ADVENTURE/ABC's Aug 20-27,2016 REVIEW w/lots of photos

[Hoopster95]

I had tried to find out info about the Princess Juliana Bridge many times in the past, but could not find very much, and especially on CC.... so here you go!!! Everything you need to know is right here....

 

There is no rest stop/pull over area on before/on/after the bridge

There is a very thin sidewalk on both sides of the bridge where I assume one can walk, however I saw no one and access to it would be having to walk along the freeway onramp rings... I am assuming there may be a legal issue perhaps walking on the bridge and the highway??

 

So the bridge seemingly being a mystery, it is in fact super easy to find and get to with signage from the pier. Seriously, never driving in Curacao, it took me a total of 5 min to figure out the direction to get onto the on-ramp. Because the town is so much lower than the bridge, the on-ramp is actually a very long winding "ring" that circles I estimate 1 1/2 times around just to be able to elevate to the height of the bridge. Ready with cameras in hand, I thought we would get to the bridge and simply take pictures as we drove over, but as soon as we got to the bridge deck itself, immediately to the right there was another car stop on the emergency shoulder with a coup[le of people standing enjoying the view. I made the split second decision just to pull right behind with flashers on. Here's where I was parked, half of the car hanging out on the lane itself so obviously I was making an illegal stop.

 

 

 

But.... oh the view!!! Money shot of the Adventure and Otrabanda directly below, and famous Punda across the bay!

 

 

 

 

I have had a really hard time finding images and simple info about getting over the bridge. I have read a couple of older blogs that the bridge is VERY scary to drive across, looks like it goes up to the sky if you're scared of heights, not safe to drive, etc etc.... hogwash!!! It is very very easy like any bridge in North America. The elevation of the bridge is in fact very high so when you're driving you cannot see the top of the bridge as it is in fact sloped more than normal upward

 

 

 

and downward... but it is not scary at all

 

 

 

Unfortunately trying to get a picture of Otrabanda from the very peak of the bridge is virtually impossible as at highway speed and with the structure of the bridge whizzing by it is very difficult. we tried snapping many shots at a slower speed and this one below is the best none of the bunch. not the greatest. I would love to see if someone can figure out if walking to the peak is allowable and wants to take the time to do so. The pics up there would be gorgeous if that is possible to do.

 

[Hoopster95]

Hoopster, Happy Birthday a day late. Heck, it's your birthday week so Happy Birthday.

 

In case I missed anyone welcome aboard. Seems like I just am falling behind. My hop must be slowing down.

 

Ha!! Thx beej :D:D:D

[Hoopster95]

Getting to the Punda side of the bridge, we took the first off-ramp for "Punda" (obviously, right?? Not rocket science!). I found it very interesting how long the on and off ramp are as the circle around and around to get down from that very high elevation of the bridge

 

 

Coming off the the ramp, you end up directly in the famous Punda side, on the road that ghoes around the "lake" immediately beside the stores/shopping area and the long street of outside marketplace with the vendors. Some of you likely know this area and I will point it out later when I do my walking tour of Punda. First time here IO walked up this boardwalk and viewed several monuments and so forth, a nice walk if all you are doing is walking the city from the ship and a few very cool things to see including some architecture and several interesting buildings.

 

 

 

We pulled a U-turn not far up from the pic above and went back around the lake from the off-ramp where we came.... the on ramp was there as well.

 

 

 

And here's the bridge travelling the opposite direction from east to west. You can easily see two things.... no way to see (or take pictures) of Punda to the left whatsoever and you can also see the very thin unprotected "sidewalk" on the bridge also that to me looks more like an emergency walking space than an actual sidewalk. Thee's no way you could walk side by side with someone, and as mentioned I did nt see any foot traffic anywhere that morning.

 

 

 

At the very top as we crested

 

 

 

Signage here in Curacao was very very easy.... there was signage at all turn abouts and major areas. The issue was not signage, but the map to match the signage unfortunately. A few times we got turned around but were able to figure things out quite quickly. But adding 5-10 minute here and there on delays I believe put a good hour of delay into the day which of course put us behind a bit for what we wanted to get accomplished on this day.

