Tuesday, May 5

Aruba. Aruba has a very dry climate...in fact, I suspect that its official flower/plant must be some sort of cactus as there are so many kinds on the island. However, both times that I have been here now, it has rained. You’d think that the local establishment would consider paying my way down here every so often just to bring rain! This photo of Oranjestad shows how flat most of the island is with just a few odd humps of hills here and there. I like the pink and white gingerbread building about halfway up the left side of the photo. I seem to recall that it is a government building of some kind.

Anyway, I didn’t do much today. The Shore Excursion people, as of 7:30 a.m., had not had an answer from their tour operator about access questions on the boat for the snorkel tour, so I crossed that one off. The alternate was a two hour glass bottom boat tour to view a shipwreck and a reef. Given the weather, I decided to opt out of that one, and was later advised that the underwater visibility was bad, so I lucked out there. I did go ashore very briefly for a stroll around the souvenir shops in the terminal. Usual stuff...didn’t buy anything.

I spent some of the day in one of my now-favorite locations on Promenade Deck until the odor of varnish overwhelmed me. Have I mentioned varnish? Maybe not. Anyway, I’ve been on a lot of ships, and as may be obvious to one and all, ships are exposed to the elements and need a lot of upkeep. So I’ve seen just about every upkeep activity on board at one time or another...mopping, washing, scraping, painting, polishing, etc. etc. etc. But this ship has the absolute corner on varnishing. Every single day there is a new collection of “Wet Varnish” signs, and I swear, they are now repeating themselves in the same locations from last week!

This evening all six of us are going to dinner at the Crown Grill, a specialty dining room featuring fine steaks and other fancy stuff. Last night was Tony and Cath’s joint birthday, but we didn’t want to miss formal night in the dining room, so we delayed the special dinner until today. I haven’t eaten in the “special” dining room on a Princess ship in a number of years, so will be interested to see how it compares to the Pinnacle Grill on Holland America.

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