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

[harryfat1]

Lots of people at the top

 

 

After a while, it’s time to go back down as we need to go to the next place

 

It’s a one direction up and another direction down.  Going down is much easier with an open staircase.  No worries about being the middle part of a “rock sandwich”…

 

 

It's a steep downhill walk,  Be sure to hold onto the metal railing.

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

 

 

Edited February 19 by harryfat1

[harryfat1]

We made it down early and here’s our bus as well as the little store down at the entrance area

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

 

Oh, yeah, you have to pay like $2 to use their restroom as my wife and my son were in line to pay.  So have some small bills with you as you travel to pay for restroom use. 

 

From what they told me, there's no toilet paper inside the restroom so you have to bring some sort of paper Kleenex in your backpack to do your business...

 

 

 

[JamesEM]

A couple of years ago I got on the wrong bus in Aruba, the driver was waiting for one more passenger and he thought I was it, well I got to see Harrison's Cave for free instead of paying to go downtown.  As an excuse I was hung over, hot and was not paying attention.  

[perfect match]

Harry, I hope that this new atmospheric river I keep hearing about leaves you alone! I think about you and your family every time the weather forecasters bring the subject up!

I’m glad you were able to get your visitor trip sorted out and that you were able to take your planned tour even though it left late. I guess I have been lucky with the few Viator tours I have booked since everything went well for us.

 

My surgically repaired kneed would not have liked walking down those steep rock stairs you went down. I would have been clutching that metal rail tightly and hoping that it wasn’t too hot! 

[luvtoride]

On 2/15/2024 at 10:06 PM, harryfat1 said:

 

 

Too bad on the small chance of the statue of Liberty view as it would have been cool to be at eye level or above the statue.

 

Maybe on a later trip back to NYC, we will go in December to see the holiday lights and then take a cruise out of NJ on the Anthem to Florida and back.  That would be a magical holiday experience to spend a few days in NYC pre-cruise.

@harryfat1 why don’t you take a cruise out of NYC?  We did an NCL cruise from NYC in November and I got a couple of shots of the Statue as we were leaving NY Harbor.  My photos aren’t great but the view was spectacular at Sunset. 
🌅 

[harryfat1]

19 hours ago, JamesEM said:

A couple of years ago I got on the wrong bus in Aruba, the driver was waiting for one more passenger and he thought I was it, well I got to see Harrison's Cave for free instead of paying to go downtown.  As an excuse I was hung over, hot and was not paying attention.  

Good thing you didn’t stumble onto some hard labor bus where they take you to some field and make you do manual labor in the Caribbean heat.  I guess the person whose spot you took was cursing out the tour operator as he/she was still at the cruise terminal waiting for their ride.

 

That’s the drawback of online tours is that some are lazy about who they pick up.  All you are is a headcount to them.  They are employed to pick up X number that day and as long as the number is right, they don’t care if is that the correct group or not.

 

At least with the ship-based tour, you meet at the theater somewhere and they issue you a group number sticker that you put on your shirt (i.e. group 7) to at least know you are with the right group. Like in the picture below - you just need to find the number and you are set.

 

 

[harryfat1]

17 hours ago, perfect match said:

Harry, I hope that this new atmospheric river I keep hearing about leaves you alone! I think about you and your family every time the weather forecasters bring the subject up!

I’m glad you were able to get your visitor trip sorted out and that you were able to take your planned tour even though it left late. I guess I have been lucky with the few Viator tours I have booked since everything went well for us.

 

My surgically repaired kneed would not have liked walking down those steep rock stairs you went down. I would have been clutching that metal rail tightly and hoping that it wasn’t too hot! 

Thanks for the concern.  Our area didn’t get hit too badly from this series of storms but from the news report, other areas did.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/part-los-angeles-could-see-065102556.html

 

I think Viator probably has a solid record on getting most of the tours out without glitches as they have 4.4 stars out of 5 out of 77K+ reviews on Google so they are decent.  It’s just the odds of things going wrong increase every time you have a middle person passing on the traveler info and you are dependent on how organized the local tour operators are..

 

We have one more set of rocks to climb at the next stop on the tour and that one is even more challenging to go up

 

[harryfat1]

11 hours ago, luvtoride said:

@harryfat1 why don’t you take a cruise out of NYC?  We did an NCL cruise from NYC in November and I got a couple of shots of the Statue as we were leaving NY Harbor.  My photos aren’t great but the view was spectacular at Sunset. 
🌅

I briefly thought about a cruise out of NYC a while back but the itinerary didn’t appeal to me as it would take me south to FL and the Bahamas where my brain would melt in the August heat. 

