Overnight the Coral Princess continued on a south easterly heading and early this morning as we made our final approaches towards Aruba, the local pilot will assist in navigating the ship the remaining 2 nautical miles towards our berth in the capitol city of Oranjestad.

Being starboard side we wake to the view of the small tree on the little island, which is part of the reef of the channel where the Coral Princess is berth at the harbour. Noticed the Tradewinds was also berthed in the harbour, don’t know if it is permanently berthed there but it has always been there every time we have come to Aruba.

Breakfast was lovely today nice and peacefully, a bulk of the passengers have gone ashore on tours or exploring by themselves. Coral Princess is only here for six and a half hours (7am to 12pm) with all passengers back on board by 12 noon to set sail.

For a bit of exercise we went ashore for a brisk walk along the main Duty Free shopping street, the Marina and continued past the Wilhelmina Park?? over the little canal on the walkway near the shoreline then back again. Browsed through the shops in the corner pink impressive Dutch colonial architecture building only to remember we left our wallets in our Balcony suite safe good excuse not to spend any money.

Back at the Cruise Terminal we joined the long queue to the gangway to pass through security on-board, it’s quite humid (round 28⁰C and overcast) so was glad for the ship steward handing out cups of cold water and face washers.

The selection and variety of food for lunch was non-existent only Chinese veges and had a few fillets of leftover rockfish cooked for me, Richard chose raw veges with a nasty piece of pizza. The rest of the day was spent at the tranquil Lotus Pool, in and out of the spa and pool. Listened to an interesting port talk on “Panama the land divided the world united” with host Bill Fall who grown up in Panama and will be sailing the Panama Canal on Friday 17^th April in two days’ time. Will need to be up early to claim a position at the front of the ship for viewing the locks and taking photos.

Met some more Australians (some 250 on board) while having dinner in the Bordeaux Dining Room, strolled around the Duty Free shops before heading up to Deck 14 Horizon Court for a Peppermint tea and bowl of diced fruit. Explorers Lounge too cold plus no interesting music to listen to and tomorrow is an early start as we dock at Cartagena, Columbia only there from 7am to 2.30pm.