Curacao

[Captain Ron 12956]

Who’s been before?

Just landed and checked into our hotel. Anyone have any recommendations?

[HenryJames 66277]

Wear a rubber.

[4th&Five 41701]

Went last summer but we didn’t do much outside of the resort. Kokomo beach had some good snorkeling. 

[luke duke 6420]

I see that you are a planner.

[Newdoc 3465]

Depending on where you are staying do the pedestrian bridge. Plein Cafe near the Curacao sign is pretty good. The Rif Fort shopping area is interesting. All that area is touristy but at least worth a visit. Try to get out to some snorkeling or diving spots around the island. That's where the real beauty of the island is. And all the Curacao drinks are ubiquitous across the island. Nothing special. 

[Captain Ron 12956]

14 hours ago, luke duke said:

I see that you are a planner.

Fair.

Actually we have a framework in place. I’m am looking for filler details.

13 hours ago, Newdoc said:

Depending on where you are staying do the pedestrian bridge. Plein Cafe near the Curacao sign is pretty good. The Rif Fort shopping area is interesting. All that area is touristy but at least worth a visit. Try to get out to some snorkeling or diving spots around the island. That's where the real beauty of the island is. And all the Curacao drinks are ubiquitous across the island. Nothing special. 

Most of these are on our docket.  @4th&Five mentioned Kokomo beach that wasn’t a direct plan, but snorkeling is. 

[Captain Ron 12956]

Got back yesterday. The trip was great. I have a lot to report and will give a break down of the full trip in a few days.

I can just say that I haven't seen any ocean as clear as the water around the island and the snorkeling was amazing.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10439]

Damn.. just saw.  I had one of the best steaks of my life at the "Steak & Ribs" in Rif Fort area a couple years back, the flank steak with chimichurri sauce.  I still have dreams of that steak.

[Captain Ron 12956]

So here is some post travel thoughts on Curacao.

First, this was the first real vacation I and the wife have taken in about 7 years. Buying a house, having a kid and a pandemic will really throw your travel plans for a loop. The goal of this trip was primarily relaxation and in that regard, this trip and Curacao checked those boxes.

As far as Curacao, the island is amazing. I would say that the primary thing to do here is sit on the beach or by the pool and take in some sun and enjoy a nice cold beverage. The island offers that in spades. The water there was the clearest ocean water I have ever seen. In many cases you can see from the surface to the bottom without issue and mix in some snorkeling and you can see just so much. I would also recommend if you go, take multiple swimsuits, this includes the guys!!! I thought my wife was nuts, NOPE, took 3, used them all. It was a rotation, basically never went to the beach/pool with a wet suit.

Food, there isn't anything that is really "Curacao-ian." The food is generally a mix of Dutch + North and South American foods. Clearly the seafood is top quality, but it's not like Caribbean or Jamaican food. Still, that said, we found a bunch of great places to eat and I will outline them more in a bit.

Architecture/City - The city is beautiful, there is a color scheme of amazing colors that started years ago and never stopped. This is one of the pictures you will see of the city, this is the color scheme of the whole island. It makes for a great sight when you're walking around. There is also a good amount of street art, with Francis Sling being a major feature of the city. His art is the background on the cover of the island travel magazine for 2024. You can find more here and here. 

 

And finally - the real reason we picked this over many other places - it's not yet a tourist hotbed. Does it draw tourists? Sure (there was a massive destination wedding at our hotel - more on this soon). But you aren't talking about an Aruba, just 50 miles away, and draws many more visitors (4:1 in favor of Aruba). Similar feel, but less crowds - I'm in for that.

 

Our trip was Monday - Sunday, we got back just 2 days ago. This was a rough breakdown of the trip:

Monday - Fly in. It was Boston to Miami and then on to Curacao. The flight wasn't all that bad, just under 3 hours and they made good time. But leaving at 6:30 AM, we were beat. We spent the day at the hotel (Marriot Resort) at the pool and then ate dinner at the pool restaurant. Called it an early night.

Tuesday - We got up early and went into the city (rented a car). We saw the aforementioned Queen Emma pedestrian bridge, which is a floating bridge across the St. Anna Bay in the city. It opens when ship traffic wants to pass. Along the river is a tourist shopping eating district. We wandered along that a little to see those places did some light shopping. For lunch, we ended up at Kome a little further East of the tourist area. It was really good. We were the only tourists in there as the rest of the lunch crowd looked to be locals and/or there for business lunch. After lunch we headed back to the hotel and let the kid hit the pool/beach for a bit. Then hoped back in the car and did dinner at Mosa/Cana. I really wanted this place to be good, and the food was solid, but they were really crowded and the vibe just wasn't great. This is a place we probably should have put a few more days in. It also didn't help we did dinner too late for the 4 year old and he started to melt down.

