Cruiser Formerly Known As Cheapo Dad's Trip Report on Odyssey of the Seas Sailing to A Minus B Plus C Plus H Islands

[Debowah]

This might be helpful for your NY trip.  

[harryfat1]

6 hours ago, juanrod said:

@harryfat1  here comes another storm. Hope everyone stays in one piece 

Yeah, we started getting rain on Saturday afternoon and it's been on and off since then.  Hopefully, this series of rain storms isn't as bad as last time.

[harryfat1]

6 hours ago, Debowah said:

This might be helpful for your NY trip.  

Oh, very nice.  Much appreciated.

 

People on YouTube often refer to certain districts and it's not always clear to me where's what.  I know from the various research I have been doing on the basics of where Brooklyn and Queens are relative to Manhattan but within Manhattan, I only know the big-name areas like Wall Street and Central Park and Time Square.  Still need to get familiar with the other small districts.

[harryfat1]

OK, so we just got off the ship in Aruba and weaved through the various shops inside the terminal to get out.

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

The outside scene is best described as “Organized Chaos”.  People are everywhere and you need to find whatever tour you signed up for and the very loud music in the background (do they really need that loud music to "welcome you" to Aruba?)

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

We signed up for an independent tour that I found on the Viator website and booked it through them. I know Viator is only the middle person, but I thought I could trust them more than some company I never heard of.  Well, that didn’t turn out exactly as planned…

 

I signed up  & paid Viator for the tour one month before sailing.  Their instruction was to meet the tour operator right after we got out of the cruise terminal.  I put in the name of the ship in the signup description. 

 

Being 9.2 on the anal scale, I even emailed the tour operator after I got the Viator confirmation to make sure the tour operator has us on their list and they know we are coming on the Odyssey of the Seas.  I received an email confirmation from them saying I am on the list and I’m good to go.  Or maybe not…

 

The name of the company is El Tours.  They are supposed to be a big tour operator on the island with various types of tours and airport transfers so it’s not a one minibus-only tour operator as I wanted a bigger bus with a reliable AC system than a small taxi van.

 

So I got out and I saw the dude with an El Tours blue cap (see me talking to him in the picture below), I was really happy that he was there to meet us – until I gave him our name and then he said we were not on his list.  WTH?

 

[harryfat1]

Then he asked what tour we were on and as it turns out, he is not the guide for our tour.  He said our tour guide is coming.  Huh?  It’s 8:35 for an 8:30 tour and the guide is not there?  That doesn’t sound good as they are typically there waiting for you, not the other way around.

 

He told us to stick around and wait while he texts and calls.  I'm not getting warm fuzzies about this whole operation as every minute is ticking away.

 

 

Later on, another family showed up to talk to this El Tours guide and they were also not with his tour they were told to wait as they were with a different tour than ours but with the same company.

 

By 8:45, the El Tour guide at the terminal left to take his group to their sightseeing.  He told us to wait for someone at their office to pick us up. 

 

So in the meantime, there’s nothing to do other than take pictures of the cruise terminal area

 

 

 

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[harryfat1]

 

Besides being anxious about not hooking up with the tour operator, the loud music and the chaos of the cruise terminal didn't make me feel the "Aruba - One Happy Island Vibe".  You can check out the scene from this short clip.

 

I will talk more later on about this other ship, Freewinds, docked beside us as it’s permanently docked here.  Every Aruba YouTibe cruise terminal video shows the ship tied up here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

At 8:55 an El Tour bus finally shows up – 25 minutes after the fact.  Better late than never, I supposed.

 

 

But there’s nobody else on the small bus other than us.  Huh?  I thought these guys were a big company that had many other customers?

 

Anyway, who cares, just get on the bus. As we were leaving the cruise terminal, the driver said he was only the driver to take us to the “real bus” as this was not our actual tour bus  OK…

 

[harryfat1]

The Carnival Hrzino was docked at the other pier (no cruise terminal building) as the driver took us past that terminal into some remote parking lot where our "real bus" was waiting for us.  Inside the bus was ¾ full from the Carnival passengers.  They were waiting for us to complete the roster.

 

 

 

Nobody ever told me the whole story but I think between Viator and El Tours, they weren’t communicating in the background or El Tours is just disorganized. Maybe their paperwork assumed we were on the Carnival ship and not the Odyssey so they never arranged for someone to meet us there to link up cruisers from both ports.