 

[Hoopster95]

We had planned to explore at least a couple of beaches on our way, but I misjudged the amount of time to drive out there and time needed to find each one. The smaller roadways in and out of the coastline beaches are not clear at all. We had driven a good 40min to get out to this area of Santa Cruz and began what we thought would be going in and out of 4-5 "bocas" to view beaches.

 

 

 

 

You can review the map I provided .... note the southern coastline and the town of "Soto". Here is the entrance to Boca Santa Marta.... just gorgeous! You can see the highest peak of Crisoffel Natioanal Park in the background.

 

 

 

 

I took a pic of our little rental car also... this was note the smallest cat you can get and I'm glad I did not rent the smallest 3 cylinder Hyundai that was available at the time... the hills do roll up and down with many winding roads so a little bit larger car and engine with a little pep... and only $15 more... was totally worth it.

 

[Hoopster95]

As we winded our way down to the beach, past a large B&B and a couple of other buildings, we were totally disappointed with what seemed to be an abandoned beach and resort!

 

 

 

 

There were only a couple of people there at the beach itself, we actually drove back up through the winding road to Soto (10min) to ask for directions to some of the other beaches. I can tell you the locals there do not speak clear English at all and were very difficult to understand. Pointing in the direction we just came from, back to Santa Marta, the local sent us back the same way we just came but said there was another road to take. So off we went again all the way back... there was not another road that I could see so we ended up in the same spot we just were.

 

There were a couple of divers and locals hanging about, and I made peace with a new travel buddy (the pooch!), but this wasn't anywhere we wanted to spend time. So for any of you visiting this area and wanting to check out Santa Marta... save yourself a ton of time, stop at the look-out point for this iconic view and then turn right back around and head back to the main road to get to the good beaches. So after wasting close to an hour trying to figure this area out, it was off to one of the two beaches which were real targets for us this morning to find as we wanted some easy going beach time this morning, so we skipped trying to find several of the other views points along the way unfortunately.

 

 

 

 

 

Work calls!.... more later :)

[BillOh]

 

 

 

Wow, I must have been sleeping, I missed this review till now, so lots of catching up to do, and your on my same itinerary for next year. Thanks for what I already know will be helpful. My first cruise was on Voyager and she looked like the from the balcony point of view. I'm looking forward to reliving those memories.

[BillOh]

If you enjoy snorkeling at all, Bonaire is not to be missed.

 

I may be diving at this port, but I'm traveling with 3 non-divers, so we will see, I'v'e heard this many times and will keep in in mind.

[BillOh]

As a diver, I've been wanting to go to Bonaire for years. After seeing your snoreling pictures, all I can do is echo the others on this thread with a WOW! of my own. Absolutely awesome! I can only imagine how great the dving there is if the snorkeling is that incredible!

 

Please don't tell my DH this, :eek: but I am considering changing our upcoming Panama Canal cruise to one that goes to the ABC islands. I have already been looking at a few sailings that would work for us. I think I'd better at least sleep on this before I spring it on him, though. DH is not a diver so he is not as excited as I am about going to the ABC's, but even he was pretty impressed when I showed him your snorkeling pictures. I don't think I would have a difficult time talking him into snorkeling in Bonaire. :D

 

I can't wait to see what you guys did on the rest of your cruise!

 

FYI, another diver traveling with other non-divers is on this same itinerary in late April/Early May of 2017 ;)

[Hoopster95]

Leaving Boca Santa Marta, I had circled on my map after researching areas, pictures, etc of Playa Jerami, Playa Lagun and a few others... would've loved to collected a few pictures of the coastline and various beaches but time was no longer on our side. I had targeted Kenepa Beach as it's rated the highest in Curacao and also the #2 out of 100 "things to do" on trip Advisor.

 

Now that I found Santa Marta, I was on the correct road that took me right past signage for all the other places I wanted to quickly stop at, but bee-lined for a beach where we can just do our chill-out time. Soon enough we saw the turn off for Klein Knip. We hadn't reached Grote Knip, the larger Beach, but I didn't care... we would check this out first and decide.

 

Just so that you're aware, I found many photos from travelers on Tripadvisor are from Klein Knip and not from the larger Grote Knip, but both are referred to as Kenepa so I truly don't know how they differentiate and I didn't ask.

 

 

 

We drove into the small parking lot of Klein Knip and knew right away we were staying... quaint little beach with room for maybe 12-14cars.......

