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 · February 24

Onward with the trip report

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Walking into the center of the town

Here’s everyone’s favorite jewelry store in the Caribbean and Alaska as a cruise is not complete without seeing a DI in every port.

Oh, is this not everyone’s favorite? At least not with RCI as they are no longer associated with DI on all their port talks so I wonder who DI is partnering with now? Carnival? NCL? MSC?

harryfat1 · February 24

Scooter rental

harryfat1 · February 24

My wife taking a picture of me taking a picture of the Rennsaise shopping mall. It’s distinctive in being pink and multi-storied. It shows up on many videos as the big shopping mall in Aruba but I was surprised it was already closed at 6:45 by the time we got there.

I thought it would be more like the Rif Fort in Cuaaco with lots of activities but other than the second-story restaurant, there's not much happening there.

harryfat1 · February 24

So we just walked around for a bit after that and nothing really impressive in the town so we headed back to the ship to shower and eat dinner.

Maybe others will disagree but I found the Aruba cruise area to be pretty disappointing when compared to Curaaco the night before. It’s not a bad area but there’s nothing magical like lights on the bridge and the waterfront. Aruba just has a bunch of cars along the main drag.

harryfat1 · February 24

You can see the Church of Scientology ship is docked adjacent to the Odyssey. As their ship is lid so they might be having people on board

The North Star is up and running. From this view, it's as if someone did a connecting job of putting the Freewinds bow to the Odyssey's body

The luxury cruise ship, Silver Dawn is docked beside us

I really enjoyed being outside the cruise terminal in the evening taking nighttime photos of the various ships. It's not often you get to see the ships all lid up as many depart by 5 PM.

harryfat1 · February 24

Back inside the cruise terminal by 7 PM.

Back to the cabin to shower and change and get ready for dinner at MDR

After the shower and looked outside of the cabin and saw a ship out in the waters. Too dark and blurry to make out who it may be but it might have been the Silver Dawn docked next to us as they sailed away

harryfat1 · February 24

Tonight's dinner theme is “Caribbean night” so we wore our more colorful shirts to join the theme. In front of the MDR in the hallway, there’s a long walkway with moving colorful flowers. We wonder if we would “blend in” with our clothes for the night…

With my Hawaiin shirt, I can walk around and people will think I’m a waiter and ask me to refill their water glasses for them…🤪

harryfat1 · February 24

OK back to the MDR and our table. We miss the MDR in not having been here the night before as we were upstairs at the Solarium Bistro.

It is much more lively and open compared to the Solarium Bistro. It’s a personal preference thing but we prefer the MDR more than the Solarium Bistro. Never say never, but in the near future, I doubt we will go back to the solarium bistro for dinner.

harryfat1 · February 24

In the middle of the dining, they had the waiters do the Macarena Dance

I know some people on CC hate these interruptions, but I strongly disagree as I love it as it provides a photo op and it’s something you can only get from a cruise. How often do you see dancing waiters on a regular dining establishment back home? In my opinion, this is what makes cruising so special

Here is where I miss the MDR setup of Voyager/Freedom/Oasia class where they have two-story stairs and they have waiters sing and dance in the middle. With the Odyssey set up, there’s no really one center piece so you don’t know where to look.

You see people waving their napkins

Our waiter from Ukraine is dancing (or trying to). Other guests are joining them as well so it's not just crazy old me who like this stuff

harryfat1 · February 24

Here's my wife taking a picture of me shooting a video of the dancing waiters

Not my best video as I lost control of the phone for a bit but you get the vibe from it

harryfat1 · February 24

harryfat1 · February 24

I prefer the Voyager/Freedom/Oasis class MDR with a staircase where I can see the dancing workers.

Here was the Navigator back in August:

Pay particular attention to Mr. Washy-Washy in the front middle with the bright color shirt. The dude is ALL INTO IT...

