I'm Scott and I'm Melissa and we are the Sunshine Travelers. Our passion is travel and sharing our experiences with those who enjoy it as much as we do, or those who want to learn more about travel, or even those who just want to live vicariously through our travel stories. No matter where you fall along that journey, get ready to hear about our first-hand experiences as we visit some of the most interesting and amazing places on earth. This week we explore the lesser-known Caribbean nation of Curacao. It's often overlooked by a North American tourist. While many of you may be familiar with the blue liqueur that shares its name and is used in cocktails, few have had the opportunity to actually visit the place. Perhaps some of you have been on a cruise that stopped by, but never ventured out of the cruise port to truly experience the local people and culture. Today we will share our recent Caribbean adventure, including where we stayed, where we ate, and what we did. So pack your snorkeling gear and get ready to join us on a journey to Curacao.
Scott, or welcome in Papamintu, the primary language of Curacao. So Bonbini means welcome. Thank you.
let's start out with a bit of an overview of Curacao. Thank you. Well, let's start out with a bit of an overview of Curacao. It's an island in the Southern Caribbean Sea, about 45 miles north of the Venezuelan coast. So, I mean, it's almost South America. It's part of the Dutch Caribbean and is one of the ABC islands, along with Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao. Those make up the ABC. And it's a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. So a lot of the Dutch people come to Curaçao. And the capital city is Willemstad, which is known for its colorful Dutch colonial architecture. And we're going to talk about the floating bridge called the Queen Emma Bridge.
to Curacao was actually part of a bigger trip that started as planning a trip to Aruba for four nights. And when I realized where Curacao was and really just wanted to make the most of the flight, right? When you fly somewhere and that's usually the biggest chunk of what you're spending, how we could tack Curacao on to this trip. And so honestly, we didn't know that much about Curacao. I actually had only seen people post it on Instagram. This beautiful European looking buildings, but they colorful, like you see in the Caribbean. And so I said, hey, do you think we can figure out a way to do that? And we also thought, oh, well, maybe we can also do Bonaire and do the ABC. But the more that we started researching into Curacao, like we needed at least the other three and a half, four days, or it would just not give us enough time to really enjoy the island. So let's talk a little bit about how we plan the travel and why we actually flew to Curacao first. So we did go to Curacao first. Originally, when we had planned this trip, we had booked to go to Aruba. And then I thought, well, we could booked to go to Aruba. And then I thought, well, we could do our flight to Aruba. We'll go over to Curacao and then we'll go back to Aruba. But once I started digging in a little bit more, I realized that the flights to Curacao are actually cheaper. So that might be something that you want to look at and want to consider. So even if you want to go to Aruba like we did, you can take a little small plane to do that. But look into that because it was a good bit cheaper. Lots and lots of people go to Aruba. And so I think it's just natural that they charge more. So how did we get there? We actually flew Delta. We have our one stop through Atlanta from Jacksonville. But I also checked the handy flight tool that we've been mentioning called Flight Connections. And I found that you can also fly from several U.S. cities. So you can get direct flights to Curacao from places like Miami and Charlotte, JFK, Toronto, Montreal. Miami and and then Charlotte, of Amsterdam JFK, Toronto, and Brussels, Montreal, course,
because there were a lot of a lot of Dutch people there on the And then we saw, people, island. you know, signs that said, you know, flights, you know, to the Netherlands, you know, only this much and different things like that. But then there's also other destinations in the Caribbean, as well as to some places in South America. So quite a few places where you can fly direct. And then, like I mentioned, you can fly from there to Bonaire to Aruba as well.
So today we want to talk a little bit about why you as a listener, why you might want to go to Curacao, because if you're not familiar with it and you haven't done any research into it, you know, this is just a funny sounding name or something to you at this point, right? But I'm going to tell you, most people are familiar with Aruba. And when we did both, and when we compare the two of them, we really enjoyed Curacao more so than Aruba. Don't get me wrong. Aruba was nice, but when we compare the two of them together, we would choose Curacao over Aruba.
And it's funny that you say that because after we did all the planning and did all the research, I kind of had a feeling that that's how it was going to be just because a lot of the pictures that we had seen of the architecture and just different places. Aruba is definitely more Americanized, more resilient, more developed. And Curacao, not so much. And so that might not be everybody's style, right? And that might not be everybody's preference, right? And that might not be everybody's preference. It just ended up being ours. So hopefully we can convince you that in addition to going to Aruba, that you need to also visit Curacao.
So in my mind, the waters in Curacao were absolutely incredible. We talked a little bit about Willemstead and how they have that European charm to it. Everything there is just more authentic. And one of the examples that just stuck out to me was when we got to Aruba, the number of Wendy's and KFC's and stuff like that that we saw everywhere where you didn't see any of that in Curacao. And so it just felt more authentic. The snorkeling there was surprisingly among some of our favorites. And we're going to talk a little bit about it later. But some of the places that were our absolute favorites, you'd be like, really? That's where you went snorkeling? But we'll share more stories on that in just a little bit. And then also, I think we found that it was less expensive than Aruba. Aruba, you just didn't get a whole lot of bang for your buck there.
Yeah, and I would say, I mean, I wouldn't say that on Curacao that food was cheap. But then when we got to Aruba we wouldn't after, say that on Curacao that food was But then cheap. when we got to Aruba after we were like, oh, Aruba is much more expensive. But I will say it can be definitely less expensive to stay in Curacao. Maybe not necessarily in some of the bigger resorts, because there are some places like Marriott's and Sandals and things like that now on Carousel. But in some of the boutique hotels, which in this case, I'm glad that we did that. Right. It was just a much more authentic experience.
