinks and food. They do have restrooms, but will charge $1 to use them (unless you are buying food and drinks). We have personally not had to pay to use them yet. Boca Catalina is a beach that is very small, up on a hill with a small entrance to the water but great snorkeling. However, no restrooms or vendors here...which is why we come here a lot when vacationing because we bring our own drinks/food.

 

Since we were with extended family, Arashi was the plan with a snorkel excursion over toward Boca Catalina and maybe a little past since the last time we were there in August, the starfishes were EVERYWHERE....hundreds.

 

Also, we have a dear friend that lives in Aruba (originally from the US) and we couldn't wait to see her once we got in to port. She usually works on the days the cruise ships are in and we knew we'd find her at the port somewhere. We had talked just prior to us cruising and she knew to expect us. Sakari just loves her to death and couldn't wait to see her again!

 

We were off the ship and....she was no where. My heart was broken. The hubby went back inside to see if he could find her but no luck. We decided to go ahead and stand in line for a taxi. Now Aruba has a weird law that they will not allow more than 5 passengers in a taxi or car. This means that large families are pretty much screwed and forced to take more than 1 vehicle. It doesn't matter if it's a taxi van either. Only 5 people! I find this ridiculous and have no idea why they have this rule.

 

A couple in front of us (2 people) ask if we were willing to share a cab with them and I miscalculated the amount of people and told them that we already had a group going. When it was our turn...of course we were denied for having 5 1/2 people. 😞  Now I wish we would have shared the cab with them and split the cost.

 

We zoomed off to Arashi and Kendra came a little bit after us.

 

 

We rented chairs and found a palapa for shade for those light skinned people in my family that don't worship the sun like Sakari and I.

 

 

 

The water felt a little cooler than the other ports we were in. I'm not sure why. But we quickly got use to it and then it wasn't a problem the rest of the day.

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

Kendra and I decided immediately to go snorkeling. Time was wasting and we had a plan. We would go down the beach at Arashi and into the water and head left. We would snorkel the area, where all the excursions bring people on the boats to, for a while and then swim on over to Boca Catalina. Then we were planning on going a little past Boca Catalina (toward Tres Trapi) and see if the starfish were still around in the area.

 

So, we assigned the kids to the hubby and off we went.

 

Now...disclaimer...I had no idea that my camera setting was not put on the underwater setting before entering the water. The last setting I must have had it on was the "miniature" (tilt shift) setting. This makes the color of things boost with bright colors and it blurs around the edges of the pictures to promote a "weird" picture. Well, all my pictures in the beginning would be a weird greenish-blue with blur. So...here you have it...

 

Banded butterfly fish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey at least on this setting the close ups were working this time around unlike when we went scuba diving.

 

 

 

 

 

Then we came across a rather large French Angelfish. This fish swam right beside us and stayed with us for a while. It was odd that it was getting so close and not scared at all. At first I thought maybe we were close to some eggs or something but she swam with us for quite some time. Either way, it was pretty cool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

Sea Urchin trying to be incognito but he didn't fool me.

 

 

 

 

 

I know it's hard to see...but I spotted a smooth spotted trunk-fish. These little guys are just so adorable. Their fins "flutter" back and forth and you would think this would make them slow but it doesn't. He wouldn't let me get too close to him and scurried off quickly each time I tried. I guess he didn't get the memo from the Angelfish that fish are friends not food.

 

 

 

 

This was some blue colored coral and it's always my favorite color to find (along with purple). You don't always see this color. But, my camera settings would mess up the coloring for my pic darnit.

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas tree feather dusters...my favorites!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

At this point, we started seeing a lot of fins in the water...and they weren't attached to fish either. We had reached the area where everyone comes to snorkel off the boats anchored here. Then I noticed it...my camera settings. I had a Charlie Brown Auuuggghhhh moment and quickly changed the settings.

 

 

 

 

 

Evil devil...(fire worm).

