by Jim Bellomo | Jan 31, 2022 | Photography
Usually my headlines are written just for the alliteration but this one really is true. We thought things were pretty colorful the day before in Bonaire, but Curacao really takes the colorful cake. It appears that this town loves color. We took a short tour on the town’s trolley and our guide told us the real reason that Curacao’s capital Willemstad has so many colorful buildings is that about 100 years ago, the governor of the island decreed that houses could no longer be white. That they had to be painted one of a set number of colors. After he left office it was found that not only was he the governor but he was also part owner of the only paint supplier on the island ?.
But it has served Curacao well as you will see from my photos. It’s a photographer’s paradise. Besides all the colorful buildings my photos benefited from one of the bluest skies I have ever seen.
But before I show you the photos I want to tell you what we did to tour. First, when the ship arrived there was quite a bit of discussion between the ship and the port. It went on for a while. So long that many people were waiting for the Captain to announce we were going to have to skip the port. But finally, almost an hour later, the port allowed us to disembark. There was one big change though. We were originally scheduled not to leave the port until 11;00 pm but because Willemstad had a 9:00 pm curfew for everyone in the town they moved up our all-aboard time to match up with the curfew and let us off.
Our included (in our Have It All promotion) shore excursion for this port was the aforementioned Old Town Trolley Tour. We were actually picked up by taxis (vans) and driven across the Queen Juliana Bridge to meet up with the trolley and our guide in downtown. Our tour was in a three car trolley pulled by a gas-powered engine that looked like a train engine (bell included). We saw lots of colorful architecture on our about 90 minute tour which started and ended at the old town fort. Our guide was good, the driver a great guy but I can’t recommend this tour. The fumes from the engine were horrible. By about halfway through we were either nauseous or getting there or we had a horrible headache. This trolley engine needs a tune up or a replacement before anyone should try and take that tour again. But it was interesting (when you could breathe). What we saw is in the photo captions. Funny but it was one of the few times we were thrilled to be wearing masks. Can’t imagine how bad it would have been without them.
After we were done they gave us the option of either walking back to the ship or taking the taxi back. Kathleen had a bad headache from the fumes so she headed back. I wanted to take more pics of downtown so I elected to stay and walk back across the fabulous floating bridge.
So here’s the pics that explain everything else. Remember, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
Sunrise!
Took this as we crossed the Queen Juliana bridge
This one of downtown as well.
Also taken from the cab on the way downtown
A walking drawbridge
This used to be a floating market but now it is held on land.
Another view of that drawbridge
I love what this says. A great piece of street art.
Some houses are in total disrepair
But most are gorgeous…
…and in glorious color
With all kinds of decoration
Statues galore
And color everyplace
We were told many of the founders of the city were Sephardic Jews
This house is very famous as a restoration.
More statues
We stopped at the Catholic cathedral. Nothing like Europe.
From the outside is is beautiful
When we got downtown, Nieuw Statendam is peeking out
The swinging/floating bridge opens to let a Coast Guard vessel out
The inside of the old fort. See the dot between the two vertical strips on the left. Cannonball from Captain Bly’s ship.
Downtown Willemstad
More downtown Willemstad
Loved this sunflower mural.
Loved this statue
It seems like every tourist town has not copied the IAmsterdam sign
More downtown Willemstad
More downtown Willemstad
This seemed to be the trademark of the old town. They were everywhere.
Love this sign
Saw a band playing Caribbean music. Tipped them well and then shot their photos.
The guitar player was the most animated
See what I mean
Now I am cross the floating/swinging bridge
Looking from one bridge at another that we had driven over on the way to the trolley.
Looking back at downtown.
This is the signature view of More downtown Willemstad
And here’s a panoramic shot from the middle of the floating bridge.
That was about it for downtown Willemstad. From the bridge it was about a ten minute walk back to the ship, back aboard and after a nice evening (more about entertainment and food coming soon) we went to bed and woke up sailing into Oranjestad, Aruba. More about that tomorrow.