Yeah. The hotel that we stayed in and it's been in operation since like the 1700s or something like that.
Yeah. And I think it had actually been definitely restored at some point in time. Like it looked like they had some pictures where it was like completely wiped out just or or not renovated or something like that. I don't really know because we actually saw a lot of things that were just like, was it the upkeep thing? Did they actually get at some point hit by a storm? We'll talk about in a second. They're not really in the hurricane you know belt but did they have they had some storms that like affected that but yeah they had some pictures that was really cool but yeah you're right it they had things there dated back a long long way but going back to what you said about the water like i have never seen water that color like you you think about the water and the pictures that you see, and we've been to the Bahamas and just the Caribbean waters, but this was something unbelievable. Clear and just the colors was just amazing, aside from, you know, seeing the fish and the snorkeling as well. Well,
a little bit about the weather and when is a good time to visit Curacao. Melissa mentioned a while ago that Curacao is outside the hurricane belt, which means that when the hurricanes are going down there in the Caribbean, they're not directly impacted, right? They're south of where all those storms spin up and go through. But one thing that does happen is when those storms go, it affects the trade winds. And so, you know, when you're talking about a nation that's got a lot of sun, those winds are helpful to keep the temperatures in check, right? And make it not feel so hot and humid. Well, they said that what happens is often during hurricane season, those hurricanes will come and steal those trade winds away for a period of time. And they get really hot, really humid, really buggy during that time of year. October to December. Think about it is, or I guess actually August to December. That's a time where you're still going to have a nice visit. You're going to have nice weather there, maybe a little bit more rain than normal, but expect that it can be hotter there, more humid and more buggy. Yeah. And
a couple of people, so we actually had two people that told us this. One person on Aruba actually told us this, but one person on Curacao told us this and said really October, right? It was pretty much they were like, you might not want to visit in October just because if you had that experience, right? And if you had no wind, it was super hot and super buggy, I can imagine it wouldn't be, yeah, a lot lot of fun because sometimes we get those bugs here in Florida and you're just like, oh, this is a miserable experience.
So while we were there, it was pretty windy. It was
very windy.
More windy than normal. And it did seem to impact the roughness of the waters in certain areas. impact the roughness of the waters in certain We were sitting at dinner one night, areas. and I guess there was a sunset cruise that goes out or whatever. I don't know the reason why people would have been going anywhere at that time of night in the boat, but those waters were really rough. And I could just imagine that the people in that boat were not feeling very well. Yeah,
it was interesting. So we had eaten dinner at the fort, which is by the water. And we watched that boat kind of come in a little ways. And we kind of made the comment, oh, we wouldn't want to be on that boat. And then it went back out. And it was already after dark. And yeah, that would not have. And it wasn't a large boat either. So I said, oh, I hope those people don't have to go far because then where they were headed out to was like going to be even rougher. So we had been warned at least on our. And we talked when we talked to Tammy on the Aruba episode that we, you know, just did with her to get our research and stuff like that. She talked about how windy it was. And I did not realize that about Aruba. And so obviously Curacao is the same way. And so we definitely did experience, we did experience that for sure. So let's talk a second about the language real quick, because I didn't know or prep kind of ahead of time about what language they were speaking. So they actually have a local language that is the primary spoken language, which is called Papamintu. It's actually a Creole language that blends the elements of Portuguese and Spanish and Dutch and English, French and some African languages. And so we definitely heard that being spoken. Dutch is also an official language that is widely used. And then additionally, lots of people speak English and Spanish as well. And so we didn't have any trouble, you know, having any experience where we didn't have people to be able to speak English. I think one morning, we did stop at one place, at a local place, and get some breakfast. But one of the ladies didn't speak English, but the other person did. So it didn't end up being any issue. But it was just interesting. And I wanted to point that out because it's not a language that you would know about, like Dutch or Spanish or anything. But obviously, there was a lot of people, Dutch tourists, there as well. So you heard that being spoken.
As far as currency and the cost of things is across the island, the US dollar was widely accepted. You could pay in US dollar. You could also pay with credit cards. I felt like credit cards were taken at a lot of places there. So it wasn't that you needed to have a bunch of cash available and stuff like that for you. One of the things that I would say is we normally tell people that if you're using your travel credit card to charge into the local currency and then let the banks handle that because you get a better rate on that. But for some reason, their credit card machines would not work with our credit cards and the local currency. So they had to charge everything in the U.S. dollar.
Yeah, and didn't you mention one time, because we kind of like had looked at what the exchange rate was, and once it did the charge, you were like, yeah, that was not a good exchange rate.
Yeah. I feel like we got a really bad exchange rate often because of that. But, you know, even when I insisted, said, oh, no, just charge it with the local currency, they would try and the machine would, you know, croak out on them.
it wasn't like that they were just saying, oh, no, we can't do this. Like we actually tried it several times at several different places. So it just, you know, it is what it is. And so like, if you didn't want to have to worry about that, you definitely could, you know, use the local ATMs and, you know, get cash out as you needed, because we actually saw several or you could, you know, get them in the airport. We just, you know, it's just so much easier when you travel. And if you're able to use a credit card, just to, you know, not, not worry with the cash, especially because we were, you know, visiting beaches and stuff like that and didn't want to, you know, leave a lot of cash and, and, and bags and things like that. So, but we didn't have any trouble using credit cards. You do want to make sure, I think it was Visa. Like you don't want to have just an American Express, but like a Visa or MasterCard, they usually take that. And most places we went, you either took that or like you said, U.S. dollars. There was a couple of times when we paid cash for things and U.S. dollars was no problem.