In comparing the 2 ships, I would definitely say the Navigator crew is much more into dancing than the Odyssey crew

harryfat1 · February 24

Oh, yeah, we came here to eat

rncruiser · February 24

I agree that the port area in Aruba is not much compared to Curaçao. Most of the nightlife in Aruba is near the hotels. We stayed at a hotel on Palm Beach last year and just a short walk from the hotel there was a large shopping area with stores, restaurants and a movie theater. There was also a plaza with free entertainment every evening. While not particularly beautiful it was definitely lively and fun.

JamesEM · February 24

When I was in Aruba last year there was a trolley stop just outside the port area, (end of the line) the trolley was free and when you get to the other end of the line there is a little shopping area RX store, ice cream/soda shop. After a 15 minute break the trolley heads back to the cruise port, the one problem is most of the shops and stores were boarded up. Most of the activity is now located in the hotel/condo area.

harryfat1 · February 24

2 hours ago, rncruiser said:

I agree that the port area in Aruba is not much compared to Curaçao. Most of the nightlife in Aruba is near the hotels. We stayed at a hotel on Palm Beach last year and just a short walk from the hotel there was a large shopping area with stores, restaurants and a movie theater. There was also a plaza with free entertainment every evening. While not particularly beautiful it was definitely lively and fun.

18 minutes ago, JamesEM said:

When I was in Aruba last year there was a trolley stop just outside the port area, (end of the line) the trolley was free and when you get to the other end of the line there is a little shopping area RX store, ice cream/soda shop. After a 15 minute break the trolley heads back to the cruise port, the one problem is most of the shops and stores were boarded up. Most of the activity is now located in the hotel/condo area.

Yeah, I guess Aruba’s main tourist business is still with the land-based tourists at the hotel zone with activities geared at that part of the island.

The major cruise lines only started going down to the ABC islands from Florida the past few years as they built more ships, they needed to establish new itineraries to bring back repeat cruisers. So the cruise business is more of a newcomer relative to the land-based hotel business.

The cruise terminal area wasn’t very exciting at nighttime. I saw videos of the free trolley, but I heard the complaint was that they cut short the trolley route and it wasn’t as good as before. By the time we made it outside, the trolley was probably done for the day by 6 PM.

I was just hoping for more activities since there were 3 ships in port that day more people would be out and shops would open longer.

harryfat1 · February 24

As it was a hot day walking around the island earlier that day, I opted for 2 scoops of “ice cream” (RCI version of ice cream/milk) as something cold for dessert. It may not taste like the ice cream back home but at least it’s cold and sweet..

harryfat1 · February 24

After dinner, we paid a quick visit to the uncle in prison (aka shipboard photographers) as they were set up just outside of the MDR walkway past the colorful flowers.

Since today’s theme was Caribbean night, the backdrop is beach-like. Not sure the cruiser that asked about the background is still around but there’s another backdrop.

Carnival used to have props and 3-dimensional prop displays with their photo shoot. RCI is pretty boring with just the basic fake background. Carnival used to have clothes like wild west bank robbers you can dress up in props to make their pictures look more interesting.

Will see what they have come this December as it’s been over 10 years since we have sailed with them

harryfat1 · February 24

So for tonight, there was NO entertainment scheduled by the ship at the main theater. Somewhat surprising as that was our nightly entertainment venue. Maybe they assumed people would be off the ship late since we don't depart until 10 PM so no need to set up entertainment if people are not coming.

OK, guess we will have to entertain ourselves. DIY time...

harryfat1 · February 24

As the ship was sailing away at 10 PM, they had a sailaway dance party on the pool deck so we went up there to check it out.

I think everyone was already aboard way before 10 PM as this picture was taken at 10:15 and we were already pretty far away from Aruba so the captain must have cast off early with everyone already back onboard before 10. I didn’t see too many bars/drinking establishments near the cruise terminal so there’s not much reason for people to miss a 9:30 PM all-board time