Aruba, Jamaica ooh I want to take you

To Burmuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama

Key Largo, Montego, baby why don’t we go?

Ooh I want to take down to Kokomo  …..

ever since reading about the destinations of the Caribbean cruises I couldn’t get this song out of my head – sad, but true.

After the success of our cruise around the Mediterranean, we knew that another cruise would be on the cards again and where better to experience mass people moving by ship than from the Cruise Capital of the World – Miami! This would also be a very effective way to visit some countries that we would consider ‘out-of-the-way’ and probably wouldn’t normally get the opportunity to see without spending a lot of money as a separate trip. The cruise also coincided with my birthday – how convenient and decadent to be enjoying a Caribbean Cruise for my birthday! Aruba here we come!

We dropped our trusty rented SUV at the hire car company in downtown Miami and took a taxi the short distance to the cruise terminal. Our cruise this time would be with Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) on the Norwegian Sun and although the ship was smaller, it was close to full capacity, so no chance of upgrades this time! However we got another excellent deal having only booked the cruise two weeks before with the cruises always heavily discounted close to departure date to go out with maximum possible passengers.

We got one of the last family outside cabins (picture window, but no balcony) – our cabin was on deck 8 on the forward port side. This turned out to be a good spot as there were cabins above and below us (so no noise afterhours from the disco or bars) and we didn’t really miss the balcony too much.  The cabin and bathroom were quite a lot cosier (and only one person could fit in the bathroom at a time here) than the mini-suite we had enjoyed on the Costa cruise, but we made use of all storage areas.

Looking around at our fellow passengers, they were definitely from the more senior generation. A wide selection of mobility assistance devices were in use, everything from walking sticks through to wheelchairs and electric scooters. We signed the girls up to the kids club, but there are only about 30 other kids aboard for this cruise compared to 300 kids on the cruise which had just finished (during the spring break period) which I am glad we missed!  Nevertheless, every day is packed with activities for everyone to enjoy and we picked and choose those that we thought would be interesting for the girls. The family activities we participated in ranged from cake decorating, lego building, balloon animal making, origami, family circus training, to the very popular Wii games. Of course another family activity was eating and this played a large part of our time on board.

We also partake in trivia challenges (and realise how little we know of America and American history and geography!), and even dance classes to keep things interesting!

After three nights and two days at sea our first stop was at Cartagena, Colombia – gosh we have arrived in another continent and the girls are somewhat surprised to hear we are actually in South America now!

We made our way ashore and decide to hire a taxi and driver for a sightseeing tour of the new and old cities followed by a stop at a nearby beach so the girls could have a swim. After negotiating an all-inclusive fare of $US50 (down from his initial request of $100) with ‘Marco’, we head first to the new town. Consisting of high rise apartment and office blocks has been built on a peninsular away from the old city and is surrounded by swimming beaches. Our favourite area though was the old city; surrounded by its 300 year old protective wall built from coral blocks, the old city has a definite Spanish influence to the architecture. Marco is not only the driver but provides us with information and even accompanies us around the town showing relevant buildings and points of interest.

We walked along part of the fort wall and wandered the narrow streets for an hour before a brief stop by Fort St Phillipe which was raided and occupied by Sir Francis Drake in 1586.

The final stop for the day was a beach 15 minutes’ drive out of town where we all enjoyed our first swim together in the ocean since India. While the water was not particularly clear, it was a very nice temperature. The girls stayed and played on the sand while we enjoyed a local beer at one of the many casual beach cafes dotted along the beachfront.

Next day we are in Aruba!  We hear there are good snorkelling sites around the island, and so when we wandered off the ship at the Capital Oranjestad, we opted to hire a car for the day so we can stop off where we want. The car was a heap of c**p – an old and tired Toyota Yaris that had definitely seen better days. The air conditioning barely worked, but it got us from A to B. Far from a lush tropical island, this place looked more like Bowen in the summer: dry, rocky and covered with scrub and cactus, but with Aruba being a long thin island that gorgeous turquoise coloured water is never far away from view.

First stop was the Californian Lighthouse on the northern end of the island overlooking the beautiful clear turquoise waters and named after the ship wrecked there about 100 years ago. The lighthouse is no longer in use after a marine radar was installed on a tower close by to keep watch over the busy shipping lanes. Our first beach stop was just a few hundred metres from the lighthouse, in the crystal clear waters of Arashi Beach, where quite a few locals were enjoying their Sunday afternoon.

We donned our Wal-Mart masks and snorkels and swam out from the beach. Unfortunately, there was not much in the way of coral to see. We could see some of the tourist boats calling in to the bay a few hundred metres further down the coast and everyone seemed to be getting off the boats and snorkelling. So, after a short play on the beach, we packed up and headed down to the same cove to see if we could see what all the fuss was about. This beach and bay was more rocky and there was more fish life.

The few colourful fish were obviously quite friendly as I even got a nip to the leg while putting on my mask, then shortly after we dived under  saw a yellow spotted sea snake and quite a few of the black spikey urchins, but still no coral worth mentioning.

The final beach that had been recommended to us for swimming and snorkelling was ‘Baby Beach’ at the opposite end of the island. Back into our rent-a-bomb and we drove the 45 minutes down the length of Aruba to ‘Baby Beach’ in the sheltered cove.

By this stage it was getting late and the ship was due to depart at 4:30pm (the only negative about ‘cruises’ is having to watch the time and get back before embarkation, although we did briefly think of jumping ship, but then thought of the food waiting back on board and quickly dismissed the idea), so the girls only had time for a quick swim before we had to head back.