What makes things memorable is that they are meaningful, significant, colorful. —Joshua Foer
by Jim Bellomo | Jan 29, 2022 | Photography
Yesterday (Friday January 28th) we were in beautiful Bonaire. One of the three ABC islands, the island is predominately known for its diving—both scuba and snorkeling. I could go on and on about their politics, their industry and the rest of it but if you really want to know—click here—for a link to the Wikipedia page for Bonaire.
What I will tell you about is the two (yes 2) excursions we took and how impressed I am with the island. First let me say that we are NOT divers of any kind. We leave that to our friends Mike and Cathy. They do the snorkel thing and the scuba thing. They live in Florida so they have warm water. We live in Washington where if you go in the water, you freeze to death in less time than you can say, “GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE!”
So we started off the morning with a ship’s excursion called “The Best of Bonaire.” There were three groups of about 12 people in three different vans. We had settled into one of the vans when the head of shore excursions asked for volunteers to move to another van because they had miscalculated the numbers on ours. We were in the front so we said we would switch. Best decision of the day. I have nothing against the guide and driver on the original van but the new van had a guide that made our day—Gladys. Now we really doubt Gladys is her real name because she acted like it was a joke all day long but if you are in Bonaire doing this tour, get Gladys. The woman is a HOOT! Not to mention an excellent guide and you could tell how much she loves her adopted island—Bonaire. She is originally from Wisconsin but has been on Bonaire off and on since 1963 so she knows her stuff. Her driver was a guy she called Cheech because of his past life as a cop confiscating marijuana and being in charge of burning it after the perpetrators were caught.
These two took us all over the island and while Gladys regaled us with stories, history, geography, science, nature and local customs, Cheech kept a VERY sharp eye out for the best flora and fauna he could find. And find it he did, time and time again. Check out my pics to see what I mean. He found parrots, parrot fish (he was good at parrot stuff ?), lizards and all kinds of other stuff. Then he would slow down or stop so that us photographers could get the pics we were after. (BTW: I am so sorry I did not get a photo of Gladys or Cheech—my bad.)
We were out touring with Gladys and Cheech for 3.5 hours and other than my knees giving me problems from sitting for so long we had a great time and saw a bunch of great stuff as you will see in the photos. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
Caribbean sunrises can be awesome.
Some of them just keep getting better.
So many of the islands in the Caribbean were big producers of salt. Bonaire still exports a bunch of it.
They also bill themselves as a “Diver’s Paradise” on their license plates.
Their beaches are predominately coral. Lots and lots of coral.
These are former slave quarters. Drove me nuts that people kept taking selfies with them. Kind of like taking selfies in a concentration camp.
Back to the salt
The pink in the foreground is a salt pond before the water is removed. The mountains in the back are salt.
Cheech was driving around 20 mph when he spotted this six inch lizard.
Driving along the coast we saw this perfectly framed boat.
This rock formation is called Satan’s Eyes. Can you see them?
This iguana is REALLY spiky unlike the ones we encountered in the Galapagos.
The blue you see in the upper right of this photo is a parrot fish. Another amazing spotting by Cheech.
The same for this wild parrot.
After we left the coastal area we found this lake, Bonaire’s largest.
It deserved a couple of panoramic shots.
Our last stop was Bonaire’s National Park where I also did a panoramic shot to catch the windmills that provide much of Bonaire’s power.
Our second excursion a little later in the day was a short but very nice trip on a glass-bottom boat. Having never been on a glass-bottom boat before I thought maybe I could get some great underwater photos without going underwater. And our guide and skipper Kim took us out to the coral reef around a large island called Little Bonaire that is just off the main port. While we were able to see some very pretty fish, the only photo I could even slightly make work is the one of the turtle you see below. The other pics are from the boat ride but just not the underwater parts.
A “pirate ship” excursion boat coming back as we were going out.
Kim, the captain of our glass-bottom boat.
Looking back at Nieuw Statendam
The reef from up above.
Lots of great things to see but none that I could get a decent photo of. Like this turtle that is just way too murky.
We were passed by many other boats going back and forth to the harbor.
After the boat ride I headed into downtown Kralendijk.
Since the ship did not leave port until 11:00 pm I got one night shot.