And for transportation, we highly recommend that you rent a car. This allows you to get out and see the island more. You know, and this is how we got to a lot of our favorite snorkel spots. You could probably take a taxi to all of these. But sometimes you might be trying to explain something to the driver or, you know, have to tell them, oh, you got to go to this certain area. And if they're not familiar with these spots, I think that would be pretty difficult. I think
it would be pretty expensive, though. I'll be honest with you, because one of the days when I had gone to the front desk, and it may have been when we had to go get a towel or exchange our towels or something like that, there was a couple and they wanted to take a taxi to a particular beach, which I don't think was very far. And he asked him how much. And I think it was going to be close to 50 US dollars just to get there. And then he was going to have to get back. And so if you did that a lot, I will also say the airport is not close to anything. The airport is kind of by itself on the other side of the island. So, I mean, not super far from town, 15, what, 15, 20 minutes, I think from town, but I think that's how far that beach was going to be too. So I think it would be fairly expensive if you were going to rely on taxi. So if you really want to see a lot of stuff. Now, I will say if you're doing this, if you're listening to this and you're doing this from a cruise and you're just here to get some ideas about Curacao, that would probably be your best option unless you found somewhere that was quick and convenient to rent a car. That probably would be a good option for you. but if you're going to be there for several days curacao has a lot to explore and so we highly recommend that you rent the
and i would say that curacao is also for the most part not a lounge at the resort type of spot you know we talked about earlier they do now have a sandals resort there. They've got a Marriott resort, but even so I would say that Curacao is one of those places where you just go and investigate and explore the city. You don't just stay at the resort. So we think you're going to want a car. They do tell you also is never leave anything in the car. I think that's generally a good practice no matter where you go around the world. But in Curacao, they were sure to point that out. So we didn't have any problems. As a matter of fact, a lot of the places we went to, there was like a parking attendant. So there was someone who was in kind of monitoring the security of the cars as well.
Yeah. And that was interesting because even if you didn't have to pay to park there, there was somebody kind of watching. And so that was reassuring. But yeah, we're just making sure if we had anything that it was it was put away in the trunk.
we could just kind of break this episode up a little bit and talk about the beaches and give some information on the beaches. We'll talk about where to stay and then also some of the places to eat.
that sounds good because I do think that as much as we like to snorkel, we tried to take the time that we had and try to have several different experiences too so that we could kind of get an overview of what was available and different things that you can do in Curacao.
let's start out by saying that the beaches are definitely more rustic. And, you know, when I say that is don't expect the white sand wide beaches with the chairs and having food service and stuff like that. That's not the type of beaches that they have. We did find a couple of beaches that are sandy beaches, but often like our favorite place, which we'll talk about here in just a minute, the tugboat shipwreck, that little beach was like little small stones and seashells and stuff like
Yeah, it was interesting. It sort of reminded me of a mix between some beaches you might find in Hawaii, right, where you might have to park and then walk to the beach, and Greece, where there are like little stands and little things available. But again, you know, it could be sands, could be rocks, could be whatever. So it was just kind of an interesting mix between those two places. That's kind of what stuck out to me.
is the Caribbean and the waters are very clear. And if you enjoy snorkeling, you're going to want to bring your gear with you. I will say, though, that if you don't want to hassle with bringing everything with you, there are plenty of places, I think, where you can rent or buy gear. If you have yours and you like it, then I would say bring it with you. Some of the beaches you may have to pay to get in. And, you know, they may charge you for parking. They may charge you for entrance to the beach. It could be per car, could be per person. But either way, it's going to be small amounts. So that's a case where you might want to just have some small bills available for you to pay cash on hand. And then there are some of the beaches that are going to have like, you know, bars or little snack huts. And you'll want to be able to pay for food or drinks while you're at the beach as well.
or to rent a chair or an umbrella, just depending on how long you plan on spending there as well. That was available at some of the places.
were a lot of beaches. We didn't get a chance to visit all of them, but of the ones that we went to, here's what we would say. Our favorite out of the mix was the tugboat shipwreck. And we had gone there twice. We saw this just doing some research, you know, the top places to go. And I told Melissa, I said, we've got to go to this place. So the day that we got there, we went out to the tugboat shipwreck and literally, I'm going to tell you guys, you probably would have thought twice about, do I want to snorkel here? Right. Because the days that we were there, they had an oil rig that was in port and it looked like they were doing some refurbishment on it. But the beach was right behind the dock where this oil rig was docked while they were working on it. So it looked very industrial.
But it also had like a beach facility, like a beach bar and like bathrooms and places you could rent snorkel gear. And I think some of the dive tours went out from there and people painting. Like that was real common in Curacao, like painting these cute little signs and places where you could have chairs so it just it felt really strange at first because it was like oh here's kind of like a beach you know hangout place but yeah then they were refurbishing that that oil rig so it's like oh i'm not really sure about this, but yes, it ended up
But that first day we went and just when you get in the water, out, there's lots of fish and stuff like that. And we had swam out towards these abandoned piers that piers, were in the water, but we never saw the tugboat. It was great snorkeling. And so anyhow, we decided we would go back out there the next day and investigate that a little bit further. And quite honestly, guys, if we had to swim maybe another 50 feet, we would have been right on top of that tugboat.
