Curacao Day 10: Annoying Bubbles and a Miami Surprise

The next day was our last full day on the island and unfortunately, Mike was having a full-blown flare-up. He needed to rest but he didn't want me to waste my day doing nothing so I decided to go back to Playa Lagun for a snorkeling visit. I loaded up the car with my gear and the underwater camera and set off. I spent a wonderful hour snorkeling and taking lots of pictures. I saw so many different fish hiding in the rocks. Since it was a Friday, it was much less crowded than the Sunday we were there before. I was very excited about the pictures I had taken. When I got back to the house and checked the camera, however, I discovered a big problem. I had forgotten to take the lens off and remove the air bubble that forms when you submerge the camera so NONE of my pictures had turned out. Talk about a huge disappointment!

After I returned, we drove around and took some pictures of our neighborhood. It was filled with houses of all different colors.

At this rather run-down property, someone was building a wooden boat by hand.

This was the little grocery store we visited almost every day for snacks, Cokes, and beer.

Just before leaving for dinner, we enjoyed our last island sunset.

We had reservations for dinner at Fishalicious, a small, Dutch seafood restaurant where, even with a reservation, we had to wait 30 minutes for our table. We started out with the shrimp croquettes.

MIke had the clam chowder.

I had Dover sole.

We left immediately after dinner so that Mike could return to bed. I spent the rest of the evening packing our bags. The next morning, the house manager came over to check us out at 10a. Our flight didn't leave until a few hours later so we passed the time with drinks and lunch at Pirate Bay then headed to the airport.

Our plane left Curacao about 30 minutes late, giving us only one and a half hours to change planes in Miami. When I bought the plane tickets months prior, we had three hours to change planes but in the meantime, American changed the flight times, giving us a shorter layover. To top it all off, there was bad weather somewhere else in the Caribbean so there were tons of people arriving in Miami at the same time. This created a line to re-check bags that wound all around the luggage carousels. People who had flights were trying to cut lines and I got into several verbal exchanges with people trying to get in front of us. As if we didn't have a flight to catch as well! We made it through the line about 30 minutes before our flight was to leave but were informed that we couldn't get on the plane because they didn't have enough time to get our luggage on. Apparently they needed 45 minute to load the luggage. Seriously? So, because American had changed our flight times, they sent us to the Doubletree in Miami for the night, gave us food vouchers, and re-booked us on an early morning flight. We went straight to the hotel and crashed, returning to the Miami airport at 6a, only to face more huge lines and an agent who tried to charge us baggage fees again. Once all of that was sorted, we had breakfast at a London pub-type place and finally boarded our flight, making it home mid-morning. And after that experience and one I had prior going to Turks and Caicos, we now try to avoid the Miami airport whenever possible.

We really enjoyed this trip to Curacao but we both agree that we probably wouldn't return. The pros? We LOVED the house because of the price, the privacy, and the easy access to diving. We loved that the island had local culture, great restaurants, and some nightlife but wasn't a party island. We liked that most of the beaches had facilities for eating and drinking. But if we go to the ABC islands again, we'll probably return to Bonaire. It doesn't compare with regard to island culture (it's more Americanized), beaches, food, and nightlife but the diving is incomparable. Bonaire's marine life is undeniably better in our opinion and that would sway us to Bonaire over Curacao any day.