To sum all this up, I would say the one thing that most impressed me about Bonaire is that they have not succumbed to the usual cruise-type shops. No Diamonds International, etc. Also, both guides we had were so in love with their island and the things their government (which is funded and supervised by Amsterdam—Bonaire being a Dutch protectorate) is doing for their people, their environment and the flora and fauna of the island. It I also impressive that 70% of the island’s power (even powering their desalinization plants) is from wind. And they hope to be 100% renewable within 5 years. Not only that but everyone there has health care, an education, a guaranteed retirement…all things that every human should have a right to.
I sometimes detect that a type of regional divide is setting in, and there is a lack of real Caribbean connection among the islands, and I am concerned about this. —Anthony Carmona
by Jim Bellomo | Jan 26, 2022 | Photography
Many of you know that we are long-time cruisers with more than 30+ cruises in our past. And of those, 20+ have been on Celebrity Cruise line ships. While we have sailed on Holland America before (this is our fifth time), I thought their ships were “fine.” Like in, “that place is just fine.” We always liked Celebrity ships better. Until two things happened. First, Celebrity put all their money into the new Edge class of ship and stocked it full of their “revolutionary” infinite verandah staterooms. (To be honest, this is just an outside stateroom with a window that opens and closes…and not always at your discretion). They also made it so that a great deal of the people on the ship had certain areas they could not get into. For instance, the only forward looking spot (to see what’s in front of the ship) on an Edge class vessel if you are not in a suite is…the gym. That’s just wrong. Sailing into Stockholm or through the Panama Canal I can’t even imagine not being able to take pics from around the entire ship.
As I said in the headline, I may now have a new favorite “big” ship. I put those quotes around it because to be honest, this ship is not that big. In October 2019 we sailed on Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas which is TWICE as big as the Nieuw Statendam. But let’s talk about why I am loving this ship. BTW: Celebrity Flora in the Galapagos will always be our favorite small ship.
First, the design is better than any I have seen on a HAL ship before. Everything is just beautiful, without a hint of gaudy. The crew and the service have been amazing. Easily an equal to any Celebrity cruise we have taken before. Of course that may be because of our reduced passenger load but as of now, just about every waiter/server/manager/etc. that I have come in contact with more than once…knows my name. Seriously. (BTW: Correction needed. We had been told that there were only 750 or so passengers on board but we found out that there were actually 900. 750 of us departed Fort Lauderdale on Sunday while the other 150 or so were already on board from a previous cruise.)
I have loved all the public rooms we have been in and since I showed you our stateroom yesterday, here’s my shots from around the ship. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
Starting on Deck 2, this is the theater. It is HUGE and in the round with complete wrap-around screen for the big shows.
The Main Dining Room which kind of looks like whale bones.
This venue has two purposes. In the afternoon and the early evening it is the home of the Lincoln Center classical performances…
And in the evenings it is the home of the B.B. King Blues Club. Our favorite!
This area is called Billboard Onboard. Dueling pianos, which is a great way to spend time in a very cool bar.
Same place looking the other way.
This is Notes, a whiskey, whisky, bourbon and rye tasting bar.
This is their priciest bottle…that’s per shot! Yikes!
The full Notes shot
This is the Pinnacle Grille, HAL’s specialty steakhouse. We are eating there tonight.
On these plates
This is Rudy’s Sel de Mer, the ship’s seafood restaurant. We ate there two nights ago and it was AMAZING!
Love the place settings.
You can buy them as a set or individually…you can bet one is coming home with us.
The Ocean Bar, our pre-dinner watering hole
Club Orange is reserved for suite guests only or you can buy a membership for $50 per person per day. We eat all our breakfasts here and dinner when we are not in a specialty restaurant.
Club Orange from the outside.
The main dining room from deck 3.
They did not have deck 3 open for this cruise since there are so few people on board.
The Dutch Cafe. They make great food here.
The main atrium. Only three decks high but quite nice.
Back to the stage at BB King’s from the deck 3 balcony.
Up in the gym on deck 9
The main pool, also on deck 9. It has a sliding roof that can be opened or closed.
Looking into Canaletto, the Italian specialty restaurant carved out of the buffet
We are eating here tomorrow night.
The out door pool on the aft end of the ship.