 

 

 

 

 

There were so many schools of fish this day. Everywhere we looked they were around. There really wasn't anything too interesting or out of the ordinary during this snorkeling adventure.

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

We had been snorkeling for what seemed like a very long time. We had went pretty far. We came up to assess the situation and noticed we were not even close to Boca Catalina yet. Ugh!

 

 

 

I seriously did not think it was this far. I thought around the bend and over a little. I knew it was the next beach up from Arashi. But obviously there's a few houses before that that I hadn't accounted for. At this point, we decided it was just too far to continue on. Not really too far for us to swim, but too far to continue since we are on a limited time frame in Aruba and we had stuck the hubby with all 3 kids...2 of which would probably never listen to him if needed.

 

I made the executive decision to swim toward shore and walk the street back and off we went.

 

 

 

 

 

Pelicans were diving all around us. I love to watch them circle and dive into the water.

 

 

 

 

Blue head wrasse

 

 

Parrot fish

 

A swarm of wee wittle fish

 

 

A regular feather duster worm hiding in the rocks.

 

 

Kendra managed to snorkel all the way up to the shore and over the very close rocks in the water.

 

 

We made it out of the water, gathered our equipment and headed to the road for our long journey back...bare footed in the heat.

[mitsugirly]

Although it was very sunny and a balmy 84 degrees, Arbua is known for being windy and windy it was, which felt awesome. We really didn't get too hot on the way back and even the sidewalk didn't burn our feet.

 

It was such a long swim over to where we were but such a quick walk back. Seriously...I thought it would take awhile and we were probably back over to Arashi within 10 minutes or so.

 

 

 

 

Sakari had morphed into a mermaid and was showing off for everyone on the beach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking over toward the lighthouse

 

 

 

 

 

 

She's not as light as she use to be daddy!

 

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

This usually occurs at some point on the cruise and today would be the day...however, B got smart this time. He was going to let the girls bury him and make sure the sand wasn't going to get in his mouth or eyes this time around. AND he was going to be able to breathe.

 

 

 

Kendra was getting hungry and went up and got food. It looked so good that we decided we'd do the same.

 

IT.WAS.SO.CROWDED.AT.THIS.TIME!!! We stood in line for a while and then ordered. They told us to "go do something and come back in about 15 minutes". Well, we decided to go over and just sit at one of the tables. Then the crowd got "crowdier" and before long...you couldn't even see the area you pick up your food. 15 minutes had come and gone a long time ago and you couldn't even make it up to the counter. I was in fear that people were probably grabbing other peoples food because they only had a limited option, which meant everyone orders almost the same thing. I slithered my way around the crowd just in time to grab our order before someone else did and slithered my way back out quickly.

 

So pricing:  Can's of pop is $2. If you want a bottle it's $3. Chicken strips (which is crispy like KFC) is $10 for a basket and to add fries is $5 more. The shrimp basket is $15 (which includes fries with it) but if you only want shrimp...it's still $15.

 

Oh...and chairs are $7 each but if you wanted 2 chairs and an umbrella, it would cost you $30-40. They told us it's normally $40 but would give it to us for $30. So, who knows. It would be the first time we have ever rented any there because when we rent a home in Aruba, they usually have chairs for us to take and use at the beaches.

 

 

It was a lot of food and very filling. I know the seagulls just love us every time we come to the beach. The kids have so much fun feeding them and seeing just how close they can get to them.

 

Scuba girl...

 

 

Kendra and Kambriah started walking the beach in search of sea glass. I had already collected quite a bit and now she wanted some.

 

 

Notice she was starting to get a little red...I tried to tell her...even though it feels so good outside and not too hot, you will get burned in this sun! She said "but it don't even feel hot. I could lay out in this all day with no problems" Well no, no you can't. 😉

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aruba's famous divi divi trees. They always lean toward the Southwest, due to the winds that blow across the island from the northeast.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 11, 2019 by mitsugirly