 

 

 

a souvenier/food/water vendor (some stuff better than in town, gf bought a sarong here)....

 

 

 

and of course just an awesome little beach with very few people!

 

 

 

 

Heaven! We ended up totally chillin' and staying there for longer than we had planned, which of course made us even more delayed for all the other stuff we wanted to do... so be it. We were so relaxed and happy having a ball in the crystal blue clear water & soft sand.

 

[Hoopster95]

Hitting approx noon, we left Kenepa on our way to Shete Boca and Cristoffel Parks. There's really not a whole lot of info on either places, and few reviews which surprised me. I knew there was one car route through Cristoffel that was a one hour drive (the other 3 hours) so our plan was to hit both parks for about 1 hour each and then head back to Punda to walk around town a bit.

 

We drove right by the signage for Grote Klein (the main Kenepa Beach) but kept on going. We did stop for a short break at Playa Forti, which is the final beach right on the main road before it turns inland in order to go over to the north side of the island.

 

As we followed the main highway around to the other side and reached views of the coastline, I was looking for either entrance to Cristoffel or Shete Boca... didn't matter which one. Shete Boca came first so in we went!

 

 

 

It's $11 per person, and the nice lady explains a few things and gives you a map. When doing research on this, I had thought you needed a 4x4 to get to the various Boca's so I had thought I'd see maybe two at best... the hikes between the boca's can be as long as 1 hour. But the lady said no problem at all with a car on the dirt roads!!!! YES! So in we went.

 

 

 

If you note at the "you are here" red marker on the map, you have the choice of going left, right or parking right there to view the first set of cliffs. There were a few cars and people roaming the one right in front of us, so we roamed off the dirt road to the left. In about 10 minutes of pretty easy driving we reached Boka Wandomi.

 

 

 

 

The parking area is no where close to the cliffs edge, and the walking is easy until you get to the cliffs, then it's uneven bumpy terrain, easy to roll an ankle for sure, with stone stairs, etc. Unfortunately not a place somewhere who is mobility challenged can visit whatsoever

 

 

 

On the seabed itself many previous tourist took the time and made the effort to write their names with the stones right on the beach. This effect looked really cool in person, much better than the photo below

 

[Hoopster95]

This place is gorgeous! Here you can see the platform viewing areas, the various paths where people are walking, and the top peak of Cristoffel to the far right off in the distance.

 

 

 

The end of the path brings you to the viewing platform to the natural bridge. No path leads around to the bridge, but I assume you can (at your own risk... there are signs that say "stay on the path). Here you can admire the strength of the ocean... you would not want to get caught in any of these undertows I can tell you!!! Those waves hit the rocks very hard

 

 

 

 

 

This was something I didn't know... turtles nest here! I did find out later that once a year there's a major nesting season where they close this boca so that people don't go out an step all over the eggs, and supposedly the park rangers monitor any turtle activity each morning. If you were to turn 180 degrees at this viewpoint, you would see all the rocks on the beach made out to peoples names... of course, as per the sign, they do not allow that on the turtle nesting areas.

 

 

 

Up the rock stairs we climb to get back up. Another very cool feature is that there are man-made "couches" and "chairs" cut into the cliffs, great place to sit in the shade if you're tired and just enjoy the sites and the waves

 

 

 

And finally a view from the platform

 

[Hoopster95]

Driving out form the dirt road, we drove past the front entrance again and continued to the right to head to Boka Kalki.

Boka Kalki is a very secluded boka and very far from the parking area. It's a good 10-15 min walk on a very uneven path (note you can't even see how far from the water's edge you are in the pic below)

 

 

 

The path eventually leads to absolutely stunning area of growth, some kind of tree who's branches grow in all sorts of shapes and sizes, just beautiful

 

 

 

 

And once again just beautiful being able to view the surroundings. I found this boka to be the least interesting of the four, and only spent a few minutes observing before heading back to the car.

 

[Hoopster95]

Only a short maybe 5 min drive on the dirt road is Boka Pistol. The parking area is very close to the cliff's edge so much easier to get to and the reward is much much greater! It's apparent the moment you witness for the first time why this Boka is call "Pistol"... Take very close note in the 2 photos below of the size of the wave in comparison to the two tourists standing at the observation deck to the right.