This is Tamarind, the ship’s Asian restaurant and sushi bar. Our buddy Seth took us there last night and it was amazing.
This is the bar outside of Tamarind located at the very top of the ship in the very aft.
Yesterday we were in Grand Turk where I took some pictures that were so good they really surprised me. I did not think there would be anything that great to shoot in Grand Turk—but there was! And today we spent most of the day in the company of our buddy Seth and some of his Sail With Seth group touring Amber Cove and Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. More about that and our visit to Grand Turk tomorrow, because thankfully—we have a SEA DAY and I can get some more photos processed and some more writing done.
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. —Steve Jobs
by Jim Bellomo | Jan 25, 2022 | Photography
Yesterday (it’s Monday right now and will probably be Tuesday before I finish this), we sailed on Holland America’s (HAL) Nieuw Statendam from Fort Lauderdale (FLL), Florida. After two really great nights in our FLL AirBnB we got to board in the first group. We had heard that HAL was being really being a stickler about boarding times due to the pandemic and we were no exception. Our time said noon and at 11:15 I dropped Kathleen, Steve and Jamie off at the port and took our rental car back to the airport. A quick cab ride back and we were ready to board right on time.
BTW: Before we went I did an early morning photowalk around Fort Lauderdale’s Riverwalk and here’s some pics from that morning. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
Saw these lights on my way downtown and kind of liked the look in the dark.
I am going to let you guess what this is.
Loved the overall blue tint to this building
And this unusual architectural feature
Don’t know why I like this shot, but I just do. Something about early morning solitary walking?
The Riverwalk is a great place to walk. Felt totally safe.
This bridge had a very interesting ramp entrance. I walked it later and it is also used for bikes.
Loved the art on the side of this building. That mural is over seven stories high.
This oak grove (according to the sign) was planted during the bicentennial
This is the Carrie B that we took on a very nice excursion the day before. More on that later when I have those photos done.
The sky was totally overcast (which makes for very gray photography) until this finally opened up and gave me some decent light.
Our home for the next 10 days
Check-in took less than 15 minutes and would have been faster if you took out all the COVID stuff. As soon as we got on board our rooms were available so we went to drop off our carry on luggage and to unpack those. I am not sure if I mentioned this but originally we had a verandah stateroom on deck six. About two weeks before the cruise we got an e-mail asking if we wanted to upgrade to a Neptune Suite. Neptune Suites are the second highest level of suites on the ship and the cost to upgrade was amazingly reasonable so we grabbed it. The suite is AMAZING! More than 350 square feet (which is big for a cruise ship stateroom, with a monster bathroom and a huge living space. Here’s some pics to show you what we are living in for the next ten (now nine) days and…don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
The view as you walk in from the hallway. On the left are a huge panel of closets, on the right the door to the bathroom.
The bathroom is HUGE! I truly believe it is larger than our master bath at home. Jetted tub, giant shower and dual sinks.
King size bed
To the left of the bed a bunch of storage, a desk and a bar.
Closeup of the desk. Plenty of room for all my electronics and so many outlets I can’t fill them all.
The bar area has a full set of glassware and some complimentary and some chargeable beverages. There is a mini-fridge and more storage below.
Looking from the bed you can see these two comfortable chairs, the couch and the flat screen TV. Lots of free movie choices and it works just like a DVD so you can pick up where you left off.
The couch is seven feet long and can convert into a King size bed.
But the bed is very comfortable.
The door to our verandah is an actual door and not a slider.
Once outside we have an oversized verandah with two loungers, a table and four chairs.
You always hear folks say, “I don’t need big room or a verandah because I am never it in.” This is true until you get a stateroom/suite like this. Then you are in it because you have everything you need. And on this cruise (and others for awhile) this is the only place we can walk around without our masks on. And because it’s just awesome!
I will drop some photos in my next post of the rest of the ship. Here are some facts about this particular cruise. First, due to COVID there are fewer than 750 cruisers on board. This is on a ship built to hold 3,214 passengers when at full capacity so to say that things feel empty is an understatement. I will say that there are some events (the Blues Club we were in last night) that can get crowded but we are doing our best to stay in our little pod of four.