 

So this is the risk of booking independent tours in that you are relying on them being organized to be there.  The tours from the cruise ships will be more expensive but you are pretty much guaranteed to have someone meet you at the pier when you get off the ship with whatever number tag they assigned you.  The tour may be canceled due to bad weather or whatever but there won’t be any of the “your name is not on my list” kind of anxiety if you book a tour with the ship.

 

Of course, there's the money-saving factor if you book an independent tour as they will be cheaper than the cruise ship ones.  You have to be the judge of your comfort level

[harryfat1]

Alrighty, that was the excitement of the morning.  We are on the bus now to our first stop – the Aruba Aloe factory.

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Aruba is known for its Aloe production and there’s an Aloe factory that almost all the tours stop by there for a free tour of the area.  I think there were 3 different tour buses there at the same time we were so it was massively crowded as we all tried to squeeze in to learn how Aloe is made from the plant.

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

The Aloe worker shows that you have to soak it for a while and then peel it before it can be processed.

 

 

After the demonstration, we all walked inside to do a guided tour of the Aloe factory from the second floor.

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Loads of people from multiple buses on the factor tour from the second floor

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

After the tour, they have a gift shop at the bottom floor for anyone who wants to buy some to take home – aka visiting the crazy aunt in the basement

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

 

[#1packerfan]

We had an issue with Viator on the first cruise from the Bahamas after the shutdown. The person was over an hour late to pick us up, we were a little worried we weren't going to get back to the ship on time. Plus they took us to a different beach than what we had booked. We pretty much lost our faith in ever trying them again, I know people give them great reviews but one and done for us.

[harryfat1]

1 hour ago, #1packerfan said:

We had an issue with Viator on the first cruise from the Bahamas after the shutdown. The person was over an hour late to pick us up, we were a little worried we weren't going to get back to the ship on time. Plus they took us to a different beach than what we had booked. We pretty much lost our faith in ever trying them again, I know people give them great reviews but one and done for us.

Yeah, Viator is just a middleman in connecting travelers with local service providers.  The quality of service you get will vary with each provider. 

 

Viator does provide a valuable service in that they display vendors of any city that you may not have found on your own but as we both know, there are shortcomings as well.

 

Just the pure math of having a middle person in the booking process will increase the odds of something going wrong.  

 

At least your tour and our tour showed up, albeit late and not exactly as planned.  When we were coming back, we heard some people behind us saying their tour guide never showed up.  My wife thinks those could have been the other family behind us at the cruise terminal waiting for their tour operator who somehow never showed up.

 

That's the worst fear as now you are stuck to find some local taxi guy at the cruise terminal and trying to replicate whatever tours you had originally planned. As everyone knows by now I'm not the spur-of-the-moment type so it would stress me out if I had to improvise on the fly at any port if I had to arrange everything on the spot at the cruise terminal in the chaos.

 

Many people do that as you always see taxi/tour operators at each cruise terminal trying to sell their services so there must be a demand for on-the-spot tours. But I would think most anal people are not the spontaneous sort.

[harryfat1]

After the Aloe Factory, the next stop on the tour is the Casibari Rock Formation.

 

The place is a bunch of mixed rock formations in the middle of the island and people like to climb to the top to take a look at the island.

 

Lots of cacti on the way there.  Almost like we are visiting Arizona

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

We are here

 

 

 

I like this disclaimer sign that says climb at your own risk – don’t sue us if a 10-ton rock crushes you…

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

Lots of people at this stop as well with many buses in the parking area

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

Does anyone really believe this little wooden bar has much impact on the movement of the rock? You would think they could at least use an aluminum pipe or something more sturdy looking than a little twig-sized wood to try and sturdy the rocks?  Do they have earthquakes in Aruba?

 

 

 

Watch out for your head

 

[harryfat1]

 

So this is what you see when you get to the top

 

 

 

I wouldn't get too close to that railing as you don't know how sturdy that wood is being out in the sun and the rain year-round

 

 

Another tour bus dropping off tourists to see the rocks

 

[harryfat1]

You can see the Carnival and RCI ships out in the distance (red arrows)

 

 

Zooming in