Yeah, we actually went online. You went online and read like, where is this exactly? Because we didn't know if it was on around. It was getting you by the like, time we know, got there and I got to the hotel and had lunch and found this it was getting place, like a little bit later. And so we didn't know if it was like you swim on around. But yeah, we had missed it by maybe football fields length, maybe not even that far. Half a football fields length. I mean, it was literally right there. But also later in the afternoon, there weren't a lot of people out there swimming. But you say there's a lot of fish in the water, literally right off, you weren't even into the water up to your waist and you put your mask in and it was tons of fish. That was how crazy the snorkeling was and so you just the juxtaposition between you've got this oil rig they're working on and then this kind of snorkeling it was just unbelievable yeah that
amazing so yeah so
we did the research and you swim out so describe that just so so there's
a pier. I think it's Pier No. 5 that's out in the water. You swim out just past that. And in about 50 feet deep of just clear water, there's an old tugboat that is submerged. And so you don't need to be a diver. If you're snorkeling, you get great views of it. if you know if you're snorkeling you get great views of it and there will be some people diving down below you getting close to closer to the shipwreck but you know you're going to have some fantastic views from up above just snorkeling and so if you
pier. I think
the morning though you will see people and you'll even see like i think they take snorkel trips to that. So you'll see people in a boat or they'll have swum out from shore. So like you'll see people doing that. But that is incredible. And it's so close to you. So I don't know where you'd have the opportunity to swim out. That's a short distance, right? And actually see that because we've tried to do a couple of other ones and it's nothing like this where you literally can just be out there and it's underneath you and you can enjoy it without worrying about the roughness of the waves.
that because
And there were two other beaches that we really enjoyed. The first one I'm going to talk about is in the north part of the island. It's called Grote Knipp, and we went there later in the day. We'd gone to the national park first and went over to this beach. Well, this is one of those that probably during busy times of the year does charge some type of parking or admission, or maybe even in the morning they charged it. We just came later in the day and they weren't. But this is a place where the locals really like to go. It's a very popular beach. They do have chairs set out, and I imagine you could probably rent those. They do have the little snack stands. Funny story on that is when we got there, we thought, oh, Funny story on that is when we got we stands. let's get you water. there, thought, oh, some, know,
Let's get some cold waters. We drank all our water from in the national park. So, I mean, we pretty much had, yeah, drank all that up and we
more. And so, we just said, oh, let's go to the snack stand. Well, we go up to the snack stand and we ask for water and they're we like, don't have And any. then we were going to maybe snack stand and we ask for water and they're like we don't have any and then we were gonna maybe get a soda or something like that and they're like oh we don't have any so all they had in the snack stand was beer the only thing cold was beer and that was a really good beer i'm gonna tell you i was very thirsty and that beer was very cold yeah
she also did say that she had some sprite that was hot but we wanted something cold to drink so that was our
it was very very refreshing um the second beach that we thought was kokomo now this is a this is a private beach and it's like a beach club and i don't know if this i didn't do any And I don't know if this, I didn't do any research. I don't know if the song, the Beach Boys song about Kokomo has anything to do with this place or not, or if they're just, you know, borrowing the name that's very familiar. But it was a great beach, probably more so for swimming than anything else.
Yeah, I had a small place where you could snorkel. And it was very shallow there, but not a ton. But it also did have, they had like one of the beach swings out over the water, which is super popular for people to take pictures. Large parking area and lots more beach chairs and umbrellas as well. But I think the biggest difference on this one is they had a big restaurant, an open air restaurant, but that was compared to just going up to a snack stand. Like it was, you know, restaurant and, you know, drinks and all that stuff. But then also it had so many chickens and iguanas and all kinds of stuff. And they had showers and stuff there too. iguanas and all kinds of stuff. And they had showers and stuff there too. So this would be a place where you could, I mean, maybe feel more like a beach club than any of the other ones we visited. I think there are some other ones that are like this on Curacao, but of the ones we visited, we enjoyed it. It was very nice.
we were there, we met a couple from Florida. They had noticed my hat that I was wearing and they were like, oh my gosh, that's a bald head hat. And honestly, I didn't know what it was. Our son-in-law and daughter had given it to me for my birthday or Christmas or something. And I didn't know the backstory behind the hat. It was just really cool. It had a golf cart with the surfboard on the top. And so I took it off and I looked and sure enough, it said Bald Head Blues on the inside of the hat. And so we started talking to them. They had been hiking in the area and had hiked down to this beach club. And so, you know, there's a lot of hiking in the area as well that you can do. And I think we'll talk a little bit about that in just a minute. But the final beach that we wanted to talk about was Playa Piscata. And this came as a recommendation from the guy in the Visit Curacao tourist office. And he said, oh, you should go there. That's where they'll have the sea turtles. You know, it's on the north part of the island. So we drove back up there. It had been described as a sea turtle rescue place. And if that was a rescue, then we're in trouble, right? Because I didn't see anything that they were doing to rescue sea turtles there. Yeah,
I mean, anytime you say sea turtles like i like i just love swimming with them but i felt like this was a very like touristy thing to do and for us not really in a good way you had a big long like pier yeah wooden pier and i don't know they were like
pier and
on something and i'm pretty sure they were like feeding the sea turtles and stuff like that. So, I mean, I get it if they have, are there sea turtles that have been, you know, injured and they can't like swim out and stuff like that, but there wasn't anything preventing them from like, you know, swimming out. So I don't really know. I don't really know the story. We actually didn't end up swimming over there to where all that commotion was. Cause that's just not, you know, not really our thing. We did go out a little further and we did see a couple of them you know swimming and we did instead end up swimming along the rocks to the right side which it had some really great snorkeling the one thing about there is it was windy that day and so it did have some pretty strong currents. And so it was a little bit of a trek to swim back. So I do think that we decided after that we only took trip, snorkel no fins. mask, We really should
well.
