January 10 - Saturday, Travel Day
With a 6:00 AM flight, the dive shop told us we had to be at the airport by 3:30 AM. We stayed in St. Paul with Katie on Friday night, which was a treat; not only did we get to see her and Jack, but we got to keep the car in the garage and out of the snow. We left our coats and boots in the car at Park 'N Go, though trekking across the icy lot in thin sneakers was scary!
Check-in had to be done in person at the counter since we were with the dive group. Here we met Jim and Diane Boonstra from the group. We made it to the gate by 4:30 AM, grabbed coffee and a scone. After a quick de-icing session, we were in the air and on our way almost exactly on time.
Jim and I were not assigned seats together. I sat next to Kate, another member of our group who is traveling alone and doing her open water certification through AquaVentures. I thought we lucky and have an open seat in our row, but there was a family that looked Ecuadorian traveling with a small child so the flight attendant asked the young man on the isle of their row to move to our row. So I had to scootch into the center and he sat next to me on the other side. He was a very quiet and he too was in the dive group along with his father who sat a few rows back. Prior to take off the Ecuadorian grandmother recited lengthy prayers in Spanish out loud. I applaud her for not caring what anyone thought of her, but it was that was a little distracting to say the least.
Our Miami connecting flight was easy since the gates were adjacent, giving us just enough time for a quick bite before the final three-hour flight to Curaçao. When we arrived, we were delayed on the tarmac for 15 minutes due to a gate change and a lack of bridge operators, but our pre-filed express passes got us through immigration very quickly.
Every member of our group needed to check in with the bus ride operator to get our ride to the resort. There are 25 of us so it took a little while to wrangle everyone. Driving along, the buildings and store fronts looked a lot like other Caribbean islands, colorful! One thing I had not seen before was a huge bridge that spanned an inlet. It arched way over the body of water I assume it is so large vessels can navigate through. It is called the Queen Juliana Bridge.
Arrived at Sunscape resort and everyone had to check in at the same time so it was a little time consuming but we were one of the first so that was good. We are on the 4th floor of building 2. We have a lovely view of the Atlantic Ocean facing south, looking directly toward Venezuela.
We have multiple options for dinner and we chose the Oceana Restaurant. We were waiting at the bar to get our table when a younger man came up to us and said, we have room at our table if you want to join us. We turned and saw Jim and Diane from our group waving at us. This was their son Nick who flew in separately. So we joined them. Nick is in the Air Force and flies tanker planes that refuels other plane while they are in the sky.
We had a lovely dinner getting to know them all. I had the salmon, which was very beautifully prepared. Jim had Mahi Mahi. On our way back to our room, we learned the resort has nightly entertainment and tonights was a carnival celebration!
We had very little sleep the night before since we were up at 2:30 am so we called it a night early and went bed around 9 pm.