Aruba

 Our first port of call, and I only had one objective in mind—having Dutch beer on an Aruban beach.  I didn’t realize that these islands are part of the Netherlands, but now that I do, this is my goal.  John has more lofty ideas of going to the California lighthouse and seeing the rocks on the other side of the island, but that would 

 require a tour or getting a taxi with only 4 hours in port.  We docked at 7am and John and I were off the boat after breakfast by 7:30.  But guess what is wrong with this early hour of docking?  Nothing is open.  We were able to walk to an open beach and see the water, a 

 rainbow, pelicans diving into the water, but had to get the beer and finally found a little convenience store with Amstel in it, so got to go back to the beach and take our pictures in Aruba with Dutch beer (because we could not put up with just Heineken as a choice for the beer).  

 We were able to check email and send out a couple of things, then shop when the stores finally opened up.  I have to admit that this little island is beautiful, but it has a lot to live up to because of the mystic that is built around it.  It has many hotels that claim the beaches, many touristy market places and things.  I would rather spend a week on Mackinaw Island than Aruba.  Not in winter mind you, maybe even then if the ice is frozen and I get to 

walk the ice bridge…But the sun and jewel toned water is spectacular, sitting out and feeling warm, realizing that I’m getting a sunburn even though I put SPF 50 on, is a nice December break from real life at home.  I’m sitting on the balcony after several hours out at the pool and can see Venezuela off in the distance.  How cool is that?  We got to see Cuba for many hours as we rounded it for almost a whole day.  I have to admit that I’m really excited about these ports of call as I’ve never even considered traveling to them until we booked this cruise.  Hopefully, the others will be more impressive than Aruba was and a place that we would want to return to.  There must be something to them because most of the people that we have talked to on the boat have been to these ports many times and can at least give us some advice about the things to see, since the excursion desk can’t tell us anything.