I think so. So, and speaking of snorkeling, I just want to go back a second to the other beach you talked about,
Grote Knip Beach. On that one, we also, we swam to the left side. had like the rope for you could supposed to stay inside that to swim. Once we swam past that and stayed to the left of those rocks, that's where the snorkeling was incredible. Now there weren't any, you know, like lifeguards or anybody saying, oh, you can't, you know, swim or go over there. So if you are a strong swimmer, if you're swimming with somebody, I highly recommend that you do that. Just kind of keep an eye out and don't go further than what you feel like you could swim back. Again, fins would be definitely helpful, but that is where the incredible snorkeling was. Yeah, and
was quite a few people out there, so we weren't out there alone. I think a lot of the snorkelers do go out past, you know, that line. But pay attention because there was also some people on jet skis and they were zooming in that area. And so I don't think they were paying any attention whatsoever.
Yeah. So I would say definitely stay closer, you know, closer to the rocks. But I think as far as on Curacao, that was probably my favorite snorkel spot. Besides, you know, outside of the tugboatboat shipwreck like snorkeling along that i think was the most amazing yeah
and so we've been talking about snorkeling but if you're a diver curacao is a great place to go and it would be a very expensive inexpensive place to do that there were a lot of small shacks you know near the beaches where you can pick up tanks and any of the gear that you need to really just go straight off the beach and snorkel out. So you wouldn't have to hire a boat to take you out and stuff like that. You can snorkel just straight off the beach or dive straight off the beach. And especially that tugboat area would be a really good place to do that. Now, this isn't your super experienced diver who's going to go down, you know, 100 meters or whatever, you know, fairly shallow areas. But I had told Melissa, I said, oh, I would learn to dive just to be able to go a little bit closer to that shipwreck.
And to be able to stay under longer bit closer to that shipwreck. And to be able to stay under longer. And you made that other comment. We did see a guy diving on the one that the other one where I talked about where the turtles was. And because he was down further, he was able to not have to fight that current so strong as well. But we did see, you were talking about, you know, just diving yourself, but we did see people diving in groups. So I think you can do a lot of dive tours that we actually saw and had read about several hotels that are specifically geared toward divers as well. And we had lunch one day at one of those that was close to where we were staying. So lots of opportunity for divers on Curacao as well.
let's see if we can knock through the last remaining places of what to do. We talked a lot about the beaches, and you guys know that that's important to us, and we spend a lot of time at those when we're traveling. But in addition to the beaches, we mentioned the national park. It's called Chez Taboca. And if you have time, this is really worth the visit. The beaches here aren't swimmable, so you're not going to go to them and go out and swim. Matter of fact, the waters crash into the rocks pretty violently here, which allows for and creates like these magnificent blowholes and, you know, fantastic scenery of the waves crashing on the rocks and the mist coming up out of the water and stuff like that. So that is a really good place. There was also a natural bridge there at one of the little stops inside the park. I'm trying to think what the third place was.
The cave. So there was a cave that I got the impression that depending on the tide, right, they would have to close it. So if it was high tide, you couldn't go down. But the tide was out. So we actually could go down in the cave and then the water would kind of crash up into it. So that was kind of neat. And then just some other places that were probably used to be blowholes and it's created like a little beach, some places you could walk. Now you can drive, there's different little sites that you can go see and you can drive between them, but you could also hike. Like if you wanted to have a longer day of it and hike between them, you can do that. So there was an interest fee that was a little bit more for this, but they actually took credit cards as well. So definitely worth just going to see a different, you know, side of the island and to see something different.
know, as far as hiking, the people that we talked to were there, they were more interested in doing hiking and stuff like that. We do understand that there's a longer summit hike at Christoffel National Park, which is just down from Chez Taboca. So, you know, if you want to go hiking, there's a couple of small mountains and summits that you can do that. The one thing that we did read, though, is if you want to do this hike, you have to start early in the morning because you have to be out of the park by 2 p.m.
because I think it would just get so hot to do this later. So I did read that that park closes early. So if you're interested in that, we've seen some pictures and great viewpoint. So if you're, you know, a hiker, that might be something that you want
So in the city areas, I would say don't miss the street murals. You walk know, around the city of Willemstad there. See the street murals. Maybe get an ice cream and walk around and check that out. You
So let me say, so you can, if you actually look like on Google maps, it'll have like some of the things marked to like little street mural things, but you could also find there's several like blog posts and things like that. People have done to kind of say, you know, here's different ones that you can look for, but, but you're right. Like, I don't know that you could even, even see them all. Like they were everywhere and really beautiful.
also going to want to find the Curacao sign at night. And that is in the Peter My historic area or just outside the historic area near the Queen Emma Bridge. I highly recommend that you walk across this at night as it's lit up with these colorful LED arches. is it's lit up with these colorful LED arches. It's this floating pontoon-style bridge that they open up when bigger ships need to come through. And so it's kind of on a pivot and opens up and the ships can go through there.