 

 

 

 

Yep, probably the most underrated photos of this entire trip, being here watching the blow hole shoot up 20-30 feet was just spectacular! There's no way my photography does this justice!! I took video but it doesn't do justice either.... specifically note the cars up at the parking lot on the left to the height and size of the wave to get an idea of what size this is.... it's the only way to get a perspective.

 

 

 

[YOUTUBE]5pw_A2mDilo[/YOUTUBE]

 

I could have stayed here for a lot longer just watching this, but I wanted to get going to see if we can do Cristoffel Park, so after 15-20 min we headed back to the car to get going. It was approx 2pm'ish and figured I would be able to get back to Oranjestad by about 4:30pm at the latest (or so was my plan)

[Hoopster95]

We visited the final Boka, Boka Tabla, located at the front entrance to the Park and the path to the Boka just to the right of this Lizard and sign for the Bokas

 

 

 

We were getting very very hot, gf was over-heated, so we made this last visit a very short one. The Boka itself was very small and the views of the others were much nicer... but this one did have an interesting cave that led down right to the water and the crashing waves. Not a good place to get caught with a rogue wave or high tide however!!

 

 

 

 

Compared to the previous 3 Boka's, we viewed this area in less than 5 minutes and were pretty much spent. Back to the car we went and we were back on the main road in no time.

 

Here is more info on Shete Boka National Park

http://www.shetebokapark.org/

and also here, along with Cristoffel national Park and other sites you may want to visit

https://www.curacao-travelguide.com/discover/sights-attractions/Christoffel-Park/

http://www.christoffelpark.org/christoffel-park/routes/car-routes/

 

The entrance to Cristoffel was maybe 5min max up the road, and we found it very quickly.

 

 

Now here's the biggest tip I can give you if you decide to visit here...

You must be here before 11am else they won't let you into the mountain side of the car route!

They will let you in for the 1 hour drive, but they asked if we had been up to Shete Boka.... of course I said yes and they said that was cheaper and the same thing as the one hour drive along the coast here at Cristoffel Park. How dissapointing! See the fine print on the sign below "No climbing after 11am"

 

 

 

Wow, I was so disappointed. Seeing Cristofell and the driving the route(s) was a top priority for me after watching various youtube videos and researching some for the things to do. Next time I will know better.... get out to Cristofell first thing and do a beach break at the end of the day in the afternoon.

 

Hmmmm.... so what to do now? Two things I took off my list pre-cruise was visiting the Curacao liqueur producing factory (been there last time here) or the Hato caves (never been). I noticed the Hato Caves signs on our way out here so decided that we'd monitor time on our drive back and see whether we would stop there for an hour or not before heading back to return the car.

 

We headed back towards the port. It's a good 1/2 hour on the main roads which finally lead onto the highway, and being tired from the already long day and heat, we decided to just head back to the rental office, drop the car off, have the extra time to quickly get on the ship to drop off our bags and stuff, freshen up and then go for a walk into Punda to check out the architecture and sites.

[Hoopster95]

The Adventure doesn't leave until 6pm (5:30pm all aboard) so because we came back somewhat earlier than planned, we've got oodles of time for a leisurely walk into town. We got onto the ship, changed and back out by around 4pm. I've shown you a few pictures of the immediate port area when we grabbed the rental car... here is the pathway leading away from the ship towards town

 

 

 

Lots maps everywhere to help you out. You will see that the main part of Punda is actually quite small and very easy to get around once you walk over the pontoon bridge

 

 

 

At the end of the walkway before you enter a small turnaround of residential building where vehicles can drop off people, there's a great spot for a photo of the the Adventure

 

 

 

As you enter the vehicle turnaround, immediately to the right is the entry into the shopping area and the Fort where all the shopping is built in to

 

[Hoopster95]

As we exited the shopping area of the port, we got our first views of Punda over on the other side of the Bay. The mega pier is in Otrabanda.... I've also walked through this side of Otrabanda and I can tell you it's also very interesting... and very local. The farther I walked into the commercial area, past local churches and residential buildings, there were barely any tourists and it was all locals. The buildings became older, looked more like being in a typical side road in Nassau for example. I got so far in that I was not comfortable to tell the truth, and I'm normally very v ery comfortable and adventurous with my travles.... we were defintiely out of place and I didn;t feel I was supposed to be there at that time., so we quickly headed back through the main road. Of course Punda being more commercial and tourist oriented is that shiny gleaming jewel that tourists know and love, so that they don;t have to see the real conditions of what some of the locals live in. Our goal was to get into Punda to view some of the sites as gf has never been there, so here's the first shots

 

 

 

 

I was blessed the first time here to view the bridge open and close many times... and several times from my aft balcony on Vision when we were moored inside the bay. But not this day.... not once did we get to the the "stop" lights come on or see people get stuck on the bridge itself as it opened. Note the people... lack of!