 

Not to mention we already did 2 cruises in 2023 and one more upcoming this December, the family will bulk if I opt for more cruises. We like cruises in general but that’s not our only form of vacationing as we have road trips that span 2,000+ miles round trip in the west coast.

 

Easier to just do a one-week land trip to NYC to see as much as we can.  Then plan for a future December cruise where we will come back to see the Holiday lights of NYC and freeze our buns off as the West Coast stores don't sell clothes that are East Coast winter-ready.

 

Nice view of the Statue at sunset

[harryfat1]

One more picture of the Casibari rocks from the bus as we move onto the next stop – Bushiribana Old Mine Ruins

 

 

 

This was an abandoned gold mine from many years ago and it’s somehow a big visiting site with tons of people climbing the ruins. 

 

I think this must be a big ATV roundup place as there are probably over 100 ATVs in the area along with all the bus tours

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

[harryfat1]

There’s no tour guide or anything resembling an organized climbing effort.  It’s like letting loose 100 monkeys into a house and everyone is going every which way.

 

Yeah, climb at your own risk...

 

 

 

 

 

[Coralc]

Are you going to rent a car for NYC? I don't think I would want to drive or park there. Or is it pretty much walkable or Uber/Taxi? We've never been there. 

 

Edited February 21 by Coralc

[rncruiser]

1 minute ago, Coralc said:

Are you going to rent a car for NY? I don't think I would want to drive or park there. Or is it pretty much walkable or Uber/Taxi? We've never been there. 

Best away around NYC is subway. We make it a habit never to drive into Manhattan. There is way too much traffic and street parking is near impossible. There are plenty of parking garages but they are incredibly expensive. While Manhattan is walkable, it is very big so getting from point A to point B, esp in the summer heat, may not be desirable. 

[harryfat1]

 

My wife taking a picture of us from the other side

 

 

And I took a picture of her

 

 

 

Yeah, they would never have this back home as it's just a lawsuit waiting to happen as you know someone will be injured from this climb and the lawyers would be all over themselves filing lawsuits...

 

[harryfat1]

5 minutes ago, Coralc said:

Are you going to rent a car for NYC? I don't think I would want to drive or park there. Or is it pretty much walkable or Uber/Taxi? We've never been there. 

 

Walking and the infamous NYC subway.  Been watching lots of videos on the NYC subway.

 

We spent almost 3 weeks in Japan taking subways and trains but of course, that country is much safer and cleaner than NYC but it's a similar idea of walking around a concrete jungle.

 

Will be planning to walk in the morning before it gets too hot and indoor activities/ferry rides in the afternoons to cool off

[Coralc]

Thanks. I forgot about the NY Subway. 

[rncruiser]

6 minutes ago, harryfat1 said:

Walking and the infamous NYC subway.  Been watching lots of videos on the NYC subway.

 

We spent almost 3 weeks in Japan taking subways and trains but of course, that country is much safer and cleaner than NYC but it's a similar idea of walking around a concrete jungle.

 

Will be planning to walk in the morning before it gets too hot and indoor activities/ferry rides in the afternoons to cool off

I know the NYC subway system has had a lot of bad press about crime but I rode the subway every day for 43 years to get to and from work and never experienced any crime. 

[harryfat1]

 

It’s somewhat scenic at the top but not sure if it was worth the climb amidst all the people

 

 

Similar to the previous attraction where going up was much harder than coming down as you can just come down a slope.

 

In theory, you probably could have just walked up the hill on the side instead of risking the climb inside the abandoned mine but I guess that takes the "fun" out of it

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

 

Made it back down in one piece

 

 

 

I spotted a resident of the area

 

 

[harryfat1]

Ok, done with the abandoned mine area as we checked all the body parts are still intact as we now go off to the next area – Alto Vista Chapel

 

All these cacti remind me of Arizona

 

 

Here's the Chapel

 

 

[harryfat1]

This Chapel is a main stop for many sightseers as well as worshipers and it draws a whole lot of vendors

 

 

Many people visiting their crazy aunt in the basement this morning (aka shopping).

 

Hey, kids, I know you wanted the new game for the Xbox for Christmas but Grandma lost some money at the casino last night on the ship so she’s a little short on cash. 

 

How about a cheap T-shirt from Aruba that you will never wear instead of cash for your game? 🤪

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Huge Cacti

 

 

This dude sells Cuban Cigars on top of coconuts

 

[harryfat1]

OK, done with the Chapel. 

 

Up next on this whirlwind tour of northern Aruba is the California Lighthouse.  The Lighthouse was erected after the ship SS California sunk off the coast in the late 1800s. It’s supposed to be the tallest structure in Aruba situated in the North part of the island.

 

Oh, hey, look, there are more tour buses.  Fancy that...