Palm Beach, Aruba

As with Bonaire, we had no excursions booked in Aruba. After a brief wander around the town, a took a bus up the west coast of the island to Palm Beach, which Ben aptly nicknamed 'Little America'. Most of the other ship's passengers doing the same as is for off earlier at Eagle Beach, a typical Caribbean postcard beach, but with few facilities or shade. By contrast, Palm Beach was fronted by the Holiday Inn and Marriott, with acres of sand, sunloungers and hotel pools, as well as Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin Robins on the adjacent high street.

We had hoped to book onto a snorkelling boat trip but sadly they had all sold out for that day, so we went for a swim in the sea instead. The clientele was distinctly American and the frantic pace and volume of services of offer contrasted hugely to the islands we visited in the first week. Certainly, the ABC's (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao) of the Caribbean have quite a different character to the other islands, partly from their history and partly from the volume of tourist dollars that clearly flood into these islands from the USA.

Getting the bus back to Oranjestad, we actually hopped on the bus going further north first, a cheap way to see as far north as Malmok Beach, before it turned and headed back down the same route.Read more