 

 

 

And from the center of the bridge great views of Princess Juliana bridge from this viewpoint (rather than driving over her as I'd done that morning) as well as the famous buildings across the bay.

 

 

[Hoopster95]

Of course, the famous Penha building in Punda as you step off of the bridge

 

 

 

And immediately across the street to the right is the visitor center. This is the best place to go if your are doing a DIY ("Do -It-Yourself") day. Here, you can get a ton of info and book various tours that pick up on that side in Punda. On my previous visit I did a 2 hour tram tour around Curacao booked right here with various sites and viewpoints and it was decent to give me an overview.

 

 

 

There are great buildings/architecture and various name brand stores that we are familiar with

 

 

 

 

Just a block away to the right of the main road and the visitor center is a main park in front of Fort Amsterdam, with the famous Curacao sign that is a must-do for every visitor to prove that you've been right there!!

 

 

 

Beyond the parking lot and the park, are several government offices in and around Fort Amsterdam. There are tours offered in Fort Amsterdam, and I believe some can be done through the ship within some of the excursions offered, but this time we were there just to walk around and get acclimated to the inner town for the short time we had.

 

[Hoopster95]

Just a block up from the park is a part of town called the Peitermaii District. I equate this to more of an older part of town that is being revived into a nightlife area of restaurants, bars, hotels, etc. There are plenty of un-restored buildings. We did not venture very far but this may give you an idea

http://pietermaaidistrict.com/

 

 

 

 

We cut through a seemingly residential district of somewhat run-down smaller buildings and made our way to the large flee market area with a ton of booths and various vendors. This area also has a very large undercover larger round building with more vendors inside for those of you who neewd a break from walking and want to get out of the sun

 

 

 

Just down from here and heading back towards the water/bay is this awesome open market. The first shot shows you these vendors arrive by boat to store and sell their wares, but on the street it's full on vending. Don;t just walk on by... watch for a while. I think many of these vendors have regulars who call in for product, then drive on by in their cars in the midst of traffic... the vendors walk on out onto the street and pass a bag of goods into the car. They also try to sell as they go, yelling out at the cars and asking if they're interested in buying anything. They never asked us once, and they know full well that we're tourists just passing by so we'd be a waste of time obviously.

 

 

[Hoopster95]

The open market ends, and immediately across the street is the main shopping area for tourists that I initially showed you with various pictures... we had done a little 4 block circle. This first shot looks back in the direction of the open market and also the large rounds circular building that is that under cover market I had mentioned in the previous post. This is a foot bridge which has to open and close for boat traffiic. There's a few of these around town

 

 

 

Spinning around 180 degrees from this point and looking out on the bay is a great view of the bridge. See the red ship across the bay? That's where Vision docked in 2013, and I assume some smaller ships still do if the Mega Pier is being used by a larger vessel.

 

 

 

After meandering in and out of a few streets, I found a shop to purchase a big bottle of Blue Curacao Triple Sec to bring home, and my gf found a nice place top purchase some local jewelry as a reminder of her visit here, we began heading back to the Pontoon Bridge to get back to the ship

 

 

 

Right across the bridge is a large square. This place was packed when I was there last, but being low season and only one ship here, nothing was going on this day

 

 

 

On this side of the Pontoon bridge is also a nice line-up of various vendors. I actually found this side the best. I bought another license plate for my collection at a better price than on the Punda side. It was about 4:45pm with all-aboard coming up, and it was still this busy here with these vendors as it seems plenty of people were stopping to take a look maybe for last minute purchases.

 

[Hoopster95]

Heading back to the Mega Pier you have to go through the Rif Fort

 

 

 

 

 

I walked more of the wall and rested there a little longer the first time I visited, but really there's not much to see here.... it's a mall... that's it. There's some great views from the old wall up top looking back to Punda.