And if it's going to be open for a long period of time, they actually have a little ferry that will run across. I read a sign there that said if it's going to be open for, I think it was like 15 minutes or more, they would run a ferry back and forth. But otherwise, they expect you just to kind of wait and walk back across that. So I would recommend that you definitely try to see the city both in the day and then again at night so that you can see just the beautiful, colorful buildings. And then also to come back and see them lit up for sure.
And then we did the Curacao distillery tour while we were there. So many of you have probably heard of the liqueur by the name of Blue Curacao. Come to find out that Blue Curacao is just a color. The Curacao liqueur is one flavor, no matter what color it is. It comes in red, it comes in orange, green, blue. It all
It just has a different color. Yeah. And so this particular one, how do you say that, Scott? Topo Lobo? Topo Lobo? Do you
Do you
But it
So lots of people now make like Luco Roussel, but this is like the original one. And so the way that you know is by like the shape of the bottle and stuff like that. So that was just interesting to like hear what the history of that is. And then we also paired it with a little bit more in depth of a experience, which was a cocktail class. So you had the opportunity to kind of work with somebody and you did some cocktails, you know, some of them use the use the curacao liqueur and some of them, you know, you could kind of make whatever you want. But we also just enjoyed, we met some people during the tour who were there on a cruise, but they really loved to travel and gave us some really good information. So we just enjoyed kind of sitting there and getting to know people too. So, but if you just did the tour, it wouldn't take you very long. You'd get some samples of the, of the different things. Now, we do have a recommendation for this. It seemed to have been very crowded right before that because there was a cruise ship or maybe multiple cruise ships in port that day. So if you go early on, I think you tend to get a lot of people there and they were starting to leave. But you can also, if you don't want to do like a little tour either, they just had like a bar set up too, that you could just kind of see their shop and see their location and just get drinks too. So I think one way or the other, we would recommend that you just visit.
so we saved one of our favorite things for last. And matter of I don't even know that we realized that this was going to be kind of one of our favorite fact, which was the flamingos. parts, We were looking forward to those and we had heard that they were on Aruba and then also in Bonaire. But I don't think we had read a whole
so I just happened upon that there are a couple of places where you can spot them if they're right? Yeah, there, So because they are in the it is no guarantee. wild, They have some areas that are what they call salt flats. And so we thought, well, we might as well, you just try to see if we could see them. know, So we just happened to go closer to sunset. Sure enough, I think I actually gasped when I actually saw them. Oh, I can't remember now. Was it 16 of them? 16 or more of them all together, just standing out there, you know, in the wild. Now, we have had the opportunity to see them in the wild before when we were in the Galapagos, which we got to see a good many of them, which was a surprise to everybody there as well. But it's just neat just to kind of just see them, you know, there and just hanging out and doing their thing. And there were several people, you know, going and kind of walk into where they were. So the way to find these, if you just look in Google Maps, Flamingo Habitat, and just kind of look around on Google Maps, there's also, well, I'm sorry, let me go back up. The one there where we saw them and we're able to walk out to where they are is called the salt lake willa broadus it's near a place called willywood or there's a there's a sign that says willywood and that's where we saw the most but there's another one that says just flamingo habitat and so yeah so that was just a really neat experience and we probably stood there what would you say 15 20 minutes and just kind of watched them. And it was just really peaceful. And yeah, we did it sunset. It was just kind of really peaceful. And matter
was just really peaceful. And
of fact, that's a great place to catch the sunset. It was really cool to watch that. But the other thing about that was it was just down from the Willie wood sign. Yeah. Now you may have been to Hollywood before, but the question I have for everybody is, have you been to Williwood?
We have.
So, think of the Hollywood sign out on the side of the hills there. They had a sign called Williwood. And matter of fact, that leads us to our next discussion is what to eat. And right there at Williwood, there was a great restaurant called Marfa's Good Time Hangout. Now, let's preface
by saying we had not read about this place. We hadn't heard about this place. When we were, we came down the road, we actually saw that Willeywood sign. And we're like, oh, let's just stop and take a picture. We just happened to notice they had some outdoor seating. There were quite a number of people. And it's interesting because it's like kind of on the intersection of two kind of busy highways. There was kind of a lot of people out there. And so we took our pictures of the Williwood sign. We went and saw the flamingos. And I just said, you know, I'm getting pretty hungry. We were kind of it's kind of far from town. And then thinking about, okay, if we do that, then we've got to get dressed and all that kind of stuff. And I think we can just kind of go in our, coming from the beach there. And funny enough, we went up to this place, which just looked like it was middle of nowhere, a hole in the wall. And they were like, well, do you have reservations? We're we like, don't no, have reservations. But thankfully they were like well do you have reservations we're like no we don't have reservations we but thankfully they were able to work us in and it was their barbecue night now funny the funniest thing about this was that they were actually barbecuing across the street like across the road on on grills there were guys out there with the grills like barbecuing this.
was on a skewer. So these big metal skewers and cooking out there. But we would recommend to you Marfa's Good Hangout at Williwood. And you can
get your shirt that says Williwood. And our son's name is William. So he now has a Williwood
But then in Willemstead, there's lots of great places to eat. We're not going to talk about all of them. People had recommended the Governor, and this one is very popular. I will say the guy at the distillery said that it was overrated in his opinion, and he gave some of the people that were there some other recommendations, which I believe Melissa has, but the governor is probably the most popular and it's a very upscale. Our favorite was a place called Ceviche 91 and that's at Riff Fort. And I
if you know us, if you've heard us talk about this, ask for recommendations. Like just ask people at the hotel ask just people you come in contact with we actually heard people asking at the distillery so i just i didn't have the guy reinvent the wheel i just said oh can i take it he wrote him down for him so i just took a picture of that but this we actually had two people recommend this place two different people recommend this place to us and so after we heard it the second time, we were like, oh, let's see if we can get
real quick. Yeah. So it's a Peruvian ceviche mixed with sushi fusion restaurant. Yeah.
it's at the top level of that fort. So you have a really good view of the water and the town. So yeah, I think that ended up probably being both of our favorites. Yeah, I would
recommend that you get a reservation for the in the Peter My District, the historic district. We had lunch at a place called Restaurant Deheron. And, you know, this is at the I think the name of the hotel was At Sea.
it was at the Scuba Lodge Ocean Suites. I think the reason it's called the Heron at Sea is because they actually have another restaurant.