We were supposed to have six ports of call on this cruise but that got tossed out the window yesterday when we could not land at Half Moon Cay, (HAL’s private island). This was NOT due to COVID but to high winds. Half Moon Cay is a tender port (that means they drop life boats and ferry you in from the ship) and the winds and seas were just too high to put those in the water safely, so we skipped that port. I will give the activity staff high marks because they quickly adjusted and found lots of things for people to do. BTW: If you are a trivia buff, this cruise is for you. I think there is trivia scheduled about every three hours along with lots of other activities.
Still have five ports scheduled and as I type this we are tied up at the pier in Grand Turk. We (the four of us) are going off around noon to do a HAL shore excursion. We got two free with our cruise and this is one of those. Grand Turk will allow us to get off and just wander around.
Tomorrow we are in Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic, then a sea day, then we hit Bonaire, Curacao and Aruba in that order, on successive days. Then it’s two sea days and we are back in Fort Lauderdale. So far, everything is going great. More on the ship, the activities and the food in my next post.
The purpose of our lives is to be happy. —Dalai Lama
by Jim Bellomo | Jan 19, 2022 | Uncategorized
Just a quick note tonight. We are at the start of what we hope will be a really great 14 night vacation that we booked to make up for losing our European trip in December. When that trip got cancelled we immediately looked for someplace else to go. We didn’t want Europe because at that point things were going south there pretty quick and we have a big Mediterranean cruise planned for next autumn.
So one of the first people we asked for advice was our good friend Seth Wayne. Long time readers of these posts may remember that Seth used to be a meteorologist in Seattle and we met him on Twitter because of our mutual love of cruising. He also had a travel show on KOMO radio and I was often one of his guests to talk travel. Two years ago, Seth left his job at KOMO-TV as the morning weather guy and became the Director of Communications and Brand Ambassador for Holland America (HAL) cruise line. Since then (minus the pandemic) he has been on a HAL ship. From time to time he does a special Sail with Seth cruise where he is on the ship with a group of folks and there are all kinds of additional activities that he runs for the group. So I called to ask him when the next one was…and he said, “Hey, come with me to the Southern Caribbean on January 23rd!”
So even though I am NOT a fan of the Caribbean, because it was Seth and because we hadn’t been anyplace since our July trip to the Galapagos (which is forever for us) we jumped on it. And then came Omicron. So for the last two weeks we have been following all the news to see what was going on with the virus and cruising.
Yes, we have heard all the CDC stuff about cruising but I still totally believe that being on a cruise ship is by far the safest way to travel. Sure you can drive, but eventually you have to stop and eat or sleep. You could fly but when you do, you have no idea if the person next to or in front of or behind you is vaccinated or willing to keep their mask on correctly for your entire flight. But when you cruise, you know that every person on board has been fully vaccinated and wears a mask except when eating or drinking. Not only that but you can’t board without a negative COVID test whether you are vaccinated or not.
So last Saturday we went and got ourselves a Kaiser PCR test to be sure we were safe to fly south. We passed with a NEGATIVE result (which is kind of weird…to say that it’s a bad thing to be POSITIVE) and then we quarantined at home (no market trips, no restaurants, etc.) until this morning when we were picked up by Century Car Service and whisked off to SEA-TAC airport for our flight to Fort Lauderdale. I would love to say that everything went perfectly and it almost did except for the one hour delay to replace a knob in the cockpit But we finally got here and we even had time for a quick dinner at the hotel before I ran back to the airport to pick my brother Steve and my sister-in-law Jamie who are back traveling with us again. (They haven’t gotten to go anyplace since we came home from Ireland in June 2019) And now I am sitting in bed at the Le Meridien Hotel in Dania Point, FL writing this post.
Our cruise does not sail until Sunday and between now and then we are going down to Key West tomorrow, then back up to Wellington to have dinner with our buddies Mike and Cathy and then an AirBnB back here in Fort Lauderdale so we can do another COVID test before we sail on Sunday.
The big message here is to get ready for some more photos and posts as we spend the next two weeks out and about in Florida and the Caribbean.
In the Caribbean the temperature never changes, the sun just goes down. —Kris Marshall