 

 

 

 

And what is your final couple of minutes on land on your 7 day vacation/cruise without a couple of cheesy photos?!?

 

 

[Hoopster95]

Aaaaah.... long hot day! But we were on board around 5pm. We had time to grab a drink and grab a couple of shots from top deck looking down at the pier and Punda across the bay.

 

 

 

 

We witnessed our sailaway from our cabin as we needed to take a well deserved chill and slowly get ready for formal night. Upon the ropes being released, the ship turn starboard quite quickly away from the pier and headed away from Curacao without a Punda "drive by"

 

 

 

 

I took a picture here on top deck before we left Curacao of this on the big screen up at pool deck... I was part of a heated discussion regarding the recent drowning on Anthem and I don't know why it was heated. Regardless, this was playing over and over and over and over and over again on both seas days, as well as each afternoon/evening after the port days. CD Dan mentioned the life vests a couple of times early on and they're mentioned on the compasses as well. I would say out of 20 kids in the pool any given time 5 would have the vests on the times that I looked. Also, every time I looked there was always n RCL pool deck staff member looking into the pools.

 

 

[Hoopster95]

Great night of entertainment and fun tonight.... first of all formal night and the Fisherman's Platter (lobster). No problem with Aila bringing us one plate with two tails on it rather than two full meals as I've experienced in the past. Excellent dinners, the lobster was very good not rubbery.

 

Next event was 8pm music trivia, classic rock. Again the staff did a great job entertaining the participants and Schooner Bar was jammed packed with standing room only at the sides. And again our team did great but didn't win (3rd this time if I remember correctly). I hadn't yet taken a picture of the new drink cards for $85, so I did this evening.... here it is.

 

$85 (grats incl). Any drink up to $12 is fair game.

 

 

 

There was lots going on tonight incl the RCL singers doing a set up in the Promenade and Who wants to be a Millionaore game show at 9pm, but we love our nightly shows so off to the theatre we went. Tonight was an act I had never seen on RCL before...

 

 

 

They are a classic rock cover band. They have quite a long history and they show a montage of themselves as younger adults in the band doing their thing. They were really good overall, but I think not as well received as they should've been... they put on a full show, very loud, great instrumental, very loud, the female singer was awesome!, very loud.... I said loud right? Hey, it was a rock concert. But I did see a few people (mostly older/elderly) make a very quick exit very early through the show. I thought they were great with a lot of sing alongs (ie. Bon Jovi), and an excellent change of pace from the "regular" Sinatra/Neil Diamond/Elton John wanna-be's.

 

 

 

Love and Marriage was on tonight as well... Dan did a better than average job of this one as well, par for the course. Pretty funny stuff.

 

 

 

And of course what is a sailing from Puerto Rico without a Latino Themed Fiesta night? That was tonight as well, but it wasn't in a huge part of the ship, it was tucked away ion the Imperial Lounge. I was surprised that it wasn't as well attended as I thought it would be, but the latin band was as awesome as usual. We "club hopped" from the Imperial Lounge down to Jester's and back a few times when the band was taking a break, having great fun and enjoying the early hours of the morning. Soon it was time for bed, where this guy was left there by Kennebeth to greet us upon our return

 

[Hoopster95]

 

 

 

 

 

[perfect match]

FYI, another diver traveling with other non-divers is on this same itinerary in late April/Early May of 2017 ;)

 

Bill, I really wish we were going to be on that itinerary at the same time as you. I would most definitely volunteer to be your dive buddy! However, since every trip we have taken in the past several years has been to a beach/water/dive destination, it is now time for the non diver. We are heading for Vegas on April 28, 2017. While there are dive possibilities in Vegas, I doubt I will be diving there. There is so much else we enjoy in Vegas, so I will save my diving for the Caribbean and spend my time in Vegas with DH instead of heading off on my own.

 

Hoopster95, thank you for the tour of Curacao. I think you are the first reviewer I've read who ventured out of the port area. Curacao is one of the islands I have been considering for a land trip, so it was great to hear about your DIY day. I also added to my growing collection of bookmarks. :D

[easyboy]

Yes... Jay's Car rentals

http://www.jayscarrentalaruba.com/

Thanks.