Friday, December 24, 2021; Christmas Eve in Aruba

 Friday, December 24, 2021; Christmas Eve in Aruba

The ship arrived in Aruba pretty much right at 8AM, but it took a bit of time for disembarkation to begin.  We escorted the kids and Zhang family through the cruise port to the collection point for ABC Tours for their UTV tour.  Janet and I walked to Hotel row and to Eagle beach.  The beaches surely do have beautiful white sand, and there are burrows where crabs live.  The crabs are very shy and hard to spot or photograph.  There are also elegant eroded conch shells washed up along with bits of coral.  We strolled along the beach for a bit.  It was in the low 80’s with 70% humidity when we started.  We returned to the ship in time for the 10AM trivia, which was pretty sparsely attended with about 6 teams.  We teamed up with Lindsey, Phyllis, Ken & John from the Internationals, but lost by the tie breaker.  However, to be fair, they were given credit for saying a Papillon is a dog, when the answer was butterfly because there is a breed of dog called a Papillon.  Papillon is French for butterfly and the question was what kind of animal is a Papillon could be technically correct, but not the answer they were looking for.  We had missed the question how many megabytes are in a gigabyte. We had answered 1000, but the answer they were looking for was 1024.  But they did not specify whether they were seeking the binary or decimal definition because both answers are technically correct, but they were seeking the 1024 binary definition.  They had guessed closer on the tie breaker which was how many miles long is the coast of Portugual.  We guessed 600 miles while they guessed 500 miles.  The answer was 497 miles or 800Km, so they were pretty much dead on.  

The kids and Zhang family had a fun time on UTV’s exploring the Natural Pool, gold refining ruins, and Alta Vista Church.  However, since we last did the UTV excursion, Aruba had closed the National Park to UTV’s.  Oddly enough, they allow 4x4 trucks, so everyone had to pile out of the UTV’s and into the back of a truck to drive down to the Natural Pool.  They did a little off road driving, but most of it was on paved and gravel roads.  But they had fun.  Janet and Ben spent the day pool side on the ship where it was easy to get into the pool and find lounge chairs in the shade since most of the passengers were ashore.  

We did the afternoon trivia with just John and Lindsay of the Internationals.  That game we lost fair and square by one point.  Did you know that Charles Ross and Epicure are varieties of apples?  We certainly don’t have those varieties in Washington.  Another question asked the name of the Viking Center in York.  It’s Jorvik, if you were wondering.  

After everyone got back from the UTV excursion, and had gotten showered up, we got together in Sabbatinni’s Italian specialty restaurant to use our remaining specialty dining vouchers.  This dinner took a little less time, but still took 2 hours.  But the food was good, and we really didn’t need to be anywhere in a hurry.  With the drinks package, there was plenty of spirits and wine to keep us occupied between courses.  

The Princess Theater Showtime featured Jason Garfield, a humorous juggler who did an entertaining and funny show.  We wound up the night with a 10pm West End to Broadway musicals trivia.  This was not our strong suit, so we got soundly beat by two teams of musicals savants who only missed one question.  The tie breaker was how many seats are in Her Majesty’s theater in London.  We guessed 1200, even though we weren’t in the running.  They had guessed 650 and 800. 

We did exchange some minor gifts so as not to leave Santa out of a job on his one big night.  

Tomorrow, we arrive in Curaçao where we have an all day excursion booked.  Still no ominous overhead announcements by the captain, so we continue to keep our fingers crossed,. The Princess Productions singers and dancers apparently have a Christmas Day special show for us tomorrow, so we’ll see what that ends up being.  

Of note, is we have heard from friends that the temperatures are plummeting back home and a white Christmas is predicted.  The area will have crazy record low temperatures for a week with lows in the mid teens.  That’s nearly unheard of.  It’s a good thing we winterized things before we left just in case of cold weather.