We are due to arrive in beautiful Curaçao at 8am. We woke up and went to the main dining room in Southern Lights to eat a quick breakfast before debarking the ship.

We sat on the balcony after breakfast and watched us dock in port. The gangway finally opened, and we were able to get off of the ship.

We usually book something through the locals when we go to ports, so this was no different.

I had booked a private driver for the day to show us around the island. I booked a driver through VIP Tours Curacao. It was $243.75 for the day and I gave our driver a $50 tip. Our driver Patricia picked us up right at the meeting spot where they said she would be. We got into her air conditioned van and off we went.

The first stop we went to was the Hato Caves. Now this is where we were a little disappointed. If you’ve never been to a cavern then you may really enjoy this. However, we live near Luray Caverns which is the largest caverns on the east coast in America, and one of the largest in the country. That’s why it didn’t interest us.

From here, we went to the salt planes here we saw the wild flamingos. This was really cool because I’d never seen them in the nature before. I bet there were 500 flamingos in the distance. Very cool to see!

After we left the salt planes, we went to Mambo Beach Blvd., and did some shopping.

After we left Mambo Beach, we went to Senior & Co., where they make Blue Curaçao Liquor. I was very excited about this!

However we got there, it was a few museum type items showing how liquor is made. We didn’t get to see any liquor being made, or anything. It went from that, straight to shops. Granted, we did buy about $180 worth of stuff from the shops. We now have a few bottles of genuine Blue Curaçao Liquor in our kitchen!

After we left Senior & Co., we went around the island touring some more, looking at different sites they have. Finally, we went to Willemstad to do some shopping around the capital city.

It was really neat down there. Lots of neat shops, neat people, and going across the Queen Emma floating bridge was fun. We bought quite a few things from the locals on the other side of the bridge.

After we were done shopping, we went back and met with Patricia, where we’d end up heading back toward the ship. We did do a little shopping in the port area and bought some cool things.

Curaçao was fun and we had a great driver. I really enjoyed our day there and would love to go back. The ABC islands are fantastic.

To finish reading the rest of the cruise, click the blog entry below.