Wednesday - This day we finally hit a beach outside of the hotel - Playa Porto Marie. You paid roughly $6 a head for admission and a beach chair. We spent the day there, eating lunch and enjoying the beach. It was a day that was stereotypical beach day and beach restaurant. My beach picture above is from the restaurant. Great day. Dinner was at a french restaurant called The Wine Cellar. The food was ok, you can tell their kitchen was trying really damn hard, but they just didn't have the base ingredients to make top quality french food. It was really good, but not great. But you could taste the effort. This place was also where wine prices hit you in the face. A bottle I pay $23 for here at my local wine shop was around $150 on their menu!!! Their imports on wine are just really expensive. We ended up with a perfectly adequate Argentinian red and were happy.

Thursday - Best day here. We did a boat trip to Klein Curacao island (about 16 miles East) via Bluefin Charters. Departure was at 8:30 AM. It was about an hour and a half out. We swam, hit the beach and did some snorkeling. Then they served lunch and opened up the bar. After lunch we did more swimming. And then headed back around 3:00 PM. It was a blast. I highly regretted not bringing my GoPro on the trip (totally forgot it) because their snorkeling was amazing, I even saw a stingray!! Underwater pictures would have been great. After the long day we ate at the hotel, there was no way we wanted to get ready and head into town after that.
I will note on this charter, the ranges of them varied. Our was a pretty fun, family friendly boat. There was one parked about 100' away that was clearly a crazy party boat from the time they arrived. I would check when the bar opened and plan accordingly (I bet that party boat opened their bar the moment they headed out).

Friday - The morning we hit up some local art galleries, even bought a painting (wife likes to collect art). Gallery Alma Blou and Landhuis Bloemhof (ok a cultural center, not an art gallery). The second was closed for preparations for a private event, so we only got to see it from afar. Alma Blou had some good works, bought one of them. Lunch this day was a low key place called De Visserij piscadera - it would have totally been in place in Texas, you pick your fish from the counter, they take it to the back and fry it up and bring it to your table. I got the Baracuda, wife got the Wahoo, kid got the shrimp - all not bad (though the wahoo was dry). But it was a fun place, a few beers and all was good. The afternoon was more pool and beach time and then we hit up Kome again, because it was that good.
This day was also was the beginning of seeing what happens when a large wedding is in the facility. When picking up our kid from kids club in the afternoon, I saw one of the attendees of the wedding talking to the staff. Given her gesticulating about the room, I could tell it was about getting childcare for upcoming days. It worried me because we had plans for my kid to attend Kids Club Saturday morning for sand castle building.

Saturday - Since it was the last day the plan was low key, kiddo to kids club for sand castle building ... OH WAIT. Kids club was overrun with kids from the wedding party, even kids obviously underage (they had a lower age of 4 years old - we think a nanny was left to cover that). Some kids couldn't go in the sun, so sand castle building was cancelled. They drew or watched TV instead (lame). We spent the morning at the beach and pool. Picked up kiddo and headed into town for lunch at Maria's Kitchen. This was a cute little place that felt like Guero's of Curaçao. Mostly an outdoor place we had nice little lunch there. After lunch we headed back to the hotel for more time at the pool and beach. The plan was to have dinner at the pool bar/restaurant and watch the sunset. NOPE. That was closing at 6 PM (normally 10 PM closing) to prep for something to do with the wedding that night. We ended up eating at the hotel restaurant and it was perfectly fine, but just disappointing. We headed in for the evening when the wedding started in full across the hall from us. It was FUCKING LOUD. The bass thumped the room and made it shake. It was an annoying night

Sunday - Pretty normal for a last day, spent some time at the beach and pool, then finished packing and got on the road to the airport. But not before yelling at the front desk for the noise at the hotel the night before.

 

So one more quick follow up on food. We had a lot of places that we thought about going to. The above were the ones that won out, but others we considered:

• BKLYN - A Brooklyn inspired gastrobar, ended up losing out because the menu looked too American
• Roast Cannibal Rumbar - had some good reviews, but was closed for renovations
• Zanzibar - We took off from this place Thursday for the boat day. The place looked like a more upscale version of Playa Porto Marie, we just couldn't make it back

This blog post had some other highlights that might have made the list given more time. And searching places it easy too.

 

Final thing on the Hotel wedding - I don't get how the staff dropped the ball on this. Kids club overrun - I get that seemed kind of spur of the moment. But loss of amenities (the pool bar Saturday night) and the loud event were both things they should have known about and planned for. Just given that they were taking a bar out of commission, the one with the best evening view especially - it should have been if you aren't part of the wedding party - you got free food that night, either at the restaurant or the bar in the great room. It would have recognized that they took out an amenity that inconvenienced many, it would have also prepped them for later on.
The noise - this would have been easy - you had to know that a few people were going to complain or be inconvenienced. Have a few rooms at the far end of the hotel set aside for guests, send a note to any room near the banquet hall that apologized in advanced for an inconvenience/noise and offered a room to sleep in that night (return to your room the next day) should it be an issue. It would have easily solved many issues.

Marriott is going to throw points at us for what should be a free night - we need to look that over soon. But this should have been easily avoidable by a brand as good as Marriott. I just don't get it.

 

I'm still going through my pictures, so I will leave you with this one and post more soon.