December 25, 2025

Yesterday, our team (just the family part of the team showed up) placed first in trivia! And because it was Christmas Eve, Silas, our cruise director, gave some points to everyone and increased the amounts that the top three teams got. Later, just Adam and I played the evening trivia and got third. I hope we remember some of the ones we got wrong.

Since we were in port, there was no blackjack tournament – not sure when the next one is.

The entertainment team and Nicole presented a very good holiday program and at the end, many crew members came down the aisles onto the stage to sing a couple of carols with us. So great to see them in their Santa hats.

We were all decked out for Christmas Eve but sadly we forgot to have a picture taken. We will have to do that tonight when Santa comes to Allura. I did get this one of Adam during evening trivia.

Here are a couple of pictures from our sail in.

We didn’t plan an organized tour in Curacao today. We have been here many years ago and it was fun to be back and see some of the changes. We took a walk to town and went through the Rif Fort which was built in 1828 to defend the town. Now they have many shops, bars and restaurants inside. Very nice.

We walked across the Queen Emma Pontoon Bridge, known as the “Swinging Old Lady”. It rests on 16 pontoons and swings open for boats. If it is open, you can take the ferry near the Swinging Old Lady Brewery. Many cities allow “locks of love” to be attached to their bridges. Here, they have a space dedicated just for that.

We have previously visited Mikve Israel-Emanuel, the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the Western Hemisphere but wanted to return today. Unfortunately the synagogue and the museum were closed. On Christmas? Go figure. It was built by Sephardic Portuguese Jews from Amsterdam and Recife, Brazil.

The city center has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There is beautiful colonial architecture influenced by Dutch styles.

Along our city wall, we noted the beautiful murals on some of the wall.

Here are some other pictures of this vibrant city.

Tomorrow in Bonaire we have an early snorkeling tour. I will post about this afternoon (Santa) and the snorkel trip when we return. The weather has been really perfect and the same is predicted for tomorrow.