Judy and Roger Best

We didn’t make any solid plans for Aruba before arriving, and this is my one regret. I wish we had booked a water excursion in Aruba, because the water was inviting, but the island was cacti and rocks surrounded by beautiful water. We enjoyed shopping, and we toured the lobby of the Renaissance Hotel. This hotel has a “canal” of water coming directly into their lobby. A motorized boat drives right into the hotel to pick up hotel guests and day pass guests to take them out to an island. The boats arrived and departed every ten minutes. This looked like a fun way to start a day, and we may do that if we return again. After shopping, we stopped at Iguana Joe’s for lunch.

We took our bags back to the ship, and then returned to the pier to catch a bus tour for just $10 that we had been offered by an independent tour operator. The tour took us to all the neat places on the island, but buyer beware – we were the only English-speaking people on a large tour bus. The tour guide spoke fluent Spanish, but very little English. He was clearly entertaining, because everyone around us was laughing wildly throughout the tour, but we had no idea what was being said. As we headed back to the ship, the tour guide sang the Aruba national anthem, then the Spanish-speaking guests sang the Puerto Rican anthem, then they asked us if we wanted to sing the US anthem. We passed! We enjoyed the sites, but we were disappointed with the tour.

Check out the shore excursions available in Aruba.
Aruba Shore Excursions

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