December 24, 2025

Yesterday, I WON the blackjack tournament to the astonishment of all the rest of the finalists who were men! So let’s see if I can keep this going in the next ones. We didn’t place in trivia but got third in the evening team trivia. Ramsay knew the names of all of the Spice Girls – would have definitely missed that one without her on the team.

I went to the talk about Aruba. We will probably just take a walk around town. It has been many years since we were there.

We ate at the Terrace Cafe, really enjoyed Nicole Ortiz in the Whitney Houston tribute show – what a powerful voice.

Adam wore his Festivus shirt…..

Today at breakfast, we saw another rainbow and then we had a downpour before we walked to town.

Here is a shot of our arrival.

The ship is in the furthest berth in port so it was a good 10 minute walk to the shops in town. Even though it is Christmas Eve, the shops were almost all open. There are two other larger ships here too, so I guess it is smart for the shops to open. We will be here until 11 PM, which is nice for the crew to have the chance to spend an evening in town. That’s the schedule for three other ports too. These islands are close together. We are just off the coast of Venezuela and no, we haven’t seen any US military.

We did some shopping, browsing and ended up in Wilhelmina Park which is a lovely green oasis in the city.

Some sights around town.

We didn’t have any additional downpours but it was pretty hot. We went back to the ship for lunch. They are showing It’s a Wonderful Life in the theater (with popcorn of course) and there will be team trivia this afternoon. I am not sure how many of our team will be there.

Later there will be caroling, a special Christmas Eve variety show and even a Christmas Eve Interdenominational Church Service at 11 PM.

Tomorrow we are in Curacao and who knows what might be open on Christmas Day. OK with us, though, we will explore and be thankful to be here with our family.