Gotcha.
And then this is their one at sea. But it was a good one for, I think. We sat out
We sat out at lunch. Yeah,
Yeah, to see the water.
Yeah, great. I mean, the food was good. The service was excellent. You know, that was a great place to sit and have lunch. I imagine they have a good dinner as well. But then for breakfast, we would recommend that you go to Van Gogh's Specialty Coffee and City Roastery. We went there a couple of times for breakfast. Matter of fact, the boutique hotel that we stayed at, if you had gotten their breakfast package, that's where it was. You went to this Van Gogh for breakfast.
If you book that hotel, which was the Peter My Boutique Hotel, get the breakfast package. Because I think in the end, it would have been a better value for us if we had done that. But we really enjoyed it. It's not one of those places where you're like, oh, I mean, at the hotel, you did walk down the street, but it was really good. Fresh food, fresh juices, great coffee. But the
great coffee. But the point was, you don't have to stay at the Peter My Boutique Hotel to go here. Absolutely not. This is a great place to go for breakfast and to get a great cup of coffee.
My Boutique Hotel to go here. Absolutely not. This is a
So there are a few other ones, both that we went to and that were recommended to us. And so we're just going to put those in the show notes so that you will have them.
let's talk a little bit about where to stay. We stayed in the historic district, and I would say it's mostly boutique hotels. We really are intrigued by that Scuba Lodge. Like we said, if we went back, I think we would stay at the Scuba Lodge because it's right on the water where we were across the street, and we didn't even know that we were near the water. So I think we would choose the Scuba Lodge if we went back. But we really enjoyed that Peter My Boutique Hotel. It's, I don't know, they probably had somewhere in the neighborhood of around 20, 30 rooms. Yeah,
it was actually way bigger than I would have thought. And it was very cute and well done. Had a great, we were
was actually way
courtyard with a pool, but I think they actually had another pool too. Our room was massive and it was almost, and we had a big, almost like living area space. And then we had a, like a kitchenette type thing too, if we had wanted to, you know, with the refrigerator, if we wanted to prepare any food, we definitely could have.
Yeah. And we booked this through booking.com. So, you know, this is one of the places that we had found. Melissa had done some research and had seen that there was a recommendation, I think, of the Scuba Lodge, the Peter My Boutique Hotel, and maybe one other one. And because we were only looking at, you know, like reviews and stuff like that, I honestly feel that someone missed out the review that the scuba lodge was right on the water. That might have changed my opinion of those, but we have no regrets staying at the Peter My Boutique Hotel.
Yeah. No, I think the scuba lodge was a little bit more, but i think of being on the water like that you know if you if you want that it would be definitely worth spending a little bit more
are marriott's there so the renaissance wind creek if i had to choose between the boutique hotels and the marriott i'm definitely going on the boutique hotel side yeah
Yeah. And I want to say something about that Renaissance Wind Creek is that it is close to where the, the cruise port is. The fort is close to where the cruise port is. And then you actually walk by that Renaissance Wind Creek. I did that one afternoon. And so that would be, that would be the only thing I, I think just staying in the boutique hotel here, just because we weren't looking for a resort type experience. It didn't feel like Curacao
feel like Curacao to me. That area didn't feel like Curacao. Yeah. To me, that area felt more like Aruba.
didn't feel like
Gotcha. Yeah, for sure. There was also another Curacao Marriott Beach Resort about 10 minute drive north of there. But again, so if you're looking for a beach resort type place with the pools and with more of a manicured beach, that one wouldn't be as close to town. You would definitely have to drive to town, but it would be close to another beach. So it really just depends on what you are looking for. There's also a newly opened Sandals Resort on the island. So of course, if you are going to go to a Sandals Resort to get your money's worth, you're going to be spending most or all your time at the resort, right? And enjoying those amenities and the food and that kind of thing. But I would say the weather is fantastic. And if you get the views of the water and that's what you're after, I think it would be a great place to go. So just to clear
go. So just to clear waters, clear, warm water. So like Melissa said, you just have to weigh the pros cons of a, of a sandals. But if that's what you enjoy, this would be a nice sandals to go to.
for sure.
also stumbled on the Cura Botanica Hotel when we were out walking around looking at the murals. And this is in walking distance of downtown. It's a cute little area with other shops and restaurants called Cura Holanda Village. And we had actually stopped in there to have some gelato. And that was one of the places where the girl there had recommended that Ceviche 91 to us. When we walked around that area, we said, oh, wow, this is really cool. And if we were to come back, this is one of the places that we would look at potentially staying. Yeah,
they had a lot of restaurants. It was just a really cute area. There were a lot of murals up that way and definitely within walking distance to town, but it also felt more like Curacao and not being, you know, at a resort.
So Melissa, one of the questions that I think I would have for you is, would you go back to Curacao?
definitely go back to Curacao. There are so many beaches that we didn't have time to explore. But then I also just think like if you're like us and you enjoy snorkeling and that's a big part of what you want to do, I mean, that's going to be that's going to be different, you know, every time. So I would definitely go back. There were lots of restaurants that we, you know, saw or whatever that we said, oh, it'd be neat to go go back there and even just on our short time there's a couple places like i would go back to that ceviche 91 i would go back to willywood and you know see which you know at that marf as we talked about the i had a barbecue night i think they had a steak night they had these all these different things that that's what they did on the grill that would be just a fun place to to go back to we also saw one of those container ship type food truck park type things. I think it's a smaller one there. Shipping container. Yeah, shipping container. And so called the Barrio Urban Street Food. So we just saw several places that I think that we would like to go back and explore, but especially seeing more of the beaches. Because like we mentioned three or four, but there were probably 10 or 12 that we didn't have a chance to go visit.
there. Shipping container.
time do you think somebody needs to visit Curacao?
So I would say like five to seven days. I would definitely stay a whole week. So we didn't do a ton of relaxing. I mean, snorkeling is, I think, relaxing for us, but we didn't do like lounging on the beach. We didn't spend time at the pool. We had those other activities like walking around and taking pictures and doing the street murals and, you know, doing the cocktail class and that distillery tour. So we, you know, the short time that we were there, we we packed a lot in. So I would say definitely, you know, five to seven days. I think for us, we could probably spend a would whole say week definitely, there. you know,
days. I think for we us, could probably spend a whole week there. Well, looking at where we are in the time on this podcast, you would speak, you would think that we spent a week there. Let's wrap it up because this is a destination location and we've done quite a few interviews recently where we've had other people do this, but let's go back to our normal, which is where I would ask you, what do we need to pack for Curacao?
me start by saying the things that we forgot that we wish that we would have packed. And one of them was a lightweight beach towel or a couple of those. We did a really good job of that when we did the Caribbean cruise. We just didn't want to hassle every day with like taking out the cruise ships towels because they're, you know, bigger and heavier. And we had to pack some like camping towels. And so the whole our hotel had provided those for the day, you know, the days that we were staying overnight. But the last day we had a good bit of time before we took that flight out. And so we ended up having to buy one of their towels. So I wish that we had taken that. So bring some kind of lightweight towels, whether they be like the little Turkish towels or yeah, those camping towels.
be like the little Turkish
had wished that we had taken some water shoes. We ended up having to buy some in Aruba for the tour that we did, but there were a couple of times here where we had to step over the rocks. And water shoes, I mean, I guess it would have been prevented if we had also had our fins. So I guess that's three things. I wish we had also, you know, had our fins. Having said that, we did pack too many clothes. We didn't need as much as we had packed. But you are going to want to do some tennis shoes. So we definitely needed tennis shoes at the National Park. And if you want to do any kind of hiking, sandals for going, you know, going to dinner and stuff like that. And so bathing suits, rash guard, definitely if you're doing any snorkeling, because I still even got burned on my back just a little bit, but that prevented me from having a lot of sunburn. So then having said that, you know, sunscreen and aloe, you can get that, you know, when you get there. So snorkel mask for sure, a cover up, and then also clothes that you can, because you are at beaches where you may not necessarily be able to change clothes. So clothes that you could put on over to some kind of cover up or, you know, you know, sundress or shorts and a, you know, T-shirt or something like that that you can put over bathing suits as well. We definitely needed some kind of athletic shorts for hiking at that national park, even for the. I don't think we went to any place where you really had to dress up, but something like a sundress or, you know, like a polo for you and some. Did you have any pants or just really just shorts? Yeah, I had taking pants. Like a pair of pants. It did get cooler once the sun went down and it was pretty windy. So I would say also a light jacket, light
shorts? Yeah, I had taking pants.
or a light jacket. I think I took a denim jacket that I could put on over, you know, a sundress just to still be pretty casual. And the other thing too, that we did take this. And so you definitely want to have some kind of bag that you can then take to the beach. So whether that is a carry-on that you pack in that you can then take to the beach and you don't care if it gets sandy or something that you fold up in your luggage. That I think is huge when you travel to a beach destination where you're going to go from beach to beach. Also, we had been recommended to take some bug spray. And so we actually went and got the kind that like the wipes, just we wouldn't have to worry it's spilling on luggage and stuff like that. The wipes that you open up for bug spray, but we really didn't have any problem with bugs, but I would take it just to be on the safe side. You never know, depending on when you're there.
definitely wish we had had more time in Curacao because there was so much to do, but just not enough time to do everything. What's your favorite story from visiting Curacao? Send me an email, scott at sunshinetravelers.com, because we are always inspired by your travel stories.
Scott, as you mentioned, we had booked our hotel on booking.com. So when you are looking at booking your reservations for this trip, we highly recommend using booking.com because you can choose from over a million properties worldwide, from cozy country homes to sleek city apartments. Find your best deals with their price match promise. Because you can enjoy great stays at lower cost. And because flexibility matters, you can book with confidence knowing you can cancel with ease. Also, you can make informed choices with millions of reviews from fellow travelers. Start your adventure now. Visit sunshinetravelers.com slash booking to book your perfect stay. Using this affiliate link to book your travel helps support our podcast and allows us to continue to provide new content each week. Please consider using this link when booking your next travel. There is no extra cost to you, and we are compensated through the affiliate.
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